Do you smell smoke?

One of today's spa repair calls was for a Bullfrog spa not working.  Customer had said that they replaced the circuit board in it about 3 months ago.  They also reported for the last we or so they had a little bit of smoke smell but weren't sure and everything seemed to be working fine till it just stopped working, no power no nothing.

The moment we took off the equipment door the strong smell of something burned was very apparent.  Before we could get the control box opened up we had a pretty good suspicion of what we were going to find.  Sure enough when we opened the box we found a burned up terminal strip and a cooked circuit board.

This can typically happen because one of two reasons: 

1.  The wires were not tighten down properly in the terminal strip.  Make sure you use the correct size screwdriver to get a good bite on the screw and firmly tighten.
2.  The insulation was tighten down instead of the exposed copper wire.  Maker sure you strip back enough wire that you can properly tighten down on the copper and not grab any insulation.  

Finally if you smell any smoke shut down the power and investigate immediately.  It is possible that this could have been caught before any real damage was caused.  As always if you have a spa repair need in the San Diego County Area please give us a call.

Cheaper is sometime more expensive

One of our service jobs yesterday was to a Hot Spring Spa (since we are asked all the time this is a top tier brand that we would strongly recommend) that wasn't heating.  Since we had been to this customers house 23 months prior to replace the No Fault 6000 Heater we assumed it must be something else in the system not letting the heater come on.  When we arrived we found that the relatively new heater we had put in had failed all ready.

While sometimes parts just fail we did a little research on the matter and learned that the generic heater, while made by the same company as the OEM heater was had some hidden surprises in it.  First thing after very close inspection the "generic heater" only had one element in despite the two heater tubes.  The OEM has two elements, this mean is one element fails your spa will still heat.  Additionally the generic heater was stainless steel and not titanium which in time could have also lead to a shorter product life.

We point this out as we often suggest OEM when we see the value in the extra cost and just because a product is made by the same manufacturer it may not be made up the specifications of the genuine product.

So while the customer saved a little initially with a less expensive heater its shorter life span would have meant the heater actually cost much more in the long run.  In this case we absorbed most of the cost so it didn't cost them to much but we are sure there are many others that will end up wishing they had known the differences between the oem and generic.  We are no longer going to offer the generic style heater after learning its short comings.

If your spa isn't heating or need any kind of spa repair in san diego visit our website or give us a call.

Tripping Breaker Equaled A Shorted Spa Heater

     One of todays spa repair was a tripping circuit breaker.  When a breaker trips with in just a few moments of the spa starting up this is often a heater that has shorted out, as was the case today.  If you are in a situation where your breaker is tripping unhook that leads to the heater (take caution to make sure the unhooked leads are not touching anything) and power back up the spa.  If the breaker holds you have a bad heater.  We stock both complete heater assemblies as well as just the elements. 
      In todays case the heater housing appeared to be in good shape our tech elected to save the customer a couple of dollars and replace just the element. 2-1/2 hours later he finally got the element in (the second one he broke the first trying to install it).  This is a very experience tech and it was just one of those things but it did bring up the point that sometime it is better to replace a complete unit rather then just an isolated competent.  While we sell elements only on our spa parts online site we do recommend that you consider the lessons here and evaluate how easy the old element came out.  Installing an element can be tricky at times and it takes very little to damage them when installing.
    If you are a Do It Yourself-er and want to replace you spa heater let us know which type it is and we will happily let you know if we think it is easy to replace just the element or if you are better off iwth the complete assembly.