Hot Tub Forum

General => Beating a dead horse => Topic started by: wondertubs on November 21, 2017, 06:32:04 pm

Title: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: wondertubs on November 21, 2017, 06:32:04 pm
Some fairly recent vids about that illustrate what a mess it can make:
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Tman122 on November 21, 2017, 07:03:24 pm
Some fairly recent vids about that illustrate what a mess it can make:
  • Trying to find a leak in a full foam hot tub (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-9cv2ZBJA)
  • What happens inside a full foam hot tub when it leaks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBZe9_C-9Mw)
  • Mouse nesting inside full foam hot tub (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6z9gHjflJo)
  • Almost frozen hot tub survives 6 days without power in winter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNlQqnR8O-E)

LOL...."mice are a problem in any full foam hot tub"....LOL Guess what? They are a bigger problem in non foamed hot tubs.

There's a lot of ways to keep a foamed tub from freezing for weeks. But this is the same with either style of insulation.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: JacuzziJack on November 21, 2017, 07:29:40 pm
A 25 year hot tub tech explained to me when the pumps turn on/off the hammering causes the hoses to 'jiggle' then jerk again when the pumps go off. Over time and thousands of cycles it leads to broken or cracked plastic fittings particularly when the plastic becomes older and more brittle. When mfgrs started encasing everything in foam it holds everything firm and hoses don't surge and leaks are rare with the exception of freezing. He said "rare" ...not 'extinct'.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: wondertubs on November 21, 2017, 09:12:26 pm
I didn't picture the full foam becoming a giant sponge, when reading comments about it being tricky to repair, that sure is something else. I guess it's bound to happen sooner or later, or there would be a lifetime warranty on the insulation.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Spatech_tuo on November 21, 2017, 10:44:21 pm
Did someone let Jim A out of the loony bin?
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Tman122 on November 22, 2017, 07:11:01 am
I didn't picture the full foam becoming a giant sponge, when reading comments about it being tricky to repair, that sure is something else. I guess it's bound to happen sooner or later, or there would be a lifetime warranty on the insulation.

Wet foam is how we locate a leak. But it's only wet from the leak down hill below the leak to a way out. I've repaired many leaks in foam and have a hot wire knife to cut it tons neater than that guy. Over my 30 year career I would say I dug foam 10 times. Only one was a normal leak. The rest were freeze damage. And no, it's not bound to happen. Most never leak and live a long happy life until they are retired.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Professor Spa on November 22, 2017, 09:14:38 am
30 years fixing hot tubs and fullfoam is not the nightmare its made out to be and they leak a lot less than spas with unsupported plumbing and especially if they clamp the plumbing lines.

Fact: Full foam coast 3-4x more to make that the other methods... The real reason everyone does not full foam is the cost...
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: wondertubs on November 22, 2017, 09:36:45 am
This one's my favorite.  ::)

Leak repair (https://youtu.be/OSOZEVav-iE?t=32): "How we repair a leak, and keep the cost down... we drilled us a couple little holes in the side like this"... uh, those aren't little, and that's more than a couple.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Spatech_tuo on November 22, 2017, 10:49:20 am
This one's my favorite.  ::)

Leak repair (https://youtu.be/OSOZEVav-iE?t=32): "How we repair a leak, and keep the cost down... we drilled us a couple little holes in the side like this"... uh, those aren't little, and that's more than a couple.

You obviously don't need any assistance here so just buy a spa and then let us know what you endorse as the best choice out there based on your impeccable research.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: wondertubs on November 22, 2017, 11:39:29 am
You obviously don't need any assistance here so just buy a spa and then let us know what you endorse as the best choice out there based on your impeccable research.
Why quote me in this topic if you're going to talk about another one? Now you're so far off topic it's spilling over into this one. Get a grip.

Personally I wouldn't buy a spa, but I'm just a nice guy, and hopefully I can save someone else some trouble for being able to keep one working for them.  I'll probably skip the full foam.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: d00nut on November 22, 2017, 12:02:58 pm
Personally I wouldn't buy a spa
Your loss!  Hot Tubs are awesome!
Personally I wouldn't buy a spa
Then why research them?  My time is pretty valuable between taking care of my kids, wife, and work.  Do something value added!
Personally I wouldn't buy a spa
Kind of to go along with the above... but why bother posting?  Seems like you dislike most everyone here anyway, be happy.  Or try to make others happy.  Not the opposite!
I'm just a nice guy
;)
I'll probably skip the full foam.
Wait... I thought you said you didn't want a hot tub? 

Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: wondertubs on November 22, 2017, 12:13:53 pm
Okay, you guys are obviously hi.

Bye.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: d00nut on November 22, 2017, 12:18:02 pm
Okay, you guys are obviously hi.

Bye.

high*

Sorry I offended you Mr. Nice Guy.  You will be missed.   8)
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Spatech_tuo on November 22, 2017, 12:38:14 pm
Okay, you guys are obviously hi.

Bye.

You were obviously misunderstood but Adios anyway (as if I really think you're never posting gain lol)!
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Hottubguy on November 22, 2017, 03:08:34 pm
Okay, you guys are obviously hi.

