I got an 2002 Grandee with a leak inside her somewhere. Is their any good way to remove the side slats of the cabinet or should I just carve it out from the bottom.

Thanks

Fill it while on blocks if possible and dig from underneath if it can be done safely. Did it freeze and is now leaking? If not, is it coming from the right corner next to the motor compartment?

If it is coming from the rightside corner then it may just be the air intake valve that is located inside the motor compartment. If it fails it dumps water out through a discharge line located over there. If this is the case the valve is located in the upper righthand corner of the motor compartment. It has 2 3/4" lines and 1 1/4" line connected to it. There is a retro-fit valve that replaces it if needed.

As Dan said, it could need the upgrade for the warm air induction. It's called a Hartforf Loop Kit. Water usually comes out near the exit point of the ducting for the pump motors.
Could be a bleedline to one of the motojet compartments. I'd go through the side if it's the motojet bleedline.
We use a blue food grade dye and add to the water. Some of the foam will hold the color and we can trace back a leak fairly easily.

Thanks guys. This thing weighs about 2 tons ..........I'll let you know what I find but it may be awhile.

Hey I could use a plumbing schematic if anyone has access to them. The Serial # is Gq3c1167 . Think it's 02 Grandee. My fax # is 770-717-0025

Thanks

Ok....... guys hears the up date on the 02 Grandee Jetsetter. The leak turned out to be a factory glue joint leak on the right side. It was a 1.5" x 1/2" 6 port manifold about mid back of the seat. Bag glue joint on 1/2" line.


Ok somewhere I read on this site that some peeps could easily do A full foam repair like this in around 2 hrs. I beg to differ. Lets break this particular repair down. Most spa service men work by them self's. I'm mean after all who is going to send five guys out in a truck every time someone calls in with a leak on their spa ? OK so how many guys is it going to take to lift an empty spa safely weighing 1000 lbs dry? Hummm.......better rethink the weight? How about we add 500lbs more due to absorbing of 50 gallons of water into the foam which acts like a sponge. That's fifteen hundred pounds ? Maybe we could drain it and let it sit for three or four months so it can dry out lessening it 500 pounds. Who really wants to wait that long ? It's not like your going lift it from the top now is it ?.Happens to be sunk into a deck. Well time to get a few guys on their bellies with pry bars and 2x4 wedges to crawl and squeeze around under a deck. They have to pry each corner a few inches at a time raising it 10" just to be able to get two ton jacks under it to lift it out of the hole. Have you ever tried to push 1500lbs across a deck? Best analogy I could come up with would be like trying to lift a sitting elephant. Even with four or five guys it a pretty tough job. Just to get it to this point working really hard took us four hours. This thing was a beast. The actual repair of the spa took and additional 16 hrs to complete properly. Two garbage bags of wet foam had to be removed and replaced. It took 1.5 hrs just to prep, refit and clean the damaged area properly. Another few hours just to fill it and retest before re-foaming it. How much did cost to re-foam 4 cubic feet ? I guess I could have saved a few bucks and stuffed all that wet foam back into the hole and sealed it with a can of tough stuff. I don't think anyone probably would noticed all the mildew down the road. A repair like this can make a big mess in someone's back yard which is going to take more time to clean up unless you just really don't car and expect the guy who paid you to fix it is going to clean it up. Granted it only cost about $85.00 in parts and foam to make the repair. But to do it properly and safe over all it took us about 20 hrs. I've passed up many full foam repairs like this one. It's not a one in a million type of situation. It happens all the time. Not to everyone but to some.

Lets see........... thirty bucks for gas, eighty five in parts equals $ 115.00 subtracted from $ 200.00 equals $85.00 divided by five guys gives us each $17.00 to make this repair. I guess that's not a bad wage being we are in the south. Bubba is going to use it to finish off 1/8 of his tattoo. BillyBob is going to buy a twelve pack of beer with his. Johnboy said he could afford some diapers for his newborn now. Tyrone is going to buy a new pair of shoes. I'm going to save mine so I can pay the bank fees when the check bounces.

