For decades salesman have sold hot tubs claiming that they cost £1 a day to run. In 2020 this cost estimate is hugely inaccurate, so we look into the true cost of running a hot tub. UK video. Music by Epidemic Sound - www.epidemicso...
You may already have a suitable base or patio but a concrete pad or adequate base can also add cost. My owners manual made a point that anything other than a solid concrete base might void shell warranty.
I know, it's a sham. Most people wouldn't buy one if they knew how much they truly cost to run, so they have to lie in order to get sales in. I know people with inflatable hot tubs that cost even more to run.
WOoOT! 6000kW/year!?? Thats Crazy high! I live in Finland. We have snow on the groud for 6 months, -30c at winter we have some times. Sub-zero from oct/sep to april. I put in a seperate meter for the tubs power. It used 2800kW at first year of use. I pay 0.14€ /kW with tax and transfer fees, all summed up. That is just under 400€ for power all year. My tub is 2m x 2m, 5 seater (=good for three at a time, 2 lounge, 1 captain seat and 2 are basicly cool-off seats just like your "midle seats"). Its a Chinese build, Jazzi Spa, SKT329B (bought from Swedish Trademax, branded as Pluto hottub). Still for a cheap chinese bucket, its basicly just as any you'd see on youtube. A good entry-level tub. But, for your defence. I re-insulated my tub for the winter with rock wool and it sits on a 7cm (= 3") foam-pad/sheets. Wool costed 35€ (took just one pack of 5cm wool sheats) and the foam-sheets were about 50€ for all. Cover is 10-12cm. My delivery was with a lorry/truck, and from a lorry with a pallet jack. Just put some sheet boards on the lawn and pulled the thing from the lorry to its place. Came up on a pallet tipped at its side, so asked 3 friends and we tipped the thing on top of the foam sheets. Wasn't even that heavy. 2 Strong men would have been enough (good thing we had 4 geezers, for we geeks be feebels as fuck) Electrician made the connections and some light installation as well, for about 800€ (including the "sub-meter" and all the other shits and giggles). Oh' and the tub itself cost about 3200€ from an online discount. But one thing for sure, love the thing! :) Great video Sir, thanks for sharing. Thumbs up - bd
Hi. I'm in Australia. ❤😃🖐🇦🇺 I've been wanting a hot tub spa for years & finally this weekend I'm picking up my new second hand hot tub that I've viewed as working, heating & jets running. The motor is nice & quiet. So it should be good. I intend to use this all year hot or cold. Thanks for your great video. The only thing I found hard to equate was the money difference UK to Aus$.
I live in Iceland and have a hot tub of 1250 liters. It is powered with a heat pump and the average consumption is 2,2 kWh/day. The cost by using UK unit cost is 25 p pr. day. If you convert 2,2 kWh/day to direct heating you will get 4,5 x 2,2 = 10 kWh/day (the nature of a heat pump is it uses 20 % of direct heating) or 10 x 365 = 3650 kWh/year. Hot tubs use more electricity in colder weather and in Iceland we hav 5 C yearly average, compared to yours 8 - 10. Annual consumption of 6.000 kWh/year looks then a lot. The reason might be poor insulation.
Excellent video. Just wanted to add some of my thoughts. Crane delivery, depending on size of tubs and so the size of the crane required. you'd be lucky now to find someone that can crane over for less than £500, if they are any cheaper question the correct crane and more importantly insurance. Running costs, we have a five seater, 1500L, with a 3KW heater and 2 3hp motors, heating isn't too bad, but you run the pumps from 5pm until midnight and your way over the £1-£2 pound mark, is the motors that costs most of the money. With the hot tub sat at at 36c in the summer, with the usual filtration program running it costs an extra £2 on the Saturday to run the jets for 5 hours on the Saturday. The average total electric bill for a Saturday, and that's for everything we use, is between £3.50 and £4.50 easily. Saying that, we're happy with it, don't really go out these days, so happy to spend time at home with friends. A note about having a dedicated cable. For tubs rated over 13amp you will melt the plus and cable. Any draw over 13amp required (usually) armoured cable that required a dedicated connection to the consumer unit (fuse box). Depending the rate (amps) and distance dictates the thickness, so we run 10mm core armoured as this buried in the garden. It's also a regulation that there is an isolator switch in arms reach of the tub.
Thankyou for breaking down the cost of everything. I have ordered my 6 person hot tub and you are bang on about the electrical socket. My electrician is going to charge £400 for putting In new electrical cables and attaching to the tub.
We got an inflatable at the beginning of lockdown (the one where you couldn't have anyone in your garden, etc.) and had fun over that summer. It has started popping regularly and I'm bored of fixing it. So we're getting a proper spa one. I'm using a UK company (made in the UK) and they double insulate and sell, for a reasonable cost, heat source pumps. So anything over 5c, the heat pump is capable of keeping the temperature going for you. We haven't got it yet - it's currently Jan 2022 and they can get it here in 2 weeks, but I'm going to wait until April instead.
