Always shock your spa first time around!

We had a customer in the shop today which has prompted this small article.

They recently purchased a spafrom another local companywhich was delivered and installed about one month ago. They were given a chemical starter kit which contained all the essential pool / spa chemicals required and shown how to use it.

The spa had clearly been sitting around in a warehouse forquite some timeand had been water tested by the manufacturer before it left the factory. What happens with spas and hot tubs in this situation is that water gets retained within the pipework from the water test and can develop some bugs / algae / etc.

The customer filled the spa up and just started using a normal dose of chlorine without shocking it first and as such the entire family (and some friends!) have come out in horrible boils, spots and rashes ALL over their bodies. One of their girls is said to have over 1,000 spots all over her body. Upon going to the doctors they were told it was caused by the water.

The mistake here was that you must always ensure you flush through you pipe work with a shock chlorine in the water on the first time youfill a spa / hot tub to ensure that all the nasty bugs have been killed! Only once it has been shocked should you then start you chlorine / bromine treatment and finally climb in!

Shock chlorine is readily available in granular or liquid form - it's not worth risking it.