The Hot Tub

A local friend that I met on Foursquare a LONG time ago we fought for mayorship of may of the local stores and locations in our town, she posted on Facebook that she got in her pool back in late May and I commented to her how the pool temp was, it was "chilly but doable" and and talked about how her new house is going to have one of those pools that flows into a hot tub so it keeps the pool temp up. I told her that I wish i had a hot tub and she told me she needed to get rid of theirs by the end of July so they could move into their new house. I asked her to send me a pic of it because my wife and I would love to have one. We landed on a price that worked for us and I presented my findings to Jen to see if she would be interested in it as much as me. We worked out where we could put it, where it would be nice to put it and where it would be manageable to move a 92"x92"x32" very heavy box into position.

I subscribed to /r/hottub as one does and then started digging into what a Harmony Esteem 8052 was and realized that's just the shell and the jet configuration and started looking into the Balboa VS Spa System Model: VSP-CS5100-YCAH which is just the box that the 22972_E2 motherboard lives in controlled by a 22093_B topside controller. So what all that means is some company, CalSpa who may or may not be in business now one way or another made the shell, slapped in a spa system controller with heat element, a topside panel on the surface of the tub to control it all and put in 2 motors and an ozone generator and a crapload of pvc pipes connected to jets. That's all a hot tub is, not the Harmony Esteem 8052 that's just the name for this configuration. Box full of parts, nothing more.

In computer speak, this is a PC computer case that was pre built at Microcenter, the power supply, motherboard, videocard and the AIO cooler connect to everything and you have the machine. Now that I know how one of these is constructed I got looking into how to get it moved here.

How to move this thing?

I found out there are spa moving companies you can hire and most of them do residential jobs just for consumers in between their big jobs for spa houses selling them at their stores and spa shows. You pay them $200-$500 and the show up with a truck with a lift, a sled and a strong guy to push it around on said sled. I found one that used the word Uber in their name and called them I almost used them but got the runaround. I found another company on Google and hit them up. They asked for the address of both locations (most likely to look on google maps), the dimensions of the gates of both locations and some dimensions for the turns they are going to have to take. We picked a date and waited.

Where to put this thing?

My wife Jen and I looked around our backyard and found 2 places we liked, one on the left side of a crape myrtle tree in our backyard and one on the right side of it. The left is in the sun more so it may weather the box more, may ruin the cover more. The right side was closer to where i wanted the electrical to go to, it was closer to the house and code states the shutoff needs to be pretty close.

680.41EMERGENCY SWITCH FOR SPAS AND HOT TUBS. A clearly labeled emergency shut off or control switch for the purpose of stopping the motor that provides power to the recirculation system and jet system shall be installed at a point readily accessible to the users and not less than 1.5 m (5 ft.) away, adjacent to, and within site of the spa or hot tub.

Good enough for me, I wanna be safe if something bad happens so we went with the right side of the tree for that and a few other reasons.

I contacted a friend that did some landscaping for us a few years ago. I guess it was time to give him more money so I had him come over and look over what we wanted. Our backyard is lower than our neighbors, we live on a hill and our backyard is flat but has a 10' hill at the edge of it. We wanted to see if he could excavate the area and make us a pad with a retaining wall of sorts behind it. Local rules say anything shorter than 3' you can do, so we went with that.

How are we going to power this thing?

I started calling around to a few different electricians, some hate doing residential work or will tolerate it between big high paying jobs and others its their bread and butter. Easy in and out and the gig only take a day or two. I have experience with electricians now since we had one come out and upgrade our service to 200A and then again when we had solar folks come out and install another panel to serve as the protected circuits for our battery backup. Brian came out and talked with me about the electrical, I liked Brian and he had confidence he could get the job done, skilled folks that came out with him and they ran electrical though our attic to our attached garage and then out to where the shutoff should be. From there we had him install an outlet as well as ran low voltage wire so i could install some outdoor lighting in the backyard, good by crappy walmart solar lights. we had a walkway between the house and the hottub and i wanted the electrical ran in the back corner of the tub to be out of the way. Our goal was to put the tub so the serviceable parts are in the front so he would run wire to that spot in flex conduit.

Moving this heavy thing

I met the movers at my friends house and they tilted the hot tub on its side, put it on a flat but flexible piece of $500 plastic and pulled the thing like a dog sledding team out to the truck. We met at my house and they did the reverse to get it to my gate. Wow these guys are prepared, they brought our 2x4s and used some bricks I had laying around and made a ramp to slide the thing down the 2 steps to my back yard. I asked them to put the hot tub so the pump and electical were on one side and that the tubs top faced the wall so I can do any repairs on the bottom side of it. The whole thing including drive time took an hour. Before they placed the tub into position I had them put it on moving blankets I bought from Harbor Freight mainly to protect the side of the tub so it doesn't chip if we needed to scoot it around a bit.

Constructing an oasis

Our landscape guy came out and cut out the hillside then build the retaining wall and side walls for the tub, we figure you can use these to get in the tub so we don't need steps. Next he left the area where the pad so the electrician can come out and run his conduit to he location I specified. They did that and stubbed up both sides to come back later. With that done they mixed and poured the pad and repaired the sidewalk that needed to be cut to accommodate the trench that the electrician did.