Make sense for heating the water, but there are pros and cons of these. Plus you still need the KW of electric to run the pumps, and this is where the expense comes from.
@@andyw3152 Not in my case, if one has a entire solar system unit running the entire home then that means those pumps are being run off of my solar system.
honestly I have zero choice BUT to get a jacuzzi, i rent an old dutch home int he netherlands, the shower room is a showerhead on the wall of a tiny 1 meter by 3 or so room, its cramped like a prison shower... the house is pretty small no bath.. I have zero place to go and unwind or relax, and for someone that has alot of anger issues so I need to have a place to go to unwind, to let things go, as im not a fan of people I have zero friends by choice, and dont want to be near people, so fighting sports arent a thing either.. so what ever the price.. it is a must.. sadly :(
I'm planning a build in a very far away future, but i'm comparing it to my current heating bill. I'm living in a concrete apartment with 14 ft ceilings, running 2700 Wh electric heating. It's silly amounts on Watts, and should in theory be enough to heat a house and half a jacuzzi. With the extra high electricity prices this season i'm getting bills in the €250+ range... I do believe if I build a 2000 sq ft house with a smart layout with a ~1000 liter jacuzzi, maybe slapping 300 sq ft of solar panels on the roof, I should get a lower electricity bill than I do now. Can't wait to set my plans in motion and chill out in a steaming hot tub.
Thanks Tony, prices were around 15p/kWh when I made the video, so you can double it for the current energy proce cap, and the likely rate from October will be around 50p/kWh. We've turned ours off as we cannot justify spending nearly £8 a day on heating a hottub this Winter. Mounts up fast. £1500 just over Winter is plain crazy.
Can you turn off the power while not using the tun and if yes - how long would it take to get it hot again... because keeping it running in a side house(dont know how you call it) isnt very practical
In the summer we were setting the temp right down, so from Saturday at 35-46c it was only dropping to 33 in the 7 days due to the ambient temp. If you power down there will be no active filtration, and so you're left with standing water. Never turn off and leave unless empty.
Bought a hot tub a month ago just wanted to say, pretty much spot on with everything you said, mine isnt costing me quite as much, its working out to about £1.60 (i appreciate ymmv) but otherwise same experience here.
Cheers for the advice in an unbiased manner. I have solar panels but have just bought an electric car so I don't think I will be able to power both for free even in the height of summer haha. Cheers mate
Seems they have increased in price, just looked at the place we got ours - Miami Spas and they have them advertised for £7,399. I can only imagine its a supply and demand thing, I think a lot invested in a hottub last year and in 2020 and now with brexit and everything they must cost more to import.
@@motorshedsteve thank you so much for the quick reply - I have just found it for £5095 without installation but they only have it in the white acrylic where as yours looks so smart!
@@benjamincarter876 no probs, that's a much better price. White still looks smart, I just imagined it would show wear a little more than the dark one. I have to say ours is around 3 1/2 years old and still looks brand new, only things that have aged and need replacing are the head cushions, the rubber paint flakes off. If you can get one at that price it's not too bad but you need to make sure you get the top and lifting arm with it and the steps. Any electrician should be able to hook it up but I'd prefer the place that I buy it from to do it, so if you experience any issues they can't blame it on a sparky. You'll also need clean access at least 1.1m wide to get it into your garden or you'll need a crane. It cost us a small fortune to move our tub when we moved house, cranes aren't as cheap as I had been led to believe my the hottub place, which I guess means the fully delivered price we paid was even better. It's at least £400 for a crane delivery, as it needs to be a fairly big one because of the reach on the arm.
@@motorshedsteve thank you so much for being so prompt and so insightful, I really appreciate it! That’s the same reason I was keen for the darker model, yours looks great. I will keep shopping around! Thanks so much once again!
Hi, just got one myself last week and doing the daily checks on KWh, we are in Scotland and it's about 9 degrees for the week we sit at 12KW a day, but I've got a floating cover to help. Did you find winter had any impact on yours or is 16KW your yearly daily average?
Hi John, 16 was the average, and yes they use a little more in Winter, as well insulated as they are, when it's freezing outside it takes a little more the keep the water warm. Each night your tub will run a cleaning process too which increases demand. I've not got a floating cover on mine, I don't know what impact they have. Enjoy your tub!
We live in the northeast USA. In June it uses on average 7kWh per day. My highest usage is in January when I used 460khw for the month, 15kWh per day. During summer months I keep the spa temp at 97 deg f and the heater hardly ever comes on. In the winter I keep it at 102 deg f. We also use it more in the winter, 4-5 times a week.
