How to Enjoy your Jacuzzi® Hot Tub in a More Energy Efficient Way
A Jacuzzi® hot tub is a fantastic addition to any home and can provide a brilliant focal point for your daily wellness routine and wellbeing in general. However, like all appliances in and around the home, a hot tub uses energy to varying degrees depending on how efficient it is. Factors which have an impact include insulation, installation, build design and climate. There are, however, a few ways to run your Jacuzzi® hot tub in the most energy efficient way, meaning you can focus on enjoying its benefits all year-round.
Turn Down the Temperature
With the average user temperature of a hot tub being around 37-38°C, your hot tub is constantly working in the background to keep the water heated to the required setting and maintain a consistent level of heat.
Reducing the temperature by even a couple of degrees can go a long way towards decreasing your energy consumption on the hot tub heating front. In the long term, this will mean a reduced energy bill compared to running your hot tub at elevated temperatures, meaning you never need think twice about jumping in and relaxing.
Watch Your Water
It can be tempting to think about replacing the water in your hot tub every few weeks, especially if you frequent it every day, but in doing this you might be using up energy unnecessarily. Water replacement frequency can also be affected by chemical use as well as the hot tub manufacturer, age and model you have.
Draining and refilling your hot tub will not only cost you time but energy too. Each new refill of water needs to be heated up to operating temperature all the way from ambient, which in winter months might be a few degrees only. Similarly, if you’re on a water meter this may be causing yet more avoidable costs.
Being economical with the water in your tub, and refilling it every 2-3 months, will enable you to maintain hygiene levels with the right chemicals but also cut down on energy costs by continually draining and refilling the water. Jacuzzi’s five-stage filtration system is one of the ways our hot tubs allow for such a prolonged time using the same water. It’s a perfect way to keep your water cleaner for longer and ensure you get the most out of it before you need to refresh it.
Run Your Hot Tub in Eco Mode
If you know that you’re not going to be using your hot tub day in, day out, or are going away for a short while, making use of any energy efficient or ‘eco’ mode may well be the right move.
Jacuzzi’s programmable high-flow pumps can be used in a variety of ways, allowing for reduced energy consumption via the energy efficient mode for less running costs without compromising water quality or power.
Many hot tubs brands have an eco mode option that allows you to set the hot tub to only heat up the water while the filtration cycle is on rather than continuously keeping the water warm. Putting your hot tub on eco-mode whenever you're away ensures you can still enjoy your hot tub on your return and know you’ve saved energy while absent.
Consider a Thermal Blanket
The main way heat is lost from the hot tub is when the cover is off and the water is open to the elements. Even if you’re not in it and getting ready to take a dip, heat is escaping from the surface of the water.
With better heat retention meaning less energy spent on maintaining the temperature of the hot tub, a thermal blanket used directly on top of the water is a fantastic way to keep evaporation down and the heat where you want it – in the water. Buying a thermal blanket is relatively cheap and will save you money in the long run asyour hot tub has to use far less energy to maintain the same temperature.
Turn Down/Off Lighting
Lighting in and around your hot tub can set the mood, creating an atmosphere perfect for relaxing and enhancing your wellbeing. We only use LED lights in our hot tubs, as they are significantly more efficient at using electricity than other kinds.
If you don’t have a Jacuzzi® hot tub and your current one has incandescent light bulbs, this could be why you’re seeing your energy bills increase. Switching from incandescent bulbs to LED ones can be straightforward and cheap and will help reduce your energy consumption in the long run.
Whatever the quality of the bulbs, having the lights on will always use electricity. Turning the lighting down or even off during the daytime or early morning will reduce the energy consumed by the hot tub. Saving it for a special occasion or during a night-time dip instead will ensure you save money and create a uniquely relaxing experience.
Top Up Cleaning Agents Regularly
Anyone who has owned a hot tub for a while will tell you that getting the chemical balance and PH levels accurate can take some time but is essential for maintaining a clean and hygienic hot tub.