Repairing 25 years of water damage

Like I said in the opening paragraphs, the "CalSpa Harmony Esteem 8052" is just the tub shell and some wood under it holding it up along with all of the PVC piping and the spray foam around the jets. Knowing that I focused in on the structure of the hot tub. It looks like it did have some leaks at some point. I bought this hot tub knowing it worked at some point but also knowing it hasn't been used in a few short years. I removed the black underside of the hot tub that was stapled onto the wood frame and rolled it up and used a bungie cord around it and stored it. I inspected the corners of the unit looking for water damage which there was a lot of in 2 of the 4 corners. I removed the 3 panels I could access and the corner panels that go around each one. This is made from a tongue and groove siding stapled cheaply on some carpet nail strips. Once all of those were off repaired any damage to them. I then looked at the corners, I began cutting out the affected areas with a sawzall and using those cutouts to make templates using some wood I had in my woodshop to replace the corner pieces. The hot tub frame is just 2x4s joined with nails and staples and the wood sits on the black underside which sits on the ground. The panels are connected to one another with those carpet nail strips and those panels are screwed into the frame of the hottub for easy removal. I had to drill out some of the screws so I ended up using coated wood screws which should not get rusty outside. They also use a T-25 bit which means they will have a better time of not stripping.

Document Everything

With the wood working project done I then started taking pics and writing up a note in my notes app titled Hot Tub with the hashtags #house #hottub so I can find them later in my Forever ✱ Notes note taking system. I included these headings:

Shell
Harmony Esteem 8052

Controller
Balboa VS spa system  22972_E2
Model: VSP-CS5100-YCAH [manual] [service manual]
Topside panel Balboa 22093_B

Ozone Generator
DEL Industries, Inc. SLO, CA 
Z0-301  Ozone Generator 110-120V - 40A • 48W • 80Hz

Heating Unit
HTR 5.5KW TITANIUM M7 STUD 2x2IN flow through metal tube
5.5kw 240v Heater Element

Motors
flo-master XP 06525488 with Pump

I'd imagine as I go on I'll add in the jets, light and other items as well. I'll update this posts as I do more things, this post is for me and if you get any benefit from it then thats awesome.

Making it pretty

I removed all the panels and then sanded them and painted them a nice color that goes with the walls of its new home as well as our house. I put it back together so we can move it into place since I'd imagine these panels could add some stability and structural integrity to the hot tub. At least I hope so.

Moving it into place

I scheduled a time for a few friends and family to come over and drink my beer and help me move this thing. With the electrical stubbed out, the pad and retaining wall done and cured we moved the hot tub into place. I bought a few items in prep for this but the main one that did it for us was Forearm Lifting Straps from Harbor Freight. My son and his friend both played football back in the day they came over with a friend of mine and we moved it out, rotated the tub so the serviceable parts were at the bottom and then moved it into place using the PVC rolling method of the egyptians. Not my video but like this but on brick and concrete. Once moved into place we used the straps again this time tied together and tilted down the hot tub into its spot.

Wiring and filling it up

I called the electrician and set a time to have him come out and run his wiring to the tub along and into the Balboa controller. With that done I filled the tub using 2 hoses, one from our pool and another from the tap. This let me have chlorinated water in the tub without fussing with anything and twice as quick pulling from 2 sources. I removed 2 of the panels so i can watch for leaks and I turned the hot tub on for the first time the jets worked and things started moving. Sadly it started leaking in a few places under the tub.

YouTube University

As I continued my journey in YouTube University to get my hot tub owners degree I watched a few videos from the experts on how to deal with leaks. Remember a hot tub is only a shell, jets, hoses and pvc with spray foam for insulation and all of that attached to motors and a heating element. Knowing that, I learned of an easy fix first with Fix-a-Leak and watching some videos on how to use it Fix a Leak: The Ultimate Solution for Pool and Spa Leaks | Sealing Holes Permanently. I'd say this is a good first step. Maybe it's a pinhole leak and this can fix it? I was also getting an error and the cutoff breaker was tripping. Doing some digging i found it was the heating element that failed. Not wanting to spend a bunch of the HTR 5.5KW TITANIUM M7 STUD 2x2IN flow through metal tube and ended up replacing the heating element inside it. 5.5kw 240v Heater Element which is much cheaper and dead simple to do. I emptied the hot tub into the pool using our submersible pump and started on the repair. Sadly my hot tub doesnt have traps on either side of the motors so I have to empty it out to do any repairs like this. Remove the tube, remove the heating element, put a new one in with new screws and gaskets on either side and fired it up.

Boom, its producing heat and not tripping the breaker. Since this unit is a 220V it heats up in about 3 hours give or take. We have a AmbientWeather weather station at that also has pool float temp sensor that I moved to the hot tub so i could track its progress 🤓.

That night Jen and I got to go in the hot tub and it was well worth the effort getting to this point. Our daughter also got to get in later that night. She turned off the jets and set the temp to 90º and closed the lit and then trouble came.

WTH is that noise?

Through the night the tub stayed on keeping it hot and did its cycles to move the water around periodically. At some point in the night when we were asleep the #1 motor started making noises, almost like an electric fog horn.

Electrical Noise

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I feel like this started happening in the morning or the neighbors would have come over to complain at night. Either way the fog horn noise I think was coming from the pump motor 1 which runs first to move the water around. I turned off the breaker, turned it back on and press temp to get to the part where the motor fires up and it makes this REALLY LOUD NOISE. Fun!

What's next?

My first attempt to fix this is to replace the capacitor(s) on the pump and maybe the motor bearings or pump seal. But we'll start with the cheapest option first the caps.

That does it for now. I'll add more to this living document as I learn more and do more with this hot tub.

Todo List

• ESP32 Balboa Spa wifi controller
  WiFI Enable your Balboa SPA using a ESP32 module connected to your spa controller using rs485 interface to Balboa SPA Controller.
  • Hourly tracking of hot tub temperature for 24 hours
  • Daily tracking of heater on time in seconds. Keeps 24 days of history
  • Daily Tracking of filter on time in seconds. Keeps 24 days of history
  • Home Assistant Integration
• Repair Leaks
• Easy on and off side panels, what fasteners to use
• Home Assistant optimizing heating during sunny times of day to leverage solar energy intake
• Learning and optimizing water care