£200 for a crane?! I wish our area offered as cheap! To have ours delivered by crane it cost £500! And that was the cheapest we could find 😱😱 ours was delivered today, it’s currently heating up, can’t wait to get in tomorrow
Yes I agree. When we had this delivered in 2018 we were told £200 for the crane but was thrown in for free. We moved house last November though so had a crane lift it out, put it on a flatbed and lift it in to the new place half a mile down the road, cost us £700.
Forgive my ignorance i dont own one of these, but couldnt you just connect your hose to a hot water tap and fill it from that? Cutting your energy use down by a lot?
Yep you can, you need to know how much your gas uses l/m and see if it's worth it, but remember, in the cold the water that was hot might be a lot cooler during the 6 hour filling time.
Very good presentation. We have ordered our hot tub for January delivery, after using one at a holiday lodge where we found it so relaxing to our arthritic aches and pains. One question- When emptying the tub, can the water be used for garden watering or is the chemical content a risk?
Hi Mervyn, thank you. No I wouldn't use the water for the garden due to the chlorine content, I usually put a drain hose directly in the manhole. As the water costs so little and gets reused for so long it doesn't feel like much of a waste. If you keep on top of the chemicals the water can last many months, even a year depending on how much you use it. If you've only just watched this video and are in the UK just bear in mind the costs will now be around double due to rises in energy costs.
If you are soaking in chemicals like chlorine and fluoride it is not very healthy. not to mention other people's 'bath' water if it is a multi person tub ... yuck. Perhaps if you did some hard physical labor you could work the poisons out of you system .
There are lots of uk brands. What happens is, many uk seller buy what they call generic tubs from a manufacturer, and rebrand them, but also add/remove parts to make them unique and then create a make and model.
@@Rose_19911 unfortunately not. Turning the tub off this winter is about all. Energy prices should come back down to where they were within the next 6-12 months I imagine.
Got one on order but with the current energy cost rises in the UK, seems like this may hike the running costs to crazy prices per day? Have your costs noticeably gone up yet? Not if your on a fixed rate obv. Thanks.
The cost of running it is about to go from £2/day to £4/day so not good news. Might have to start turning off for periods it's not going to get used. Still worth every penny though on one of those cold nights.
Not when you factor heat dissipation. Modern underfloor heating is a lot cheaper than heating a tub with heat loss. Very little heat is wasted with modern day house heating.
Guys keep in mind this is platinum spas, a chinese manufactured hot tub, it will have slightly higher running costs than your american made hot tubs due to lower efficiency. American made hot tubs cost anywhere from £1-£1.50 a day.
Not true. I've been able to do comparisons with a friend that owns a comparable jacuzzi. It uses the same, cost a lot more to buy and has been more unreliable.
A lot of tub components are made in China e.g Acrylic tubs, the bit you sit in. Ours has the Gecko pumps and electric which are made in Canada. They are as efficient as any pump could be. It's the KW/H that they consume is where the costs lie. Also, a lot of American produced tubs used the less reliable Bilboa systems that have a history of being unreliable.
Hi, in theory yes you could but would take a long time to do so and wouldn't be very efficient. You would need to schedule when you want to take a dip, so couldn't get in it just when you fancy as it can take around half a day to heat up from cold. Also, I'm not sure it would be good for the pumps etc and I don't know how the chemicals perform under lower temperatures. You also need to turn it on to add chemicals 2 or 3 times a week. Its best to leave it on all the time and keep on top of the chemicals to ensure it always smells fresh. You know about it when it's off, and spoils the experience.
Yes, I think once houses become self-sufficient and are able to produce larger amounts of electricity a hottub will become a no-brainer. I'm hopeful we will be there in 15-20 years.
Limited Insight great thanks. We are looking at getting a 13amp plug and play. I hear they use half the amount of electricity. Great video though. Thank you.
Jon is right. We have relatives with a plug and play lay z spa and it uses more than ours. They have to turn it off and heat it up only when they want to use it, which isn't great.
Limited Insight sorry, what do you mean? Jon said the plug and play use half your power consumption? I too have a 32amp tub and my friend has a 13amp. Power usage is the same. His heater is on longer than mine due to it being a smaller heater and he cannot use the pumps and the heater at the same time due it to being only 13amp.
Don't mess up units of power and energy. Your hot tub needs 666 w power, per hour it uses an energy of 666 Watt hours, per day it is 16 kwh. Per year it consumes an energy of 6000 kwh! The power per year is still 666 watts. By the way, it would cost less energy to just turn it off and turn it on some hours before you want to get it. The heat loss is proportional to the temperature difference between inside and outside, so less delta in temperature would result in less energy loss. The energy required to let it stay hot is greater then to heat it up again. Don't make the wrong assumption that it would cool down to room temperature right when you turn it off. It will still cool down slow. Same applies for home heating. Turn it off over night.
