On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 12:14:55 GMT, "Bryan"
wrote:

The cost of luxury in our home is killing our bottom line. We're starting
to look at ways to cut our gas and electric costs. One of our big drains is
our hot tub. Between the 4 of us, someone uses the tub each day of the
week.

I'm wondering what the best plan of attack might be for keeping the hot tub
ready to go and bringing the cost down.

Right now it's set at 103 24/7.
Would it make any difference in cost if I kept it at 100 and turned it up to
103 each afternoon in time for my wife and kids to enjoy the tub each
evening and turned it back to 100 each morning?
It seems like I would be spending as much reheating the tub each day as I
would to keep it at 103 24/7.

What do think and what strategies do you use to keep your hot tub ready to
go while keeping the cost of heating down?

My first comment is that 103F is too hot. It doesn't need to be more
than 100F for a pleasant soak. Regardless, here is how it comes out
for us. We have a 350-gallon Jacuzzi brand tub. The heater is 1,500
watts. We are also on a timed meter which is available at our power
company. Power is 12-cents/KW hour during prime time (9:00 A.M. to
9:00 P.M. weekdays) and 4-cents/KW hour the rest of the time.

Because we don't use the hot tub every day, we run our filter cycle
only one hour twice a day. Normally, it would be two hours twice a
day. We run the filter/heater at 8:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M. each day to
keep in the 4-cents/KW hour window. So it takes 12-cents of
electricity per day during the filter cycles (assuming the heater has
to run the entire time) and let's say another 10-cents per day to keep
it at 100F while being used. That comes out to $6.60 cents per month
worst case. Our nighttime temperatures have been running mostly in
the 20's all winter. A few mornings in the teens.