The Importance and Value of High-Quality Hot Tub Covers

There are few things as relaxing as coming home after a grueling day of work, pouring your favorite drink, and sinking into your own personal hot tub. Leaning back against the jets and watching the steam rise off the water is not only one of the best ways to unwind – there’s quite a few health benefits linked to soaking in a hot tub, too!

Whether your hot tub is being used to help relieve stress, ease aching muscles, lower blood pressure, improve sleep, socialize, or simply relax, it is imperative to ensure the proper care and protection of your hot tub. After all, with an average price tag ranging between $4,000 to $24,000, in addition to the expenses incurred preparing for installation and properly maintaining a hot tub, it truly is an investment.

As important as it is, protecting and caring for your hot tub doesn’t have to be difficult or break the bank. Finding a high-quality hot tub cover to place over your tub when not in use will ensure that when you’re ready to soak, your hot tub is prepared to welcome you.

1. The Importance of Covering Your Hot Tub

Before choosing the best cover for your hot tub, it’s helpful to understand the many benefits of properly covering your tub. This list is not all-inclusive, but it highlights the main advantages of covering your tub while not in use.

A. Energy Efficiency and Cost Effectiveness
Imagine stepping outside on a beautiful evening, preparing to sink into your *uncovered* tub for a soak, but the water is nowhere near a comfortable temperature – it’s much too cold! Now you’re scrambling to increase the temperature of your tub, waiting for it to finally get hot enough while using additional energy as the hot tub’s heater kicks into overdrive to try to meet the desired temperature.

A hot tub without a cover loses heat constantly due to evaporation, forcing the tub’s heater to work much harder and much more often, which then increases the cost of running the hot tub. By covering your tub with a quality cover, preferably an insulated cover, you are providing a barrier to block that evaporation, resulting in higher heat retention. The more heat your tub retains, the less energy it needs to consume, as the heater won’t have to work as hard.

B. Maintenance
It’s finally Saturday! You’ve been looking forward to an afternoon soak with your friends after a long, stressful week. You head outside to your *uncovered* hot tub shortly before everyone is set to arrive, and not only find that your tub’s water level is lower than it should be – the water is murky and a bit smelly, too. You did your weekly chemical and shock treatment on Monday, but it seems not to have worked for the entire week because your tub was left unprotected. Ugh!

Evaporation in an uncovered hot tub doesn’t only affect a hot tub’s heat efficiency. Leaving your hot tub uncovered when the weather is hot, dry, or windy, leads to higher likelihood of water evaporation – including the chemicals you utilized for your weekly tub maintenance. Furthermore, environmental factors, such as rainwater, can alter the very specific chemistry that your hot tub must stay at to maintain sanitarily safe water. By covering your hot tub, you are helping to extend the effectiveness of your hot tub maintenance treatments.

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C. Safety and Debris Protection
Date night is drawing to a close, and you promised your partner a nice, relaxing soak in your *uncovered* hot tub before the end of the night. As you two approach the tub, your heart sinks as you realize that your tub is teeming with insects, twigs, and dirt. You grab your net and spend the next fifteen minutes meticulously scooping all of the debris out of the tub. You two are finally easing into the semi-warm water (because you left it uncovered, so now the heater has to catch up), and just as you are finally starting to enjoy yourself, the hot tub pump starts groaning loudly, sputtering as it attempts to continue shooting water from the jets. A quick glance at the hot tub’s pump shows old leaves jammed into the pump, clogging it and preventing the impeller from working correctly.

A high-quality hot tub cover is essential to maintaining the integrity of the inner machinations. Debris, such as leaves, twigs, dirt, insects, and hair, can easily cause a clog in the hot tub pump, which can impede water flow to the jets and the tub itself. In addition to protection from debris, properly covering your hot tub while not in use is essential in terms of safety, especially in a household containing small children and pets. Look for quality hot tub covers that feature child safety locks and decent weight resistance to prevent accidental visits to your tub.

D. Hot Tub Lifespan
After a nice, long summer spent full of adventures, you’re finally returning home after a few months up north. The first thing on your mind is getting your hot tub up and running so you can enjoy a relaxing soak. You step out onto your patio and immediately realize that you left your hot tub *uncovered* while you were away for the summer. Days of constant sunshine with no protection have taken their toll on your tub – the UV rays have not only faded the inner seating, but the excessive heat from being directly in sunlight has also caused cracks along the acrylic edges of the hot tub. Oops!

Finding a decent, UV-resistant hot tub cover is essential in extending the lifespan of your hot tub. Not only can the UV rays damage the shell of your hot tub, but they can also affect the inner electrical components of the tub, resulting in a potentially expensive fix.

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2. Choosing the Perfect Cover

Protecting your investment is the next logical step since you’ve invested thousands of dollars into purchasing and installing your hot tub. There are dozens of cover options, which can make it challenging to narrow down the perfect choice. Here’s a few tips when searching for the perfect cover to complement your tub:

A. Soft Cover vs. Hard Cover
First, you’ll want to determine whether you’d prefer a soft cover for your tub, or the sturdier hard covers. While soft covers are typically more budget-friendly but wear out much faster due to constant exposure to precipitation and UV rays. Soft covers are lighter weight and, therefore, easier to move without any assistance. Most soft covers can still assist with energy efficiency as long as thick enough foam insulation is inside the cover.

Though a bit more expensive, hardcovers tend to be vastly superior to soft covers – they are much longer lasting and more durable, their insulation is heavier duty, resulting in lower energy costs, and they are much more resistant to UV rays and weather, including snow. Hard covers can be difficult to remove without a second person, or the use of a cover lifter, so they are better protection against unwanted hot tub visitors. 

B. Material Used
Most soft or hard hot tub covers utilize vinyl in their design. Vinyl is widely used in hot tub covers due to its durability, resistance to UV rays and the fading they can cause, and water resistance. Not all vinyl is made equal, though. When shopping for a hot tub cover, try to stick to marine-grade vinyl, if possible. Marine-grade vinyl is a type of vinyl developed specifically to withstand repeated water exposure, as well as extreme temperature changes and inclement weather. This type of vinyl is also resistant to mildew and mold, ensuring your hot tub remains pristine and hygienic.

C. Design
While most hot tub covers are tapered, it is important to pay close attention to the amount of taper and the thickness of the foam core within the cover. The larger the taper, the thicker the foam core, which provides optimal insulation and heat retention. The cover tapers vary – the smallest taper typically goes from 4-inch thickness to 2.5-inch thickness, whereas a more “extreme” cover will have a 6-inch to 4-inch taper to assist in efficient snow and rain runoff. Those who live in harsher, snowy climates will likely want to invest in a more tapered cover, such as the 6-inch to 4-inch taper. A moderately tapered cover is designed with a 5-inch to 3-inch taper, which provides a bit less insulation and opportunity for precipitation runoff, but still enough to protect your tub in most climates.

Conclusion:

Your hot tub is a place for unwinding and relaxation and should be treated as such. Investing in a high-quality hot tub cover will not only help extend the lifespan of your hot tub, it will also promote easier maintenance, protect against debris and accidents, and increase energy efficiency. 

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