How To Care for an Inflatable Hot Tub

Considering an inflatable hot tub, but aren’t sure just how much work it takes to successfully maintain one? In today’s post, I am sharing a simple beginner’s guide on how to properly clean and care for a portable spa.

Seven months ago, my husband and I purchased an inflatable hot tub.

With an equal amount of excitement and skepticism, the purchase felt like a bit of an experiment as we weren’t entirely sure what to expect….

Would it be a pain in the a$$ to maintain? How well would it truly perform? Would we actually get our money’s worth?

Well… over the course of 28 weeks, we have learned so much about how to care for our Coleman SaluSpa Tahiti Inflatable Hot Tub , and in this beginner’s guide, I am sharing it all.

Not only am I going to be sharing 4 simple, actionable steps on caring for and sanitizing an inflatable spa, I am also going to be sharing a few rookie mistakes to avoid.

So let’s get started with maintenance essentials…

**For your shopping convenience, this post contains affiliate links. As a Reward Style and Amazon affiliate, I earn commission on sales at no extra cost to you.**

Essential Hot Tub Maintenance Supplies:

Once you have pulled the trigger on your inflatable hot tub purchase, you are going to want to go ahead and stock your home with the following essential spa care supplies…

• Bromine
• Spa filter (I use these)
• Clarifier
• Spa Chemical test strips
• manual air inflation pump (optional)
• Defoamer (optional)
• inflatable hot tub (here is the one I own)

How To Keep Water in an Inflatable Hot Tub Clean and Clear:

Before I get into detailed instructions, it is important to note that the frequency at which you will need to sanitize, clarify and clean the jacuzzi filter will depend on how much you use your spa. The guidelines I have listed below are based on my own personal usage (on average, my family and I enjoy our hot tub about 2 to 3 times per week)….

(Step 1- Sanitization). Keep your hot tub water sanitized by adding bromine into the bromine dispenser which came with the spa. While you could also technically use chlorine tabs, bromine is superior for sanitization in high temperatures.

Start by adding five to six granules of the bromine and then monitor the PH with spa chemical testing strips. If the bromine level is too high or low, you can simply adjust the dispenser by rotating the cap on the dispenser as indicated.

Tip: Typically, I only have to add bromine to our inflatable hot tub about once every two weeks.

(Step 2- Filtration). It is important to inspect your filter weekly, and I’m explaining why in the section below…

When you perform your weekly filter inspection, you will want to go ahead and clean your filter by rinsing it thoroughly with a garden hose.

While I can not speak for all inflatable hot tub brands or models, as for my Coleman Tahiti Saluspa, when the filter becomes clogged, the spa’s digital control panel will give a “E02” error message.

When this message is present, you will no longer be able to heat or circulate water in your hot tub. So that you can avoid this inconvenience (we had to learn this the hard way), you need to be proactive about the cleanliness of your filter.

Now if the error message persists despite filtration inspection and cleaning , you will need to entirely replace your filter.

Tip: If you use your spa as much as my family does, you will need to replace the filter on a monthly basis. So that our hot tub is always in working order, we have learned to buy our filters in bulk .

(Step 3- Clarification). Although bromine and filtration alone was initially sufficient enough to keep our inflatable hot tub clean and sanitized, after about 3 weeks of use, the water started to look not “so fresh and so clean clean”. This is when we learned the importance of a spa clarifier.

While a clarifying product may not be necessary right off the bat, when the water in your spa does start to appear hazy, adding a clarifier (according to the instructions on the bottle) will pretty much instantly clear up the water.

Without a clarifier, not only was our water beginning to look a little murky, it began to have a greenish tint to it. If you want your water pretty and blue, a clarifying spa chemical will do the trick!

What about a defoamer? Because we rarely ever use the jets included with our hot tub (they are more of a bubble feature than a true massaging agent), we have never had to use a jacuzzi defoamer.

(Step 4- Maintaining Proper Air Levels). While the included filtration system also acts as an air inflator, once you have filled your hot tub up with water, you will not be able to use the inflation function on this device.

Unless you don’t mind completely draining the water out of the hot tub, you will need a manual, hand-held air pump to be sure the walls of your inflatable spa stay supportive.

Good to know: Over the course of 7 months, we have only had to manually inflate our spa a handful of times (basically just for a minor boost of firmness). While I was initially concerned with just how well this device would maintain proper air levels and overall structure (especially with me sitting on top of the actual walls), I have been impressed with the durability of this hot tub.

Bonus Tip: As soon as I get out of my hot tub, I put the included cover back on. Not only does this prevent the water temperature from dropping, it ensures that no debris gets into the hot tub. I recommend always keeping the cover on when the spa is not being used.

So now that you see for yourself just how simple it is to care for an inflatable hot tub, I hope you are feeling empowered to make your “staycation” vibe dreams a reality. It’s literally as easy as following the 4 simple steps above…I promise!

For less than $450 of an investment, 7 months later, I can still honestly report that I am so happy I took a risk on new technology.

As long as you stay proactive about cleaning the filters, monitoring the chemical levels with PH strips, and going into your purchase with realistic expectations, accepting that the jets are basically only good for bubbles (not really massaging), I am pretty sure you will enjoy having an inflatable spa too.

Sure…it’s not exactly the real thing, but its pretty damn close.

If you would like to read all of the reasons why I chose the Coleman Tahiti Hot Tub, you can read that separate product review here.

Wishing you all a happy holiday weekend in advance! Thank you so much for stopping by and spending some time with me this week. If you found this post helpful, it would make the biggest difference to this small business if you could share it with a friend or on social media.

Thanks for spreading the love!

Now get out there and design some good vibes along with a fabulous life!