Having a hot tub in your home or on your property can be a highly beneficial and luxurious thing to have. After all, who among us doesn’t enjoy taking a nice, relaxing soak in the hot tub after a particularly long day?
Not only that, a hot tub actually offers many beneficial health properties that make it ideal to enjoy a soak more than a few times a year. But like anything else, it requires maintenance and upkeep to ensure that it stays in the optimal condition going forward.
And there will come a time where your hot tub needs to be drained so that it can be properly cleaned and the water replaced. But this doesn’t have to be a hassle that takes forever to do, it can be done rather easily so that you can get your hot tub clean and you can get back to enjoying your time in the tub.
Use a Pump If You Have One
Ideally, you will have a pump on hand that will suck the water out of your hot tub in the easiest way possible. But there are a number of reasons why we might not have one available.
The first is that they tend to not come with the hot tub. That means needing to buy one and have it on hand, an additional cost that not all of us plan for.
Even if you do buy one, you have to go out to the store and find one that works for your hot tub. This can take a little bit of time and patience when you just want to get your hot tub drained and begin cleaning it.
So if you don’t have access to a pump, how can you get the water out of your hot tub? It’s actually quite easy to do and something that you can do with a simple garden hose that most of us have lying around our homes or garages.
Draining Your Hot Tub with a Hose
It might sound obvious to state this, but make certain that your hot tub is unplugged. Removing hot water from your tub, especially when it is still on, can make the process of removing that water far more difficult than it needs to be.
When you have confirmed that the hot tub is off and the water is cool enough to handle, you need to connect the hose to what is known as the water bib. This is the faucet that is generally located on one of the sides of your home.
It could also be on the back. Just hook up your hose wherever that water bib is located.
The goal when doing this is to fill your hose with water as completely as possible. By doing this, it will minimize the amount of air bubbles that get trapped in the line of the hose. You want to make sure to get as many of those air bubbles out as you possibly can.
When you have flow going into your hot tub, you will need to turn off the water back at the hose bib. This is the important step: keep the end of your hose submerged in the hot tub. If you don’t, you will have to start the process over again by refilling the hose with water.
After turning off the water to the hose and ensuring that the end not hooked to the bib has remained submerged in the hot tub, you will want to bend a kink in your hose.
Do this a couple of feet below where the connection to your hose bib is. This is to keep the water sealed inside the hose for the time being.
You can now disconnect the hose from the faucet bib. Be certain to hold the kink in the hose until you get the end that you are holding below the level of the hot tub itself. The idea here is that you want to use gravity and the hose to let the water drain out of the hot tub.
After you get the end that you are holding — and that is still kinked — below the level of your hot tub, you need to determine where you want the water to drain.
Keep it away from heavily trafficked areas where you might walk through it if at all possible.
Draining the Water
Now it’s time to drain the water out of the hot tub. After you have selected the area where you want the water from the hot tub to go, it is time to let the end of the hose that you are holding un-kink. Doing this creates a siphon that will pull the water out of the hot tub and through the hose.
This is because water does something that is known as “seeking its own level.” What this means is that the water pressure in the hot tub will push the water out through the hose. This is because the open end of the hose is at a lower level than that of the water in the hot tub.
You might be thinking “doesn’t the water have to go up and over the edge of the hot tub?” Yes, it does, but because your hose is full of water, that water that is inside of the hose actually creates a suction that is at the other end of the hose that is inside of your hot tub.
This creates a siphon in the water of the hot tub, pulling that water over the edge and down the hose until it comes to a rest where you laid the formerly kinked end of the hose.
This may take a little bit of time before your hot tub has fully drained but it should remove most, if not all, of the water from your hot tub.
When the hot tub has been properly drained, you can then begin the process of cleaning it or wiping it down to cover. This is entirely up to you.
Hot tubs can be used all year long, but there are some hot tub owners that like to cover it for certain periods of time before ultimately uncovering it for use later on.
If you do cover your hot tub, be certain that you have properly wiped down the inside of the tub. Make certain that it is as dry as it possibly can be in order to keep the hot tub protected and to ensure that you don’t trap any unwanted moisture under the cover of the tub.
For those who are simply cleaning their hot tubs, make sure to wipe it down with a disinfectant wipe or spray. This will eliminate any germs or bacteria that may have been living on those surfaces and ensures that the tub itself is as clean as it can be.
From there, it is just a matter of filling the tub with water once again and enjoying the use of your hot tub again until the next time that it requires draining and cleaning. The whole process is that simple and can be done in relatively short order too!
Ben has a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering. When not constructing or remodeling X-Ray Rooms, Cardiovascular Labs, and Pharmacies, you can find him at home with wife and two daughters. Outside of family, He loves grilling and barbequing on his Big Green Egg and Blackstone Griddle, as well as working on projects around the house.
--
If you want more backyard tips including recipes, how-tos and more, make sure you subscribe to my youtube channel