Has anyone had a hot tub for 18 months + and not regretted it?

[NamechangeNo5]

I’m on holiday, staying at a place with a hot tub, and once again thinking how lovely it would be to have one. I have arthritis and sitting in the hot water for 30 mins or so seems to help so much.

I’ve been toying with the idea of getting one for a good few years - I can afford it with the extra electricity bills plus getting someone to come around and fanny about with it once a week. My garden is big enough for it to not really effect how much space the dc have to play in. My only neighbours are AirBnB’s so not too concerned about the noise of the thing. know so many people that got one over lockdown though and it’s now sitting rotting in their garden taking up space though.

Does anyone have one that they still use regularly? What else should I consider when deciding whether to get one or not?

TIA

How is it better than a bath? Could you have a deeper bath fitted?

The water evaporates really quickly even with a lid on.

@ohmustyou I could possibly get a different shaped bath. I don’t know if it’s the sitting upright position, the fact that it stays hot so you can sit in it for much longer or the pressure of the bubbles that actually seem to help my joints. All of these could be done with a specialised bath though, you’re right.

We had one for about 10 years. You just need to make sure you keep up the cleaning/chemicals. We never had a problem with water evaporating at all with the lid on. I expect its very expensive to run now though.

You don't need someone to come round to sort it, it's dead easy to look after.

Umm I have an Arctic Spa hot tub, only needs topping up 3 times a year if that. Certainly no need to have help with water balance, at most twice a year when changing the filter full water exchange cleaning the inside.
I like using mine like a mini pool when it’s hot as hades outside.

We love ours. Had it since early 2021. 8 person hard shell one so fairly sizeable. Costs around £120 a month to run/heat (plus chemicals). It’s super easy to maintain, chemical dipsticks every other day and top up chemicals as required. Empty and change water every 4ish months. We use ours 2-3 times a week, sometimes more. Water only ever needs topping up if youngest DD has been in with her friends and they’ve been splashing. Turn it right down in summer and use it to cool down

I have an inflatable (in its third year now), and have arthritis like you. It really is great to get into and feel all of the pain melt away.
I don't really use the bubbles much, just at the end of a soak, and then I use them to massage my back and legs.
You will get to know what chemicals you need to add - I do my own with test strips and it's ok as long as you know the volume of water. (For instance, I know I need to add a couple of tablets of chlorine every ten days or so, and change the filter every two weeks or so, depending on usage.) I also have very hard water here so chuck some water softener in every now and again.
If you get foam (it will be from products like shower gel), there are treatments for that too.
If you buy in bulk (large amounts of filters for example) they will last longer and work out cheaper - you can also clean and reuse the filters until they are at the end of their life.
There are even apps that you can use which tell you what treatments to add based on the test strips.
I'm surprised the sex pond and cauldron off germs people haven't shown up yet - yes, hot tubs can be that, but I keep mine clean and decent (no cavorting here!)

"plus getting someone to come around and fanny about with it once a week"

What does this mean? You don't need to do that and weekly isn't enough if you mean chemicals topping up.

As for it evaporating, wtf? No it won't 🤣

You definitely don't need to pay somebody to sort the chemicals; once you get the hang of it, it's a piece of cake! Can take a little bit of trial and error to figure out what works for you/your tub though.

We've had our (inflatable) one for 3 years now, and we still love it. I have EDS so often painful joints and it really does help. My back and shoulder have both been helped by going in with the bubbles on the last two days.

We love ours, but we only really get it out when the weather is like it is currently, because it can be expensive to run. We have solar panels, so if the weather is like this and it's a school holiday it's worth it! We will most likely pack it away again at the end of this week, and perhaps pop it up later in the summer if the weather is nice again. This is one of the biggest advantages of inflatable ones I think: we can pack it away whenever, and it's not taking up space in the garden permanently. Our bubbles are also more powerful than the bubbles in DMs 'proper' hot tub!

We had a inflatable for a year when COVID hit, it didn't survive the winter and we moved to a location with other water.
But I really liked it, it wasn't hard to run once I understood what I was doing.
You have the price of electricity to factor in.

In fact thinking about it OP I might put a permanent one on my wish list for where we are now.

@NamechangeNo5 I have had a lazy spa one for a couple of years. It was initially outside but we have since housed it inside a summer house. I have a medical condition that I am in pain with and this helps massively.

@ohmustyou it is very different to a bath, firstly there is a hell of a lot more room, it is much deeper, for me at 5'4" it is up to my chin when I sit down. I can also stretch out with my head on the side and my feet don't touch the other side. Plus it stays hot, set the temperature and the heater kicks in. We don't use the bubbles, I just get a lot of relief from the hot water.

Chemicals wise once you get the hang of it it is incredibly easy. There are lots of videos on Youtube showing you how to manage the chemicals. Mostly it is the chlorine and you check the ph level and total alkalinity level before adding this. This should apply to both inflatable and hard shell. You don't need someone to do it, you just do it yourself. You need a couple of extra bits like a net to remove any leaf bits that fall into the tub, possibly a thermal cover for winter which helps retain the heat and maybe a drinks holder

I’ve only very briefly looked into the cost of buying and maintaining one. The surrounding AirBnBs have a bloke who comes around and does something every so often so I assumed it was something a professional had to do. It makes much more sense that it’s actually pretty easy to do yourself and the man only comes because owners don’t live there 🤦‍♀️

Its good to hear other people use them for help with arthritis, I’m going to look into it further when I get home.

Not quite 18m but we've had ours for over a year and I don't regret anything. Usage is cyclical for me but I love it in all weathers, morning and evening, summer and winter, alone or with friends when they visit. Do it! We have a Hydropool that uses low levels of chemicals and is very well insulated (built in Canada) so stays at temp even in cold weather. It's a proper spa pool with massage jets - brilliant for stress and tension.

Hi @NamechangeNo5 thanks for your thread! If you're looking for hot tub recommendations, you might like our round-up of the best hot tubs, according to Mumsnetters. If you have any thoughts or feedback on the article do get in touch 💐

Had mine for 2 years and love it

Ours was a lockdown purchase and we don’t use it as much now (mainly due to energy costs) but it’s still great fun to have up and on for visitors, holiday times etc.

Ours is a lay-z-spa Helsinki (the wooden looking one in the mn link above). We keep it up all the time with water in because apparently it’s the taking up & down that really damages them. Doing all the chemicals and stuff is really easy, you can definitely manage that yourself.

Had our hard shell one 7 years now and love it! OH does the chemicals and changes the water entirely every 3 months. No top ups needed in between usually. We have it serviced annually.

We upgraded to a saltwater hot tub this year. It uses less chemicals than our previous hot tub. We’ve had hot tubs for 18 years. We wouldn’t be without it.

We had our LA Spas hard shell hot tub for nine years and loved it so much that it moved house (long distance) twice with us. We were actually really sad when our buyers wanted us to include it in the sale but as we were relocating even further afield we decided to let them have it.

No issues with chemicals etc and changed the water regularly (particularly after DS and his uni mates had been in there!), as well as having an annual service.

We were considering replacing it just before the first lockdown but never got round to it as we had more pressing renovating to spend our £££ on (the one we'd originally had cost £11k, before prices came down somewhat). Now with the CoL crisis we've put it on hold although we'd both still consider getting another after we've sold our current house/bought another.

We’ve got a 8 person, hard shell jacuzzi and we use it every single day. DH comes home from work and we grab a glass of wine and sit in the tub for half an hour and chat. We change the water every 3/4 months, top it up probably every 3/4 weeks at most.
As long as u keep on top of the chemicals and get a decent hoover type thing it’ll stay nice and clean.
We love it!