When you turn off you have to factor in dealing with standing water, even if there are chemicals in it. The worst is within the pumps and plumbing, these can get furred up with grime, and that means the pumps are working even harder.
Either paying too much for your energy or your hot tub is really inefficient. I have to say though that I filmed this over a year ago and energy prices have increased a lot since. I now pay closer to £2.50/day on electric alone. Also keeping it at 39.5 is what could make the difference, it would be interesting to know the difference in costs when you don't heat it up as much. I also now like to drop mine to about 35 in summer since I can't bear the heat for long.
@@limitedinsight Yeah, the hot tub was 4 years old and we live next to a wood so loads of stuff dropping onto cover which had deteriorated quite badly so poss no very efficient. And I defo should not of had on 39.5 for the lsat 4 years non stop I guess!!! I still owe the Npower around £2k at the moment :-(. Just sold the tub and plan on buying a new smaller one real soon as your quite right they are AMAZING and put me too sleep as soon as I enter them :-) All the best, Phill
First off, how the hell do you sit in a tub at that temp!!! If we run ours everyday, I mean use it with the pumps on we would be close to this with current electric rates.
@@andyw3152 hopefully you're wrong in that. It will come down to more normal levels, the question is how long that will take. Could be 3 months, could be 3 years.
@@limitedinsight I've created a spreadsheet which records the tubs temp and actual costs per day (I know a bit sad). So daily it can be £1-£1.50 at beast and that just with lid on back in the summer.
@@andyw3152 I'm toying with the idea of turning mine off during this winter, only turning it on to heat up the morning of the day we want to go in it. Only turning it on in-between to circulate the water when I put chlorine etc in. I'm not sure if the chlorine is as effective when the tub is cold though, I guess it should be? Obviously the filtration system wouldn't be running either so I'd worry about the condition of the water.
Absolutely bull , you clearly don't know what a good tub is, my hotspring envoy 1500ltr runs me anywhere from 20-26 a month less than £1 a day, the reason your spa costs you this is because its Chinese parts with no insulation and a big heater to compensate, if you have better insulation then you can have a smaller heater so mine as a 1500w titanium heater and so to heat that for 1 hour would cost me 18p would would have to be used for 6 hours a day to get to £1 a day and to get to the figures your using would have to be on 12-14 hours a day so is impossible
Last time I checked, there were 24 hours in a day 🤣🤣. I have no idea what you are on, but hot tubs are on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They sit at the temperature you set them to so they're nice and warm when you want to take a dip. You can't just put it on for an hour. I explained this clearly in the video. Jacuzzi is the biggest hot tub brand in the world, and the figures are similar on their models too. My figures are based on real-world scenarios.
@@motorshedsteve the heater does not run 24hr hours a day if it did then would would be buying a new heater every 6 months, the heater only comes on when it need to top it up to temperature, with good insulation this is normally 3/4 time a day maybe 5/6 if you used twice a day. If you think jacuzzi are the biggest in the world you need to go back to the 70s and 80s pml
Hang on just spotted you've got the "hotspring envoy" is this the one that costs around £20k. I would expect this to be very good in retaining heat! You've basically got foam sprayed at the underside of your tub, like many others. Even so, yours costs £13k more than ours, it's going to take you some time to recoup that outlay!! Is your reported costs just with the hot tub ready to use? It's the circulation pump plus the two pumps that control the jets, this is where the costs are. What is the rating of your pumps? I have 1500L of water, if I set the heater to cool, so heating of my two pumps consume 4.34KW of electric. So if I sit in mine on the weekends your £1 a day is blowm out of the water, unless you are on a cheap electric tariff that no longer exists in the uk.
@@griffiths1231 You're generalising too much. First off, in the winter set at 37 the heater will come up at least 1-2 time an hour. Doesn't matter what insulation you have, most have some, but you will lose so much just sitting in it.
@@andyw3152 ok so let's play devils advocate here let's say that the heater comes on once an hour every hour for 15 min and my heater is 1.5kw so that's 6 x 1.5 = 9kw a day, my current rate with British gas is 12.349p that would still be £1.11 a day, even with the current energy crisis at just under 16p kw is £1.44 a day, now say I brought a cheaper tub and it had the same insulation properties but had a 3kw heater I'd be saving £1.11 at my current rate a day that £395 a year times that by 20 years that my hot tub will last that's just shy of 8k saving and but buying a cheaper 7-8k tub knowing the parts wont be available in 10 years I would have to but a new one with inflation that will cost me 10k so that cheaper tub has cost me 26k and that's assuming it has the same insulation whitch it wont so will end up costing double to run making it 35k making my 20k look like nothing in the long run