Point here being is if you have a deep leak in you full foam spa it could cost you some bucks to get it fixed. And to have some sales person who sells full foam spa's tell you that they are cheap to fix could be misleading you. Especially if it's a non type of warranty repair. " freeze damage/rodent infestations"

Last time I called HS in my area on this spa for repairs they wanted $2500.00 . Pickup and in-house repair only

I hear ya Pork

I'm guilty of saying it's not that big a deal, but I don't have to lift 'em out of holes in decks to gain proper access. We can usually locate a leak within an hour, prep for 30 minutes, repair in about 30 minutes, and re-assemble in an hour.

It's rare that it takes much longer, but it does occasionally. We usually don't need to lift them- will just pull off the sides while still full. Lifting and putting on blocks adds several hours and trips.
Glad you got it fixed

[/b][/b][/b]
95% of your problem of getting the hot tub repaired easily was sinking the hot tub into the deck...for something that is expected to be a relatively temporary 'luxury' that idea is completely rediculous in my mind. Did you expect the tub to last 50 years???

First of all it costs a ton more to build the tub into the deck...

Secondly, most people don't plan on ever having to service the tub properly...it's like building a corvette into a deck so you can't open the hood (a corvette that runs 24 hrs a day)! You are already asking for trouble.

Third...your whole argument about the time it takes to fix it revolves arouns the rediculous installation that you put it into.

Fourthly...if you built a non-foamed tub into your deck you would have had just as many problems getting it out except you would have spent a ton more in electrical costs over the years to add to your misery.

It's not one in a million as you correctly state...but to the same tune
it does not happen all the time...

Hopefully you have fixed the tub and did not put it back into that deck.

First of all this is not my tub. I bought from a client who rarely used it and didn't want to pay HS $ 2500.00 to do the repair. I repaired the tub and sold it to another person. This guy got a really nice used tub at a really good price. I actually like the spa. Where I live most people have wood decks. 60% of the spas I see are sunk into a deck. In Florida everything is flat so I'm guessing there are a lower percentage of in-deck installations. "Lucky for Swine" LOL.

"quote" Dan.the.spa.man says ,

Third...your whole argument about the time it takes to fix it revolves around the ridiculous installation that you put it into. "end quote"

Dan, I have read allot of your post over time. You seem to always be willing to help anyone whit their HS problems. I even think I've read some post where other HS dealers didn't seem to care and you came to their customers rescue via this board. I have met 100's of spa sales men and can tell you that your a rare breed. You see I could walk into any given spa showroom and mention that I want to buy a new spa and sink it into my deck. I guarantee you most salesmen aren't going to sit down with me and express that where I put my tub my incurs more service cost down the road if the unit was to break. Their certainly not going to explain what's not covered under warranty given any certain situation. I'm sure they will be more then eager to tell me what is covered in the event something could happen. Their not going to bring any type of negativity to a closing table. Their simply going to just going to make the sale and don't really care what you do with it once you have paid for it. As a professional service person this is where we run into allot of problems with installations. It's always after the fact. So personally I didn't put anyone into any wrong situation.

If the customer had put a non-foam spa into the deck it defiantly would have been easier just due to the weight involved with the full foam spa.

If I lived where it was warm most the time I wouldn't have a problem with a non foam spa. If I lived up north where it's cold most the time then full foam would be more of an advantage. Anyway the foam in a full foam spa was used for structural integrity to support the laminate. The R value was just a plus. I doubt your going to loose any heat out of the sides anyway. Which boil's everything down to the cover. Last time I looked most spa covers are built similar. Also some manufactures are using different materials now instead of fiberglass for structural support of the laminate these days. Some of these are ceramic based and have pretty impressive R values compared to fiber glass. So I would suggest that most of any spas heat loss is going to go through the cover not so much necessarily the structure. If I would have charged this guy $2500.00 to fix his spa he would have been up side down for quite a few years compared to the region I live in. My ambient water temperature 9 months out of the year is 93 degrees with out using the heater. I have had both type of spa's and can tell you there are savings on the full foam but they only amount to about $ 30.00 a year in my area. I currently have a full foam spa that's about 30 years old now. It's a Leisure Continental brand. Before that I was running an old Leisure Bay non foam.

So it would be better said that 95% of the problems like mine were caused by the guys who sold them.