Most Hot Tub dealers offer Hot Tub Covers with a
taper. They promote these hot tub covers as though the ability to shed
rain and moisture will keep it from getting saturated and heavy.
If this worked would there ever be another heavy hot tub cover?
True, it does help the spa cover shed rain. True, rain running off the
spa is a good thing. Unfortunately this has Nothing to do with what causes Hot Tub Covers to get heavy.
Here is a simple test you can do yourself to test what I just said. Go and purchase a new rigid foam filled hot tub cover
with as big a taper as you can find. Before you put
it on your Hot Tub, weigh it. A hanging weight will probably be most
accurate and simple to read. Record the weight and date it. Put the new
cover on your hot tub only to be positively sure that no rain or outside
moisture gets into your new hot tub cover, put a tarp over the whole
spa, cover and all.
Weigh the cover once a week and record it with the date. When the
hot tub cover begins to get heavy you will know how long it took and that it
was not due to outside moisture. If you are keeping all the rain water
totally away from the spa, why is the hot tub cover getting heavy?
The fact is outside moisture is Never what causes the foam in Hot Tub Covers to get heavy. Rigid foam filled hot tub covers get heavy because they are in use over steam
from your spa water. Here is another way you can prove this to yourself.
Purchase two new spa covers.
Weigh them both and record and date it. Put one cover on your hot tub and
use it as normal. Store the other one in you garage or some other place
out of the moisture. If you weigh them each every week, before long you
will find the one in use on the spa will begin to get heavy. The one in
storage in a dry place will not get heavy.
Now we come to the reason why. What gets into the foam is the steam
from underneath the spa cover. The steam particles are much smaller
than water molecules like rain. Steam can get through the smallest
hole. Since there is no lack of steam above spa water, it will always
eventually work its way into the spaces in the foam. So in fact, the
only way to avoid having any rigid foam hot tub cover saturate is to never
put it on your spa or never put water in your spa.
So what is so bad about a hot tub cover getting heavy? Aside from making
the hot tub more difficult to use, is saturation bad? The insulation
in a rigid foam cover comes from the air spaces in the foam. If those air spaces are
filled with water then that insulation value is gone. Worse yet, when
the weather gets cold the moisture in that foam freezes. This is what
fools a lot of people in to thinking that their foam hot tub cover is doing a
great job of insulating. When snow falls on a frozen block of ice, it
sits there and piles up.
Meanwhile the hot tub is working harder to keep the water warm. As steam
hits the bottom of the frozen foam hot tub cover, it cools and condenses, falling
back into the spa. Snow will sit just fine on a frozen lake but that
does not mean that the ice is insulating anything.
So what is the solution? Well, you could buy two or three hot tub
covers and rotate them as you notice them getting heavy. Always have
one or two drying out in your garage. Once the saturated spa cover is
off the spa, it will begin to dry out. You can rotate it back on to the
hot tub when the next one gets heavy. Since all vinyl is rated by hours
outdoors, you will still need to be buying new covers to replace the
ones that fall apart.
The better choice would be to find a hot tub cover that does not use
foam. If you shop online there are alternative spa covers that your
local spa dealer does not have to offer. Be sure to visit SpaCap.com before you replace another Hot Tub Cover with something you know is going to end up just as heavy as the one you are replacing. Or Call 800-850-2468.