Our hot tub uses 1300kwh per month!!! Yes, that is in addition to our regular household useage... and yes I have compared it with bills/useage from previous month/years. Needless to say I am ready to drain it, push it of the deck, and have a large, ozone depleting bonfire Any ideas on what the problem is? Here is the background ... The hot tub is a 2002 Coleman Tahoe 107. It has two pumps and runs from a 50amp 220 circuit. My brother-in-law gave it to us last summer - he kept it filled but didn't use it a whole lot due to lack of time. Once we picked it up, ran the electrical, and bought a new cover for it - we fired it up, but it would only run for about 30 seconds before tripping the GFI... so I opened up the control unit and discovered the heating tube was leaking on top where the heating elements come through because they were rusted out, so I ordered and replaced the heating element with a 5.5kw element (similiar to the element being replaced). The tub then ran fine and heated up fine. The first month's bill showed an increase of 1300 Kwh on my power bill - so we adjusted some settings, used Economy mode with 3 filter cycles per day, and used the hot tub only a few times the last two months but the energy useage is still around 1300 Kwh more per month. My brother-in-law said his highest bill was only an additional $40 per month. Any ideas...my only guesses are the heating element is messed up or the cover really isn't doing its job or it's something else.
Any and all suggestions are welcome...we are really at our wits end with this thing.

kW=Heat, so you're losing heat somewhere. There's no reason your tub should be heating almost 10 hours a day. Do you see any steam coming off of it when it's cold out?

No, I don't recall seeing any steam coming off it when it is cold out - however, I will check again tonight...I have noticed that frost accumulates on top of the cover overnight when we have had a frosty evening - I assume this is a good sign. Is it possible heat is escaping throught the sides - if so, how would I go about checking for heat loss from the side?
Thanks for the help.

Is the spa sitting on a deck? Did you brother have it sitting on the ground (concrete pad)? If yes to both, and if the bottom of the spa cabinet is not sealed, it's possible to be losing a tremendous amount of heat through the cracks in the deck.

I have the hot tub on a deck and my brother-in-law also had it sitting on a deck. The only hole in the bottom seal is where the electric comes through ...But now that I think of it the sides of the hot tub had to be removed when we took it off his deck, transported 100 miles, and put it on my deck - I don't think the sides are airtight - perhaps I am loosing some heat from the sides...although it seems like such a large amount that I would visibly notice it at night when it is cold out.

Just an update on the high electricity useage. I took the sides off the tub and replaced the insulation on one side of the cabinet that was missing about half of the white sheet insulation(damaged before transporting the tub). I also plugged 3 holes in the floor of the tub cabinet with spray foam and some insulation. Hopefully these two areas would account for a large amount of heat loss - enough to cause such a large amount of electricity useage ? We shall see. In the meantime, I am open to any other suggestions to fix the problem while I eagerly await the next power bill.

Any update Eric ?

hi

our tub also loses alot of heat during the day, we have it set on economy so it heats up to 38 degrees by 6am, by evening it is down to 33. we are having a new cover fitted soon so im sure that will help but is there anything we can do to insulate the shell ?? we thought about stuffing some roof insulate inside.... would that be a good idea ???

many thanks

sarah