What is the Best Way to Remove Sand from my Hot Tub?

If you have a Hot Tub at your home, then you know that one of the most annoying things about owning one is trying to keep it clean.

No matter how hard you try, it seems like there always ends up being some sand in your tub.

 

 

If this is something that has been bothering you for awhile now, then this blog post will be helpful! We will discuss why there is so much sand in your hot tub and what the best way to remove.

Where does the sand come from in my hot tub?

The sand in your hot tub most likely comes from the following:

– Sand that has been brought into your hot tub by people using it on their feet or clothes.

– Soil and organic material found in the garden that can end up inside your tub by people bringing it in on their feet or clothes.

– When using a pool brush against an uncoated surface, the brush can pick up small pieces of sand that are then spread around in your tub.

– When using chemicals for sanitation in your tub, they can often contain sand particles which over time will mount up in the tub.

How do I remove the sand in my Hot Tub?

There are a number of ways to remove sand from your hot tub:

– You can use tools such as brushes or scrapers but these tend to be quite time consuming and inefficient.

– Chemicals which will clean the surface, dissolve organic material on the bottom so these don’t actually help but add to the problem.

– Another option would be simply draining out the water, cleaning the tub and then refilling. However, this is a little wasteful of both water and expensive chemicals so this is not an option that I recommend.

– A good solution is to use a water vacuum cleaner.

This will remove all the sand from your tub and filter it through an internal system. You don’t have to worry about any of the particles being released back into the hot tub again.

What is the best vacuum for my Hot Tub?

– If you are looking for a water vacuum cleaner, then the best option would be one that has an internal sponge filter. This will remove all of the particles before they can escape back into your hot tub. Also won’t need to be replaced as often because it doesn’t get clogged so easily with sand or other debris.

– There are a number of “wet vacuums” that you can buy easily online from companies such as Amazon. However, what I wanted to look at in this post is the way that I recommend my DIY Build Customers vacuum their Hot Tubs.

How to Use your Skimmer as a Vacuum Cleaner?

If you are lucky enough to have a swimming pool, then you will be aware that there are vacuum attachments that can be used on Skimmers utilising the suction of the pump to clean the pool.

This is also possible with Hot Tubs using Concrete Skimmers such as the Certikin HD100 which is my personal favourite and the one that I use in most of my DIY builds.

The fist thing you need is that you have to buy the vacuum attachment piece for the skimmer. This is inexpensive piece of kit at around £15/$20. What this does is sit in place of the rising collar weir. Then, it forms an air tight connection and diverts the air flow to the 1.5″ tubing that you are going to fix to the vacuum attachment. The tubing is not 1.5″ pipe, it is better to describe it as hose rather than pipe as it is really flexible – just like your vacuum cleaner in your home.

This next step is really important. What you need to do is make sure that the hose is fully submerged and full of water. What you don’t want to do is turn on the pump and then the pump sucks all the air into the system. This can lead to air locks and can ultimately damage the pump.

So, make sure your hose has as much water in it as possible before you switch on the pump.

Turn on the Pump

What I found with my own attachment is that unless you have the pump running on high, there is not enough suction from the circulation mode to act as a a vacuum.

What you will find is that the attachment just floats and doesn’t really do a great deal. Turn the jets onto high and then the suction will kick in and you will have your very own vacumn.

On my own tub I did not bother with any additional vacuum heads or anything like that, I just use the pipe itself. It works like a charm. Although a little.e difficult to see when the jets are running, the end result is a super clean, sand free pool.

In Conclusion

If you are running a plastic shell tub, then the best way for you to remove sand from your tub is going to be with a shop purchased wet vacuum. If you are building your own tub and you have a concrete skimmer in place, my top tip is that you can use the skimmer and your existing filter to create your very own hot tub vacuum.

I hope you found this article useful

Happy Hot Tubbin’

Can I Help You?

If I can help you in any way I would love to hear from you. You can get in touch using the form below.

Thanks - Andi

 

Hi, Andi here. I own Buildahottub.com and also write all of the articles and info pages on the site. Some years back now, I built my own hot tub but struggled to find the information I needed. So, once my tub was complete, I started this website to help others in their own pursuit of hot tub and plunge pools DIY building information.

Today, I've helped over 1000 DIY customers just like you all over the world build hot tubs and pools. Have a good look around the site, there are lots of resources here. Please do get in touch if I can help you. - Cheers, Andi