The Itchy Skin Mystery

Being in the hot tub industry, I get a lot of questions from friends and acquaintances about their hot tubs. The questions are usually pretty easy to answer, and it’s nice to be able to help them out.

A couple of months ago, I was at a dinner party at a long-time friend’s house and noticed their hot tub appeared to be in a state of un-use. I knew the owners were pretty avid athletes, so I had to wonder why they wouldn’t be using their hot tub. A well-timed question revealed the story:

“We love the hot tub, but we just can’t keep the water chemistry straightened out. After a while, my husband gets irritated skin and we have to drain and refill the tub,” she said. I probed a bit further and she added, “The water always stays clear, we add chlorine and make sure the sanitizer levels are good, but still, the water irritates his skin.”

“What about water balance?” I asked.

She replied, “We have well water that’s really good, so we don’t worry about that.”

I casually took a sample of their water home with me to do some testing. There, the rest of the story unfolded: pH: 6.8, TA: 60, Hardness: 350. “Okay, now we have something to work with,” I thought. Low pH and TA can irritate the skin, so the first order of business was to get those levels up.

The other thing I wanted to address was the use of chlorine as the primary sanitizer. While it can be done, it’s not easy to administer, as you have to add chlorine every day to maintain a 3-4ppm level. I had an easier solution.

Back at their house a couple of days later, we spoke about their water and why I thought they were having a problem. After laying out what was likely causing their issue, they were excited to be out filling up the hot tub again. I brought a compliment of Cleanwater Blue products with me since it’s by far the easiest sanitizer system to maintain and didn’t require chlorine.

Once the tub was full, we carefully followed the instructions on the included startup guide. Since we had a couple of hours to burn while the Cleanwater Prep did its magic of removing excess calcium from the water, we had time for a bicycle ride.

Back at the tub a while later, it was time to remove and clean the filter. My friends noticed the filter appeared to be particularly full of calcium as I was rinsing it with the garden hose. “Don’t worry, that’s just the excess calcium the Cleanwater Prep removed from your water.”

The last step was to add Cleanwater Blue and let the tub finish heating. I left them instructions to shock the water with Oxy-Spa Non-Chlorine Shock after each use.

The great thing about Cleanwater Blue is they’ll only have to maintain their water every two weeks. It’s as simple as testing water balance, adding Cleanwater Blue Sanitizer, and adding a bit of Cleanwater Purge, which acts as a stain and scale inhibitor. That’s it!

I’m very happy to report that 3 months on, my friends could not be happier with their hot tub. They’re back to using it daily to soothe sore muscles, with zero skin issues and crystal clear water.

Happy people hot tubbing, it’s what makes this job so rewarding.