How to Clean a Hot Tub Cover for Effortless Lifting Every Time
Hey, 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. On this episode, we're talking about how to clean your hot tub cover. Let's jump in. Real quick, if you want more help taking care of your hot tub, be sure to grab our free hot tub cheatsheet@swimu.com/spasheet or swimuniversity.com/spasheet.
Matt Giovanisci:So we're gonna show you how to clean Well, I'm gonna tell you how to clean a hot tub cover to make it last longer. Plus, I'll show you or tell you how to keep it dry and mildew free, making it easier to lift on and off your hot tub even if you don't have a hot tub cover lifter. I've cleaned grime and mildew of thousands of hot tub covers and swim spa covers dating back to 1993 in both retail showrooms and in the field. And I've used every cleanser on the market, and here's my exact process that I've always used. It's 4 steps for cleaning a hot tub cover.
Matt Giovanisci:So number 1 is daily hot tub cover care. So as often as needed, brush debris off your hot tub cover with a soft bristle bristled brush. Outdoor covers are wedge shaped, so if you have rain water, that should run off. But if you have snow or if you have leaves, you wanna brush that off and you don't wanna use like a rake or anything hard. Use either your hand if you want, with a glove, or you can use a push broom or a light brush, something that doesn't have very stiff bristles.
Matt Giovanisci:That'll be perfect. Again, we don't wanna gouge the vinyl and void the cover warranty. And so that that's just daily stuff. You just wanna make sure it's it's it's, any debris is is taken off. The other thing you could do, and and this would stop you from having to do this daily, or if you you have a big wind gust or if you have rain or snow, whatever, is and I this is redundant, yes, but they make a hot tub cover for your cover.
Matt Giovanisci:So if you're not gonna use your hot tub for a while and you have the thick, nice cover on your hot tub that you spent a lot of money on because those things are definitely not cheap, I I consider them similar to a lid of a thermos or a lid of a Stanley cup, if you're into that sort of thing. And it's just something that just keeps the heat in, so that it saves energy. Because if you didn't have a cover on your hot tub, well, one, anything at any part of the day can get into your hot tub, and that's not not good. And also, all that steam is evaporating off, you're losing water, you're losing heat and your your hot tub will be constantly running. So yes, they can be expensive.
Matt Giovanisci:You can get a cover that actually fits over your entire hot tub. Sort of like a grill cover for your hot tub. And that will help protect your cover as well, if you wanna go that far. Again, I would only do that if you weren't planning on using your hot tub that often. So there's something you can do there.
Matt Giovanisci:Number 2 is just monthly cover cleaning and drying. Doing a deeper cleaning at least once a week to prevent mold mold growth and other damage is good, but the best thing to do is wait for a warm, sunny day and perform these 4 things. Is it 4? Yes. It's 44 things.
Matt Giovanisci:Four steps. 1, you wanna apply a vinyl cleaner. So you wanna spray the top of the hut now again, this is assuming that your hot tub cover is all wiped down and it's clear of debris. Apply a vinyl cleaner. You just spray the top of the cover.
Matt Giovanisci:They make a, a hot tub cover cleaner spray or a vinyl cleaner. 303 is a very popular product. It's actually for boats. It's a marine thing, but marine, boats have, this hard vinyl that goes on all their seats, and obviously, it gets like damaged by the sun all the time, and so they make great products for this. You don't have to buy specifically something made for a hot tub, although you're it's made for a boat, so it's probably just as expensive.
Matt Giovanisci:So you wanna use a microfiber cloth and wipe or rinse down and clean using the product's instructions. Don't forget the sides. Don't forget the top and the bottom. Don't forget up underneath your cover, you know, where the actual steam is going. And this is the only type of cleaner I would use.
Matt Giovanisci:You I would avoid any cleaners that contain alcohol or detergents, that have an odor, any any oils or silicone, anything like that. I would just avoid it. You could, if you wanted to, wipe down the bottom or the inside of the cover with a cleaning solution of 1 to 10 parts of distilled white vinegar or bleach and warm water. Personally, I would go with distilled white vinegar. You can buy white vinegar, like, at a, a large hardware store that's a stronger white vinegar.
