How to Drain and Refill Your Spa

Have you ever drained and refilled your spa? Ready to try it on your own?

Check out these easy instructions to drain and refill your spa for the clearest hot tub water.

How Many Times Per Year?

Your Hot Spring hot tub is great at keeping itself clean. Whether you use a chlorine, bromine, ozone, or salt water system to purify your spa, you enjoy pristine water, free of contamination, for months on end.

Yet, with every system, you’ll need to drain and refill to change the spa water now and then.

• If you use a traditional chlorine or bromine system, you should change the water in your spa about every three to four months.
• If you use the FreshWater^® Salt Water System, you’ll need to change the water in your hot tub less often – just once a year.

How to Drain Your Spa

Draining your hot tub is a fairly simple process, especially if you placed your spa close to a drain when you installed it. However, it does involve a series of steps that begin with gathering the equipment you’ll need to do the job.

Gather equipment. You’ll need a garden hose long enough to reach from your hot tub to a drain. If you’re the type who always likes to have the perfect tool for a job, invest in a submersible pump. You’ll also need clean rags and a spa shell cleaner.

• First, turn off the power. You don’t want any power at all going to your hot tub.
• Second, drain the water. Use the pump or the drain plug and drain your spa completely. Depending on the size of your spa, it should take around an hour to drain using the hot tub’s drainage spigot or ten minutes to drain with a submersible pump.

It’s good to remember that you don’t have to drain your hot tub all the way. You can leave a little bit of water in the bottom.

To Drain Using the Spigot:

• Turn the spa’s power off at the circuit breaker. You don’t want the pumps or jets to run while there isn’t any water in the spa.
• Next, find your drainage spigot. Your spa model may have two spigots, a primary and an auxiliary spigot. Use the primary spigot to drain most of the water, and then open the secondary spigot to drain the internal bleed lines.
• Attach the garden hose to the spigot, being careful not to cross-thread. The spigot’s threads are plastic and may break if you apply too much force. Run the other end of the hose downhill or on level ground to your drain. If you try to run the hose uphill, you’ll drain some water but not all of it. It’s best to transport the water to an existing drain to avoid damage to your lawn or patio.
• Open the ball valve on your spigot so the water can drain.

To Drain Using a Submersible Pump:

• Turn the power to the spa off at the circuit breaker.
• Place the pump inside the spa.
• If your pump’s outflow hose isn’t long enough to reach a drain, connect it to a garden hose.
• Turn the pump on and let the spa drain.
• When the hot tub is empty, turn off the pump, remove it from the spa, detach the hose, and return it to storage.

Clean Your Empty Spa

Clean your empty spa. Once the water is drained, you can quickly inspect and wash the shell’s interior and remove and clean your spa filters before refilling it.

Fortunately, your spa’s shell is designed to resist dirt and stains, and cleaning it requires no more than a soft, damp rag. Many household cleaners can harm your shell, so check your owner’s manual before using any. When finished, rinse the shell with clean water.

Cleaning your spa’s filters is even easier than cleaning the shell and should be done monthly.

• Remove the cover to the filter compartment.
• Remove any floating items from the compartment.
• Turn the filter retainer handle to unlock the filter and retainer.
• Remove the filter cartridge and retainer.
• Soak your filter in a degreaser, such as FRESHWATER^® spa filter cleaner, according to package instructions.
• Rinse the filter clean with a garden hose, spraying from all angles to ensure you’ve washed away all debris.
• Replace the filter and lock the handle. Do not over-tighten.

How to Refill Your Spa

You can refill your hot tub by putting the hose in the spa and turning on the water. If you choose this method, you might accidentally stumble into a pitfall: an airlock.

An airlock is an air bubble that gets trapped inside your hot tub’s plumbing as it’s being filled with water. One or more air bubbles can cause the spa to work improperly and could damage the jet and circulation pumps if you run them with air inside. Air bubbles are relatively simple to remove, although the best method varies based on the spa model. If unsure, contact us for information on how best to remove them.

To prevent air bubbles from forming during refilling, you need to fill the spa from the correct fill pipe instead of putting the hose directly into the spa shell. With some spas, for example, inserting a hose into the hollow standpipe beneath the filter is correct.

Your owner’s manual will tell you exactly where to find the fill pipe in your spa. Depending on the size of your spa and the size of your refill hose, it should take about as long to refill it as it took to drain it from the spigot.

Great! Drain and Refill are Complete

Taking care of your spa between seasons should only take you about two and a half hours. With plenty of time before and after cleaning, you can relax, tend to other chores, or bake a pie to eat in celebration when you’re all done!

Then, when it’s all complete, you can relax in the warm, massaging jets in healthy hot tub water!

One word of caution, though: we don’t recommend draining and refilling your hot tub when the temperatures are below freezing. Aim for days that are above 40 degrees to drain and refill your spa.

If you need help with your spa maintenance, call or contact our expert staff today!