Bye.

You were obviously misunderstood but Adios anyway (as if I really think you're never posting gain lol)!

Not misunderstood. Just a idiot.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Jacuzzi Jim on November 22, 2017, 03:41:52 pm
  He seems to be avoiding my questions to him in the other thread.   Perhaps the guys been made? 
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Hottubguy on November 22, 2017, 04:01:26 pm
  He seems to be avoiding my questions to him in the other thread.   Perhaps the guys been made?

Yeah I noticed. If that’s him his little infomercials he does are the farthest thing from the truth I’ve watched.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Tman122 on November 22, 2017, 04:18:25 pm
Personally I wouldn't buy a spa, but I'm just a nice guy, and hopefully I can save someone else some trouble for being able to keep one working for them.  I'll probably skip the full foam.

I wound't let full foam scare you. Non fully insulated cost more to operate. If it cost 10-20 bucks more a month to heat a non full foam tub and you have a leak 15 years down the road that cost 1500 bucks to repair in the foamed tub you still spent 50% less. And your carbon foot print was lighter.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: wondertubs on November 23, 2017, 06:32:52 pm
Speaking of slime, some of you guys never seem to stop foaming at the mouth, lol.  What... is it really your fantasy that I'm some kind of salesman too? That's like the lamest fetish I've ever heard of.  Well, I don't want to talk about it either, just sayin' (I'm not sure if you're actually selling anything here, but I don't think you're doing a very good job of it if you are—being so full of it, or trying to blame me for that).  I could appreciate the comments that were on topic otherwise, but they were mostly too few and far between.  I'm sure there are other discussions on the matter anyway, so that's alright. But if you're not "hi", maybe some of you went crazy keeping track of your own rhetoric. Either way I have to wonder, was it too much of a good thing? Get well soon. :) 

Personally I'm fine with drawing my own conclusions based on experience in general, or other points of reference in particular, no problem. Carry on... I just thought it was funny that they werre pretending I was someone else and talking about them behind my back. Call me Santa then, and I'll wish ya' Happy Holidays all over again. :)
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Tman122 on November 24, 2017, 12:08:30 pm
Speaking of slime, some of you guys never seem to stop foaming at the mouth, lol.  What... is it really your fantasy that I'm some kind of salesman too? That's like the lamest fetish I've ever heard of.  Well, I don't want to talk about it either, just sayin' (I'm not sure if you're actually selling anything here, but I don't think you're doing a very good job of it if you are—being so full of it, or trying to blame me for that).  I could appreciate the comments that were on topic otherwise, but they were mostly too few and far between.  I'm sure there are other discussions on the matter anyway, so that's alright. But if you're not "hi", maybe some of you went crazy keeping track of your own rhetoric. Either way I have to wonder, was it too much of a good thing? Get well soon. :) 

Personally I'm fine with drawing my own conclusions based on experience in general, or other points of reference in particular, no problem. Carry on... I just thought it was funny that they werre pretending I was someone else and talking about them behind my back. Call me Santa then, and I'll wish ya' Happy Holidays all over again. :)

I don't have a problem with your questions. I see the same thing I see with everyone doing research. You seem to get steered to one truth that suits you. Just like the guys who used to sell "we use the heat from the pump to help heat the water" They used less insulation and didn't spray foam on the shell. In theory they are correct but they are using the heat from the pump to heat the cavity between the shell and the skirting. This actually creates a higher R-Factor that just insulation. A lot of people bought that theory. They were absolutely positive it was a better way to insulate a hot tub.

Then it was pointed out to them that the tub only needs to filter for 4 hours a day. What about the other 20 hours that the pumps aren't running. Or should they run the pumps extra to create the R-Factor? Seems kinda counter to the original though.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: bud16415 on November 24, 2017, 12:41:03 pm
Kind of not sure I want to post in this thread but what the heck.

My tub has a dense pack fiber insulation called Fibercor. The study I did on this stuff tended to prove out the claims the dealer made about it. It is as good or better than sprayed foam in its insulating abilities. If a leak was to happen the moisture drains thru it and goes straight down making finding the leak easy. when the side panel is removed you just pull it out by the handful and put it in a box or bag. Once the repair is made you pack it back in by hand and replace the cover. My tub also has the heater on a different GFCI breaker than the rest of the tub. It doesn’t help with power failure in cold weather but around here power goes out for less than a day 99.999% of the time most of the time it is a couple hours is all. The most common loss of heat to the tub is a heater failure and in those cases my tub still has power to the pumps it recognizes heater loss and throws an alert and then puts the tub in survival mode, circulating water very slowly to use the stored heat in the water to keep the plumbing from freezing.

Living in a very cold place where we get winter temps down in the –30f range I liked both of these features and along with a tub we liked overall it helped us make our selection. The funny part was the sales guy quite experienced talked up the insulation up a lot and when I asked him why the tub had two GFCI’s didn’t have a clue. Going to the manufactures page didn’t explain it also and I had to dig on the internet to find out the reason.   
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: wondertubs on November 28, 2017, 09:20:03 am
My tub has a dense pack fiber insulation called Fibercor.

