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Can I put a stronger heater in my HotSprings Grandee?

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richierich:
It's awesome that you were able to do what you wanted. Enjoy your upgraded Grandee. :)

bud16415:
It is awesome you got it the way you want it.

The part I can’t figure out is why you weren’t building heat when it was in the 40’s. We have a Caldara Geneva also built by Watkins and it is 50 amp with a 20/30 subpanel and I’m pretty sure the 20 is the heat side.

We live in northern PA and we got as low as -30f last year and the tub maintained temp. we were not in it those nights but often are in it in the single digits. Over the weekend we were in about an hour with the water temp at 103 and it was 10f outside and it lost no water temp.

All’s well that ends well though. I have about a 50’ run to the subpanel #6 and then 16’ #8 to the tub. I wonder what your lengths were and if the old wire was dropping some voltage for you?   

JacuzziJack:
Great posts, thanks for sharing your solution!

dlleno:
some great info here -- I also own a 2013 grandee and find that for extended soaks in cold weather, the 4kw heater is insufficient.  the 30A side runs the jets, and since Watkins is greatly motivated to use inexpensive, readily available 50A hot tub disconnects, the 4KW heater is used.  they wanted to stay at 50A to keep things simple, electrically, but there's no reason one can't wire it up for use with the watkins 6kw heater. 

I'm grateful for the info shared here, and it's exactly right:  put in the watkins heater, make sure the wire sizes are sufficient, make sure your sub panel is rated for at least 60A, and all the applicable electrical codes are met, and voila.  I would only add that the wiring TO the sub-panel needs to be sufficient as well.  for example, in my last house I had a 100A subpanel and 100A rated wires from the meter.  I could have easily wired my grandee for the 30A heater.

the standard sales talk and under-informed will say that it won't make a difference but they fail to realize that a 50% increase in power to heating the water is a tremendous noticeable difference.  I'm going to upgrade mine when I get a chance!

great idea and thanks again for posting. 

mpkelley20:
At what point will most hot tubs have difficulty maintaining temps?  It has been getting brutally cold here in MA and I went into my tub last night with outside temps in the high 20's.  My tub was set at 100 and it maintained that temp for the 25 minutes I was in it.

I did turn the temp to 103 but the temp never made it above 100 while I was in it.  So it appeared that 28 degrees or so is a good starting point for temps that make it hard for my hot tub to heat the water beyond the current temp.

Just curious.  I have a Marquis Promise two pump spa.

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