Matt Giovanisci:It's actually made for cleaning and not cooking, but you wanna make sure that it's distilled white vinegar. You don't want rice wine vinegar or white wine vinegar or any other. You want pure white vinegar, because it doesn't have any sugars in it. It shouldn't have sugars in it, but sometimes rice wine vinegar, and white wine vinegar could have some residual sugar left over if it's been fortified. So, yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:Look for distilled white vinegar, and you just add one part to 10 parts of water. So the equivalent of that would be similar to like 1 cup of or 1 cup of distilled white vinegar to 10 cups of warm water. Doesn't have to be hot and I would not use your hot tub water to do this, because your hot tub water contains other things that you just don't want on the cover. So, and again, you're trying to clean it. So you wanna add the solution to a spray bottle if you and then that way you have it.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? And again, just spray the inside of the cover and wipe it off. Make sure it's dry, because you don't want that vinegar dripping back down into the hot tub. And again, I I just don't think you should use bleach because bleach, if you if you do it wrong, you could bleach out the cover and it just causes this like chlorine smell that's not very pleasant. Although, I guess, with white vinegar, it causes a salad dressing smell, but I guess that's more pleasant than bleach.
Matt Giovanisci:And then number 3, you wanna apply a vinyl protectant or conditioner. So this is different than a cleaner. Alright? This will give you an extra dose of UV protection and this only applies to the top of the cover, not the inside of the cover, meaning not the underneath part of the cover that doesn't see the sunlight. And then, the last thing you can do, and is something I've never seen anyone on the internet talk about, but we used to do this all the time in our showroom, when we because, you know, our showrooms, we had like 5 or 6 hot tubs running at a time, and they were all indoors.
Matt Giovanisci:And so the hot tub cover would would soak up all of the moisture coming up from the hot tub and it would get saturated and it would start to get heavy over time. And so whenever there was a really nice sunny day where we had at least 8 hours of direct sunlight, not a cloud in the sky, bluebird day, we would take the cover outside and set it up like, in a pyramid shape or a v shape. Right? Where, you can have it upside down so that it's not the top of the cover, it's the it's the bottom of the cover facing the sun. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:And then you can unzip the cover, there are zippers, and sort of just keep that open and let the sun essentially bake your hot tub cover and release any steam or or moisture that has built up inside of it. Completely dry out the underside of it. And that should help keep the cover light and easy to take on and off your hot tub. And again, I recommend using a UV protectant spray. This will help with just the overall, damage of the material, of the vinyl material and I recommend a product called 303 UV protectant spray.
Matt Giovanisci:It's pretty great. So what about getting rid of odor problems? Because I know that this happens a lot. You might notice a a funky smell coming from your cover. You may even be growing mold or mildew in the cover because as a dirty hot or a dirty spa water evaporates, it affects it infects the inside of your cover.
Matt Giovanisci:Surface mildew can be scrubbed off with a hot tub cover cleaner like we mentioned before, and then treat it with a diluted vinegar with diluted vinegar or bleach solution. Again, I kinda recommend the the vinegar solution, 1 to 10 parts per million. Now, mildew on the underside of the cover may be subdued with a disinfectant spray. However, mold and mildew has made it through the vapor barrier into your foam. You're probably past the point of no return and you will need to replace your cover, which is unfortunate, but that's really only gonna happen for really old covers.
Matt Giovanisci:Now, what kind of disinfectant spray am I talking about? There's this stuff called Microban and it is EPA registered. It kills 99.9% of viruses in 60 seconds. It offers 24 hour protection, etcetera, etcetera. It is unscented, but it deodorizes, prevents mold and mildew on these hard porous surfaces.
Matt Giovanisci:I would not, you know, you could we used to use Lysol. That was another spray. I would only go if you were gonna use Lysol and you can't find this Microban stuff, although it's available, we don't sell it, but it's available on our website. I have a link to it. And, we have a article if you wanna look up, how to clean your hot tub cover on swimuniversity.com.
Matt Giovanisci:You'll find this disinfectant spray. We used to use Lysol, but again, you wanna find the unscented Lysol if you're gonna use anything. K? And it needs to be the spray kind. I believe all yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:Because I have a I have Lysol that's like a a a bath cleaner. It's not aerosol. It's it's a pump spray. You don't want that. You want the aerosol if you can find it because, you want the stuff that can kill 99.9% of germs.
Matt Giovanisci:That's that's mainly what you're looking for. Okay. In addition to cleaning your hot tub, you can help prevent major issues by checking and repairing any damage on a regular basis. Damaged vinyl should be patched immediately you using a vinyl repair kit. Inoperable zippers need to be repaired by a professional unless you know how to do that, but they must also be fixed as soon as possible because water can get in there and infiltrate the foam core if it's left unaddressed.