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UNxB0bFDEkg/UW6Z2AP1E1I/AAAAAAAABQc/LOHnz6ndyps/s1600/fibercor+easy+access+page+2.png)

 (http://poolcoblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/innovative-fibercor-insulation-fills.html)That's funny, it looks like snow!  Right, you see... we use the "igloo principle" of insulating your hot tub: Snow is used because the air pockets trapped in it make it an insulator. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igloo)

Then it was pointed out to them that the tub only needs to filter for 4 hours a day. What about the other 20 hours that the pumps aren't running. Or should they run the pumps extra to create the R-Factor? Seems kinda counter to the original though.
Maybe it depends, some spas use reflective panels which could trap air pockets like that too, and I'd put the (small) tub inside an insulated room anyway—it isn't heated but there's no wind chill factor indoors there.  I guess if the room doesn't feel warmer around a covered tub, I'll know that's insulated well enough (or at least it would double as a space heater, which might be nice sometimes). Not to say it is as good or better than full foam, but if snow can be kept relatively warm inside, like an igloo (with body heat alone), then whatever, as long as my insulation doesn't turn into a sponge bath. Most of the topics I've read where someone was looking to replace a hot tub were to do with it leaking eventually, and the foam insulation complicated that or was not worth repairing (and in other videos they say you might not even know it leaked until you noticed a difference in energy consumption, but by then it's soaked). Whether one is a better value over-all seems to depend, it could go either way (yet I'd rather not encounter that particular issue if it leaked, especially if I don't have it outside in an extreme climate).

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/da/5e/e3/da5ee3f9a8a510e6b1315a19a90a4439.jpg)
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Spatech_tuo on November 28, 2017, 11:30:37 am
LOL, Wonderboy is still trying to pretend to be a consumer?
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: wondertubs on November 28, 2017, 11:39:47 am
LOL, Wonderboy is still trying to pretend to be a consumer?
As long as you change the subject, it's all good. I'll admit it is a boring conversation either way (except for the visuals, or hot tubbing that is).  As if I'd be offended for not being recognized as a "consumer": go eat more foam, why don't you... uh, no thanks.

Did you eat any foam by the way, paint maybe? Yeah, it's a rhetorical question, but I'd recommend using a dust mask in the future...
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: SerjicalStrike on November 28, 2017, 12:07:37 pm
The subject of full foam has been gone through so much that it resides in the beating a dead horse section, which is where this one is headed for I imagine.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: wondertubs on November 28, 2017, 12:13:20 pm
it resides in the beating a dead horse section
That reminds me of a scene from star wars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXmp1hLK0tY), where they used a dead animal as a sleeping bag. Talk about slime... or can you really beat a dead horse, with full foam? Perverts.
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Spatech_tuo on November 28, 2017, 12:44:48 pm
it resides in the beating a dead horse section
That reminds me of a scene from star wars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXmp1hLK0tY), where they used a dead animal as a sleeping bag. Talk about slime... or can you really beat a dead horse, with full foam? Perverts.

Now its just getting strange!
Title: Re: I've been slimed (with full foam insulation)
Post by: Tman122 on November 28, 2017, 04:10:03 pm
My tub has a dense pack fiber insulation called Fibercor.

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UNxB0bFDEkg/UW6Z2AP1E1I/AAAAAAAABQc/LOHnz6ndyps/s1600/fibercor+easy+access+page+2.png)

 (http://poolcoblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/innovative-fibercor-insulation-fills.html)That's funny, it looks like snow!  Right, you see... we use the "igloo principle" of insulating your hot tub: Snow is used because the air pockets trapped in it make it an insulator. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igloo)

Then it was pointed out to them that the tub only needs to filter for 4 hours a day. What about the other 20 hours that the pumps aren't running. Or should they run the pumps extra to create the R-Factor? Seems kinda counter to the original though.
Maybe it depends, some spas use reflective panels which could trap air pockets like that too, and I'd put the (small) tub inside an insulated room anyway—it isn't heated but there's no wind chill factor indoors there.  I guess if the room doesn't feel warmer around a covered tub, I'll know that's insulated well enough (or at least it would double as a space heater, which might be nice sometimes). Not to say it is as good or better than full foam, but if snow can be kept relatively warm inside, like an igloo (with body heat alone), then whatever, as long as my insulation doesn't turn into a sponge bath. Most of the topics I've read where someone was looking to replace a hot tub were to do with it leaking eventually, and the foam insulation complicated that or was not worth repairing (and in other videos they say you might not even know it leaked until you noticed a difference in energy consumption, but by then it's soaked). Whether one is a better value over-all seems to depend, it could go either way (yet I'd rather not encounter that particular issue if it leaked, especially if I don't have it outside in an extreme climate).

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/da/5e/e3/da5ee3f9a8a510e6b1315a19a90a4439.jpg)

Big problem with using snow for insulation. Heat transfer from hot to cold. Which is slowed by small air pockets in insulation. Even though air is the worst insulator besides snow.