If inadequate cleaning is done, your hot tub could become an unpleasant place to be, with the water turning green and the bacteria count unsafe. This, in turn, might lead you to drain the hot tub and start again with fresh water, increasing energy consumption as well as needing to invest in more chlorine or bromine tablets and granules.
Equally, a cleaner tub means your filters won’t have to work as hard to filter debris and anything else that contaminates the water. Increased contaminants can force your hot tub filters to work harder which inevitably means more energy usage.
Regularly checking on and topping up cleaning agents will ensure your water stays cleaner for longer and reduces the need to drain and refill the water, which, if done, will lead to a complete reheating of the water and increase in energy consumption.
Clean and Set the Hot Tub Filters
It may seem obvious, but filters can get clogged up with debris and anything else that goes through the filtration system. If left unchecked and uncleaned, the filters will lose efficiency and may even stop working. The impact on your water purity will become evident as heavy or light debris remains in the water once it’s been cycled through.
Setting the filtration cycle for a specific time rather than having it running on a regular basis will cut down on energy consumption, and programming when your filtration cycle should begin will help you measure how much electricity your hot tub is using. Quality hot tub models like Jacuzzi® will allow you to set the parameters of the cycle to fit around your lifestyle and hot tub usage, as well as limit the energy consumed by the filtration cycle.
Jacuzzi® use UV light for cleaner water, combining UV-C and ozone in our CLEARRAY® water system. The Active Oxygen™ technology harnesses the power of air and light to work harder and clean the water longer. This is an advanced oxidation process that destroys contaminants and waterborne pathogens. However, these UV bulbs will inevitably lose effectiveness over time through discolouration and become less effective as a result.
Regular check-ups on the condition of the filter and UV lights will help you budget for when new ones are needed, while setting the filtration cycle for specific times will help cut down energy costs, and new UV bulbs every 12 months will ensure water purity remains high.
Think About a New Jacuzzi® Hot Tub
One of the reasons why you could be seeing poor energy efficiency could be the hot tub itself. Not all hot tubs are built and designed the same way, with some manufacturers offering dozens of jets and lights without putting much time or concern into crucial factors like energy consumption or heat retention.
What’s under the bonnet matters just as much as what’s going on above and it’s important to check how much energy is being wasted by your hot tub, especially if it’s an old one. Newer hot tubs are designed to be energy efficient, with advanced insulation and plumbing to reduce as much heat loss as possible and circulate it back into the water.
Jacuzzi’s® J-300 collection offers smart features, energy-saving upgrades, and a fantastic hydromassage, all within a well-insulated, high-performance hot tub.
What is more, this range requires almost a third less energy to run on average compared to the CEC (California Energy Commission). This gives you total peace of mind when it comes to choosing a hot tub that not only delivers on hydromassage performance but energy efficiency.
If your own is on the older side, it might be worth cutting your losses and investing in a new, more efficient one.
Simple Changes, Big Differences
These are just some simple ways to help you make your hot tub more energy efficient and therefore allow you to enjoy it as much as you like whenever you like. Check out our page on why Jacuzzi® hot tubs are so energy efficient here.
Still looking for ways to make your hot tub even more energy efficient? Check out our five energy efficiency considerations for your hot tub for some practical tips to get the most out of your hot tub’s energy usage.
Upgrade your Hot Tub to a Jacuzzi® SmartTub™
If you already own a Jacuzzi® hot tub, it’s worth considering upgrading it to SmartTub™.
It’s a straightforward, economical upgrade that allows you to monitor everything going on with your hot tub, from overall system health, energy consumption, remote access, turning it on and off, and even locking the controls without having to be near it.
Most importantly, it allows us to actual get real world usage data and on average, our customers use around 5kWh per day* to enjoy their Jacuzzi®️ hot tub. To put that into perspective, it is only about the same as a family of 4 taking a 10 minute shower a day.
*based on 1,850 privately owned spas in the UK, used throughout 2022-2023 that were fitted with SmartTub™.
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