Matt Giovanisci:Your hot tub cover must all also be allowed to dry out occasionally, which we mentioned before. If you never take off your spa cover, you it you end up short shortening its lifespan. So you wanna pop it off at least monthly if you can, while you're maybe maybe you do this every 3 to 4 months when you're cleaning your hot tub, you know, when you're draining and cleaning. Let it completely dry before putting it back on. And finally, you wanna stay on top of your hot tub water chemistry with weekly testing and balancing and more frequently if your hot tub gets used a lot.
Matt Giovanisci:Balance water keeps your spa from growing bacteria and algae, so your hot tub cover won't be absorbing the bacteria filled moisture. K? So that's essentially how to clean a cover. It's pretty simple. Here's some things I would avoid.
Matt Giovanisci:Again, the best thing you can use if you wanna stay on the cheap to clean your hot tub cover, I highly recommend distilled white vinegar. A one to 10 parts is perfect. Alright. So that means one part, like a small part of white vinegar to 10 parts of warm water. Warm water usually works best.
Matt Giovanisci:And you can find you can add it to a spray bottle. That makes it super simple. Just keep it on hand. Make sure you label it. If you're gonna keep a bottle around and use a soft microfiber cloth, that's perfect.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay? It If the vinegar is diluted at 10 to 1, it's not gonna really have a strong vinegar smell. But again, it dissipates over time, so it shouldn't be a problem. And it's definitely a better smell than bleach. I would avoid using dish soap.
Matt Giovanisci:I've heard people say claim, yeah, you can just use dish soap, diluted 20 to 1. But then you're adding this like layer of film and and it could discolor it and and and again, there's so many different versions of it. I'm I'm not sure which one, so it's I I think it's just best just to avoid it if you can. Again, go with just vinegar. It's perfect.
Matt Giovanisci:It's cheap. It's cheap. People have also said you can use magic erasers on a hot tub cover. No, you can't. No, you can't.
Matt Giovanisci:Alright? Magic erasers are very abrasive. It's like a super super super fine sandpaper. Avoid it anywhere near your hot tub. I'm I'm sorry if you're a huge fan of magic erasers, but avoid them.
Matt Giovanisci:Alright. How do you make a cover shine? Again, you want to use a good quality protectant, not a cleaner. You want to use a cleaner. Again, you can use the diluted vinegar solution or you can buy a vinyl cleaner that's specifically made for hot tubs or in our case, for boats or marine products, which is made by 303 is the name of the company, which I believe is the area code of Colorado or one of the area codes.
Matt Giovanisci:And yeah. So, you also wanna use a protectant. There's a a UV protectant made by the same company, 303, and I recommend doing that because that'll keep your cover looking great, protected from, drying out and just being overall damaged. And this only really applies, honestly, if your hot tub's outside. If you have an indoor hot tub, I wouldn't bother, honestly, because you're not getting, you know, UV light hitting it, which is damaging it.
Matt Giovanisci:But I would clean the underside of the cover, like we talked about and dry it out. How long should these covers last? Well, I've look. You can get a cover to last many, many years. I'm talking like 10 years plus.
Matt Giovanisci:But, typically, I see them last around 5 to 7 years. I've seen them last as little as 1 to 3 years, if it's just getting beat up outside and you're not taking care of it. I've seen it happen. But if you take care of your hot tub cover, which is a it's a pricey thing. They make, you know, they they you know, they're 100 of dollars, you know, and they make ones that are, you know, the vinyl with the foam, and they make different levels of it.
Matt Giovanisci:They get more and more reinforced, so that they don't bend over time. They make them thicker and thicker. They also make covers that are completely made of solid vinyl. Those can be heavy, but hey, they they last for a very long time. So, I would say expect around 5 to 7 years for a standard hot tub cover.
Matt Giovanisci:Treat it right and it will serve you well. So remember, if you need more help with hot tub maintenance, grab our free hot tub cheat sheet at swimu.com/spasheet. And if you found this episode helpful, subscribe for more hot tub maintenance tips on your favorite podcasting app. And when you do, please leave us a review. We'd really appreciate it.
Matt Giovanisci:It will help other hot tub owners just like you find this show. That's it. Thank you. Thanks again, and happy soaking.
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