Rental of a hot tub?

mygirlsrveryloud

Hi Where do I stand on this one please?
I hired a mini hot tub for the kids over Easter. The website shows the temperature reaches 40 degrees. over a maximum period of 36 hours. I am still waiting for the tub to reach over 30 degrees after 72 hours I have contacted the owner daily, he keeps telling me to put hot water in??? Surely this is the pumps job???

What I really want to know is can I ask for my money back and or who should I contact next regarding this?
Many thanks

pinky2681

i think you need to add hot water or it takes ages to get warm. try adding hot water, if it still doesnt do as it says you should be able to get your money back

ThumbRemote

pinky2681, the OP clearly said "the website shows the temperature reaches 40 degrees. over a maximum period of 36 hours" and "I am still waiting for the tub to reach over 30 degrees after 72 hours"

It clearly doesn't do as is stated. Contact the owner and request they bring a replacement, or take it away and give a full refund.

(You may need to be assertive about this. Don't let them have the hot tub back until they give you the refund!)

Oliver14

Agree with Thumbremote.

Am I the only one who thinks the thought of hiring a hot tub is a bit icky with all the previous bodies that have been in it? ewww

Ich_2

That can be only part of the specification, to prove it faulty you also need to know other info like initial temperature of the water and the outside air temperature

paddyrg

Guaranteed? That would be a silly thing to guarantee if they did, as they have no control over where or how you have installed the unit (eg in the garden uncovered vs indoors, covered). Problem is the hotter something gets, the faster it cools down, so reaching 40 is much harder than reaching 36!

All that said, a useful test will be to see if the heating element is on continuously or not. If it is, then the problem may be atmospheric, if it is off/on all the time, then the thermostat is faulty/set incorrectly.

But - 40 is actually unpleasantly hot if you're sitting in there for a while, they probably wouldn't spend much time in it in fact! Perhaps the owners suggestion of the odd kettle top up now and again if needed is actually a good plan so you control the temperature more accurately?!

ThumbRemote

Ich wrote: »

That can be only part of the specification, to prove it faulty you also need to know other info like initial temperature of the water and the outside air temperature

paddyrg wrote: »

Guaranteed? That would be a silly thing to guarantee if they did, as they have no control over where or how you have installed the unit (eg in the garden uncovered vs indoors, covered). Problem is the hotter something gets, the faster it cools down, so reaching 40 is much harder than reaching 36!

I think both of these points are clutching at straws. If we were in the Arctic circle and the OP was throwing lumps of ice into the hot tub, there might be a valid point. But the hot tub was hired in the UK in March; if it was incapable of reaching the advertised temperature this should have been made clear to the OP before they hired it.

Oliver14 wrote: »

Am I the only one who thinks the thought of hiring a hot tub is a bit icky with all the previous bodies that have been in it? ewww

I can't see its any different to using a public swimming pool, a bath in a hotel room, or anything similar.

System

I think this post helps demonstrate the improvement in the social demographic of the people who use this site. Normal posts revolve around primark, McDonald's, tesco etc. Now we've moved onto "my hot tub isn't hot enough". It's a great day for the forum

mygirlsrveryloud

Thanks for all ur comments...Yesterday I emptied a third of the tub and using my combi boiler added hot water to get a respectable temmperature of 37. This slowly cooled to 33. I wake up now to find it back at 30!!! the pump is on continuously, so although I have benefited from using it, again it is back at the 30 degree mark??? Rather annoyed now.

paddyrg

mygirlsrveryloud wrote: »

Thanks for all ur comments...Yesterday I emptied a third of the tub and using my combi boiler added hot water to get a respectable temmperature of 37. This slowly cooled to 33. I wake up now to find it back at 30!!! the pump is on continuously, so although I have benefited from using it, again it is back at the 30 degree mark??? Rather annoyed now.

30 degrees is a pretty poor show, I agree. I know it has been rather cold overnight (the radio said frost was likely, so actually quite biting!), so that may explain it, but if the ELEMENT (different from pump, although probably connected somehow) is on full-time, perhaps it is simply not powerful enough for the job (or at least doing the job at this time of year).

Can you find the label on it saying the power consumption? Probably near where the cable comes out. It will have a number with a W after it (eg 800W, 2400W) which describes how powerful the element (plus allow a bit for the pump) is. For heating and maintaining a large body of water over a near-freezing night, no matter how well covered, I'd expect it to be a pretty big value. The same label may also give the capacity of the water in the pool in liters, be interesting to see what it is

Darksun

Do you have a properly fitted cover for it? Also, might be a silly question, but what do you have the setpoint on the hot tub at, since it doesn't seem to be maintaining the temperature at anything over that 30 degrees are you sure it's not accidentally been set to that? 38 would be the recommended setpoint, 40C could lead to hyperthermia