HorsePower

How in the F@#%@ can one tub that has the same horsepower as another tub be half the price. You will know the difference between constant 5HP motor and "peak" 5HP motor in less than a second if you get in those tubs. Fortunately, most of the ones that BS the horsepower ratings aren't in show rooms and most people that just buy off the internet without trying one first are usually the people that get scammed into buying a hot tub with misrepresented specs. I will blackball any company lying to customers. This is not ethical. They know they are lying and I am not going to put up with it when I hear it. I will not represent companies that I find that are misleading customers about horsepower.

If you just want a bubble bath, then you don't need a powerful hot tub. Know your application before trying to decide on power. For therapeutic reasons you need a different level of power than a tub for parties.

Beware of hot tubs that dont include horsepower and amperage together. A motor might have 5HP but if it requires so many amps that it gets too hot and burns out quickly then its not good.

Make sure all the components or its component systems are UL listed. The most expensive models will usually have this stated on the home page of their websites. They must be registered and it is illegal to post that if it is not true on their website. Many knock offs from China that are imported are not always UL listed.

Remember, 1 horsepower is 746 watts. So, if a tub is 2200 watts and claims it is 5 HP, just look at it again. 1 HP must be able to produce 36 pounds at 1750 rpms) power, equals to the torque X speed. Better engineered motors can deliver more horsepower without using so many amps and wattage because of gear reduction (engineering).

Not all motors of the same horsepower are built the same. Some have high carbon motors. Some have coper windings that are from different grades of copper. Some have thicker enclosures. A general rule, the smaller the motor, the more EMF that is created to do the same thing as a bigger motor that doesn't have to work as hard to do the same work load.

Horsepower Mis-information:

Horsepower related to hot tubs, in my opinion, is intentially misrepresented by many of the companies out there. According to our dictionary... one (1) horsepower (HP) is 746 watts of power.

I noticed different companies have the same power motor and each have a different power than each other. This is why you can't base the power of the hot tub on horsepower alone (peak hp, continuous hp). Some motors are geared up better than others and some require less wattage to give the same peak or continuous horseopower. In the long run, the larger motor will run cooler and won't break down as fast and have lesser problems based on what I have observed.

It's even more complicated to determine HP when you don't know the voltage, amps and efficiency of the motor... but the bottom line you want to make sure the horsepower rating you see on a hot tub is a continuous duty rating. A peak hp rating (PHP) doesn't really mean much to me.

So, it is important to know the continuous duty rating of the motor. This will make the difference between getting something that is powerful and something that is not. Also, models with high continuous duty ratings are way more expensive than cheapers look alike ones. It's really easy to tell if you sit in one.

Horsepower Scams

Horsepower ratings are meaningless when you don't know the wattage and amperage. This is how naive people get suckered.

Horsepower ratings can mean peak horsepower, average horsepower, running horsepower, output horsepower, input horsepower, or even startup horsepower with only bare motor speed. Wattage is usually what tells me how powerful the motor is.

I know I am not over my head on this one. I hired for 80 dollars each for 3 different electrical engineers that reviewed what different companies told me and they all told me that the people selling these hot tubs have no idea what they are talking about when asking them about their motors. It is clear they were just making stuff up to make it sound like they knew. There were only a few companies that actually had a background in electrical engineering. It is sad that people just listen to a sales person and believe they know about the components of the hot tub aside from what is on their website and promotional pamphlet. It seems that the only thing that most sales people are using is the buzz words, "continuous duty and peak power" and that is usually enough for the naive person to think the salesperson knows what he or she is talking about. 99% of the companies use those buzz words to help sell their tub. It's like this is what makes them a sale and now all the companies are saying it. Nonsense.

Some motors are so inefficient that they create so much friction in order to create more water pressure when the motors are so cheaply built that they end up costing someone 50 to 100 dollars extra a month just to use them. So far, not one hot tub sales person has admitted to this except competitors that say this about other people's tubs. If you know the type of motor you are buying, you won't have to pay extra to compensate for energy loss through excess motor friction.

Hot Tub Buyer's Guide

HP Buying Advice:

Most people don't complain about a tub that has at least 1 hp per 5 jets. Anything lower than 0.2 HP can fell too soft and over that maybe too strong for some people. If the tub has 30 jets, it should probably have 6 HP. If it is 5HP and running 30 jets, people can get mislead by the large "5HP" number. It is all relative to the amount of jets. If having 5 jets for each horsepower, about 15 gallons of water should be pushed. If there is more than .2 HP per jet, this is when you get a stronger jet.

Knowing if you bought the wrong hot tub!

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Horsepower