Hot Tubs 101

Matt Giovanisci: 00:00

Everyone. And welcome to hot tubs 101 by Swim University, where we help you keep your hot tub clean and clear all year. My name is Matt, and I'm the founder of swimuniversity.com. And on this episode, we're talking about how much chlorine you add to your hot tub, or how much chlorine you should add to your hot tub. Let's dive in.

Matt Giovanisci: 00:32

Real quick. If you want more help taking care of your hot tub, be sure to grab our free hot tub cheat sheet at swimu.com/spa sheet. Now to keep your hot tub water sanitized, your chlorine levels need to be at around 3 parts per million. Anything much higher can cause skin and eye irritation and corrode your hot tub services. And anything much lower means that your water isn't sanitary.

Matt Giovanisci: 00:54

Unfortunately, it's easy to overdose your hot tub with too much chlorine, so knowing how much chlorine to add depends on the size of your spa. So how much chlorine do you need to add each week? As a general rule for weekly maintenance, you wanna add a half a teaspoon of chlorine for every 100 gallons of water, and I'm talking about torn core chlorine granules. That means for a 500 gallon hot tub, you'll need to add about 2 and a half teaspoons of chlorine granules each week. If your chlorine is at 0 parts per million or you're batting battling an issue like, cloudy water, then you'll want to super chlorinate the water by adding a double dose.

Matt Giovanisci: 01:32

So for a 5 500 gallon hot tub, you'll add about 5 teaspoons of granules. That's a little over 1 and a half tablespoons. So here's, just a quick reference. Alright. A quarter cup, and you can just use an assistant for this.

Matt Giovanisci: 01:50

A quarter cup is about 2 ounces, an eighth of a cup is about 1 ounce, a tablespoon is about a half ounce, and a teaspoon is about a 6th of an ounce. Now, by the way, these recommendations are based on using a concentrated formula of sodium dichlorchlorine granules. The packaging should say it contains at least 99% of sodium dichloroestrizenetrione, aka aka Sodium Dichlor. But you should see it. You'll see it.

Matt Giovanisci: 02:24

Sodium Dichlor will be the first thing on the UC. So what about the other types of chlorine? Well, we recommend that you use chlorine granules because they're fast dissolving, and they can add directly to your water, and you can control the dosage, and it's easy to manage your water chemistry this way. But there are 2 other options. You can use chlorine tablets or you could use liquid chlorine.

Matt Giovanisci: 02:43

Now chlorine tablets are slow dissolving and are added to your chlorinator or a floating dispenser. You'll see those more often. If it's a it's a it's a it's a more hands off way to keep your water constantly sanitized, but it's a really it's really easy to over chlorinate your water, especially if it's in one of those floaters. And chlorine tablets are acidic, which can affect your pH levels. For weekly maintenance, you'll just need to add 1 to 3 chlorine tablets for a 500 gallon hot tub.

Matt Giovanisci: 03:14

And just be sure to adjust the dispenser settings on your floater or chlorinator. Now these are little little tablets. Not the ones you find in for your pool, but a little 1 inch tablet. Okay? There's also liquid chlorine, and it only takes 1 to 2 ounces of liquid chlorine to sanitize a 500 gallon hot tub.

Matt Giovanisci: 03:31

That's about a quarter cup or less. But each formula of liquid chlorine has different concentrations, so you'll wanna test after each dose. In the end, I think, you know, chlorine granules are just the easiest and most accurate way to keep your chlorine levels balanced. Just keep in mind that chlorine granules contain cyanuric acid or what's known as CYA or stabilizer. This helps protect your chlorine from breaking down in direct sunlight.

Matt Giovanisci: 03:58

So if you have an indoor hot tub, you don't wanna use these chlorine granules. In fact, you should probably use bromine instead of chlorine, if you have an indoor hot tub. Okay. So here's how to add chlorine granules to your hot tub. Make sure you know how many gallons your hot tub holds.

Matt Giovanisci: 04:14

And because you're dealing in such small quantities, important to have the right measuring tools, like a kitchen measuring cup, a tablespoon, and a teaspoon. And don't put these things back in your kitchen. Keep them by your hot tub. These are your hot tub measuring containers, measuring tools. Alright.

Matt Giovanisci: 04:29

Number 1 is you wanna get the water ready. So you wanna keep your jets on low, and you wanna turn all the air valves off. Your water should be circulating, but you don't wanna add too much air because that can affect your water chemistry. And you wanna make sure that your water is heated to at least 85 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 30 degrees Celsius, to help those chemicals dissolve. Then you're gonna test your water chemistry.

Matt Giovanisci: 04:49

You wanna test and balance your alkalinity levels and then your pH levels, if you need to. Both of these will affect your chlorine's ability to sanitize the water, so you wanna make sure they're in range before adding chlorine. For testing, I recommend using test strips because, look, they're quick, 100 Now you Keep Now