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Geege
I'm planning on pouring a 7x7 concrete pad for a hot tub. I dont know exactly what type of concrete to buy and do i need to re-enforce the 4" of concrete any further. I'm planning on just digging into the ground 4 inches and then filling it up with the concrete. Dont care how it looks because the hot tub will be surrounded by a deck and you wont see the bottom.
Answer
My brother and I did this two years ago for his "tubby" in the California Sierra Nevada foothills
We went down to clay (3"), put down an inch of pea-gravel, put up a 2x4 pour frame, suspended wire mesh at half-depth, poured the concrete, screeded and finished the surface
That has lasted just fine for two icy and snowy winters with a FULL tubby. We plan to do the deck this winter, since we have had other projects sucking away money (barn and fencing, irrigation, and a swamp-cooler).
Good Luck !!
My brother and I did this two years ago for his "tubby" in the California Sierra Nevada foothills
We went down to clay (3"), put down an inch of pea-gravel, put up a 2x4 pour frame, suspended wire mesh at half-depth, poured the concrete, screeded and finished the surface
That has lasted just fine for two icy and snowy winters with a FULL tubby. We plan to do the deck this winter, since we have had other projects sucking away money (barn and fencing, irrigation, and a swamp-cooler).
Good Luck !!
Is it more energy saving to turn your hot tub down a few degrees after use?
Kastle
I use my hot tub at 102, but I turn it down to like 98 after use. I use it once or twice a week, and just go out 15 min. before use and turn it up. I wonder if the energy usage is less to heat it up a couple times a week, rather than the energy to maintain it the whole week?
BTW- It is a newer hot tub so I think it's pretty insulated.
Answer
If you use it a couple times a week, then I assume there are three days or so between uses. The best way to save energy would be to turn off the heat between uses, and turn it on a few hours before you need it. I don't know if your unit has some sort of standby mode that recirculates the water from time to time to keep it fresh -- so hopefully this won't cause problems.
If you want to, you can turn it off and check the temperature every hour for a few hours, and then again the next morning and plot it on a graph. Initially the heat loss will be linear, then it will become a curve, cooling off slower as it approaches the outdoor temperature. You can then calculate the energy loss per day. To do this you also need to know how many gallons the spa holds. For example, assume it held 250 gallons or 947 liters. Lets assume that unheated, it loses 1 degree an hour. In one day it would lose 24 degrees. Then we could do the following:
(947 liters * 1kg/Liter * 4.168kJ/KgC * 24degrees) / (3600 kJ/kWH) = 26kWh . If you use electricity, this would cost 26kWh * 12 cents/kWh = $3.15. ( 12 cents is a guess. I have no idea what your electric rate is). This would indicate that you are spending about $3 a day to maintain the temperature and keep it hot, or about $90/month. If you live somewhere warm, perhaps it doesn't cool off this fast, and maybe it is only costing you half that a month.
If you use natural gas, your cost is about a third of using electricity to generate that many kWh.
If you were to program it to have two hot days a week, you would save a substantial amount of money. Lowering it just a few degrees won't make that much of a difference. It will reduce the temperature differential, and therefore slow down the heat loss, but not by very much. If you look at your graph, dropping 4 degrees is still likely on the linear (straight line portion), meaning that you won't notice much because the rate of heat loss is constant in that range. As you approach the temperature outdoors (the curved part of the graph), it will take much longer to cool down a degree because the temperature differential is small.
ok, enough science.
The answer to your question is that it will definitely use less energy to heat it when needed, than to suffer the standby losses, but if you really want to cut some costs and know there are certain days it never gets used, consider letting it get cold and setting up a timer so that you can have it hot on a schedule. Also, if you are using electricity, consider gas. Gas gives you more energy per dollar for heating than electricity does.
If you use it a couple times a week, then I assume there are three days or so between uses. The best way to save energy would be to turn off the heat between uses, and turn it on a few hours before you need it. I don't know if your unit has some sort of standby mode that recirculates the water from time to time to keep it fresh -- so hopefully this won't cause problems.
If you want to, you can turn it off and check the temperature every hour for a few hours, and then again the next morning and plot it on a graph. Initially the heat loss will be linear, then it will become a curve, cooling off slower as it approaches the outdoor temperature. You can then calculate the energy loss per day. To do this you also need to know how many gallons the spa holds. For example, assume it held 250 gallons or 947 liters. Lets assume that unheated, it loses 1 degree an hour. In one day it would lose 24 degrees. Then we could do the following:
(947 liters * 1kg/Liter * 4.168kJ/KgC * 24degrees) / (3600 kJ/kWH) = 26kWh . If you use electricity, this would cost 26kWh * 12 cents/kWh = $3.15. ( 12 cents is a guess. I have no idea what your electric rate is). This would indicate that you are spending about $3 a day to maintain the temperature and keep it hot, or about $90/month. If you live somewhere warm, perhaps it doesn't cool off this fast, and maybe it is only costing you half that a month.
If you use natural gas, your cost is about a third of using electricity to generate that many kWh.
If you were to program it to have two hot days a week, you would save a substantial amount of money. Lowering it just a few degrees won't make that much of a difference. It will reduce the temperature differential, and therefore slow down the heat loss, but not by very much. If you look at your graph, dropping 4 degrees is still likely on the linear (straight line portion), meaning that you won't notice much because the rate of heat loss is constant in that range. As you approach the temperature outdoors (the curved part of the graph), it will take much longer to cool down a degree because the temperature differential is small.
ok, enough science.
The answer to your question is that it will definitely use less energy to heat it when needed, than to suffer the standby losses, but if you really want to cut some costs and know there are certain days it never gets used, consider letting it get cold and setting up a timer so that you can have it hot on a schedule. Also, if you are using electricity, consider gas. Gas gives you more energy per dollar for heating than electricity does.
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Title Post: do i need any re-bar or other support for laying a concrete pad for a 7x7ft 6 person hot tub?
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Rating: 92% based on 9172 ratings. 4,3 user reviews.
Author: Unknown
Thanks For Coming To My Blog
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