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Discover the secrets to a foam-free hot tub experience in our latest episode – clear, practical, and ready to transform your soaking sessions!
Creators & Guests
What is Hot Tubs 101?
A podcast for hot tub owners covering hot tub maintenance and water chemistry.
Everyone. And welcome to hot tubs 101 by Swim University, where we help you keep your hot tub clean and clear all year. My name is Matt, and I'm the founder of swimuniversity.com. And on this episode, we're talking about how to get rid of hot tub foam. Let's jump in.
Matt Giovanisci:Real quick. If you want more help taking care of your hot tub, be sure to grab our free hot tub cheat sheet at swimu.com/spa sheet. So how do you get rid of foam in a hot tub or a swim spa? Well, the fastest way is to use hot tub defoamer or antifoam or foam remover. It goes by many names.
Matt Giovanisci:And this will quickly remove the foam so that you can enjoy a soak, but it's likely to keep coming back and keep happening. So in order to solve constant hot tub foaming, you need to understand what causes it to prevent it. Now we have a guide, a full guide with a video and everything on our website swimuniversity.com/hot tub foam, if you wanna check it out. But we're just gonna go over everything right now. So what causes foamy hot tub water?
Matt Giovanisci:Well, foam needs 3 things, water, air, and surfactants to appear. Okay? So surfactants are essentially and this is super nerdy. They're super sticky molecules, that reduce the surface tension of the water, which makes it easier for substances like oil and water to mix. Now this, without using that fancy word, basically means it makes the water viscous or thick.
Matt Giovanisci:So think about adding cream to your coffee. So your hot tub contains surfactants even if you properly maintain hot tub water chemistry. But if you slip even a little on maintenance on your maintenance schedule, you might flip on your jets one day and find yourself with a foamy mess. So the more of these surfactants that you have, the more bubbles or foam you're gonna get. So what are the main foam causing culprits in your hot tub right now?
Matt Giovanisci:There are 6 of them. 1, personal care products like makeup, body lotions, and deodorant. 2 is hair product shampoo, conditioner, hairspray, mousse, all of those things, hair gel, whatever the kids are using these days. Number 3 is laundry detergent and soap. And, yes, you wanna wash your swimsuits, but any leftover detergent, if you're using like a cheap detergent, or fabric softener, that can really mess with your water's chemical balance.
Matt Giovanisci:Beverages, unfortunately, yes, Spilling alcohol or sugary beverages in your water can lead to foaming. Honestly, you should just avoid using alcohol in your hot tub. I know that's gonna be a hard sell for a lot of people, but it can cause some serious, problems. Number 5 is us, human bodies. The human body can produce oils, dead skin cells, and other waste, if you know what I mean.
Matt Giovanisci:And that's why we actually have sanitizing chemicals in our water. And number 6 is cheap chemicals. They may not be as effective or as concentrated as more expensive options or options that you would find at the hot tub store. And even worse, those cheap chemicals can actually cause a buildup of these surfactants or surfactants and a whole new slew of other water chemistry problems. So if your sanitizing agents are overburdened with body oil and dead proteins, you're probably gonna have a lot of bubbles in your hot tub, which is foam.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay? Now can you test the water for these surfactants or surfactants? Yes. You can buy test strips or a liquid test kit that tests for something called total dissolved solids or TDS for short. If you have a high TDS reading, then you're gonna have high surfactants.
Matt Giovanisci:However, it's not necessary that you really need to do this, especially if you drain and clean your hot tub every 3 to 4 months, which we do recommend. Total dissolved solids are basically the result of, and this is what I wrote, quote unquote, too much crap in the water. That includes chemicals, oils, dead skin cells, body waste, etcetera. Alright. So what is the best way to get rid of hot tub foam for good?
Matt Giovanisci:And then we're not talking about using defoamer here or antifoam or foam remover. Those are quick fixes, and we'll get to that in a little bit. But what is the actual best way of doing it? So the first thing you're gonna do is you're gonna test your water. Now before you do anything corrective, you need to find out what your pH, your alkalinity is.
Matt Giovanisci:You also need to figure out what your chlorine or bromine levels are depending on which one you use. Your ID your ideal pH level should be between 7.47.6. Your ideal total alkalinity level should be between a 100a150 parts per million. That's what we recommend. However, you can go as low as 80 parts per million.
Matt Giovanisci:That's completely fine. Your ideal if you use chlorine, your ideal chlorine level should be between 1 3 parts per million or 0.5 to 1 part per million if you're using a mineral sanitizer like Nature 2 or Frog. And your ideal bromine level should be between 3 to 5 parts per million, or you can keep it lower if you have a mineral sanitizer. Another thing to note is that calcium hardness levels may actually cause foam in your hot tub. Low calcium means you have soft water.
Matt Giovanisci:So if you have soft water, that's thick water. It feels soft. If you were to drink it, it would feel, you would have a good mouth feel, it would feel soft on the palate. If you had hard water, it would it would really or hard water. There I go.
Matt Giovanisci:There's my New Jersey accent that just popped out. If you have, hard water, it's gonna feel a little drier when you drink it. No. I'm not suggesting you drink your hot tub water. I'm just saying water in general.
Matt Giovanisci:It can also cause other problems like corrosion and etching in your finishes. So it's important to regularly test these levels as well. Now, you might just have good calcium hardness levels. I'm not one to promote, adding calcium hardness to the water, especially because we drain our hot tubs every 3 to 4 months. But if you are experiencing a lot of foam and all your other stuff is correct, it may be something you need to consider because maybe you just have really soft water in your area.
Matt Giovanisci:Number 2 is you wanna drain and refill the hot tub. Okay? So once you've tested your water, make sure you note all the chemical levels. The best thing you can do to get rid of foam is to drain and clean your hot tub. Okay?
Matt Giovanisci:So this is not in order of how you should do things, obviously. You wanna test your water and make sure that's all correct. That's one way to get rid of it. Number 2 is to drain and refill your hot tub. So when in doubt, drain and refill.
Matt Giovanisci:That's what we always say. It is time consuming process, but if you can get really quick at it, if you use a or if you follow these steps. So, what you wanna do to drain your hot tub is we recommend using a line flush product. We actually, have one called Hot Tub Detox. There's other ones out there in the market as well.
Matt Giovanisci:And this removes biofilm build up that's in your plumbing. Now, this biofilm build up is caused it's gunk that builds up in your pipes and it's caused by what we mentioned earlier, lotions, cosmetics, bodily waste, all of that stuff. Okay? You also wanna remove your filters depending on how dirty they are and clean them with a cartridge filter cleaner. Then you could turn off the power to your hot tub, disconnect anything electrical, and trip the breaker.
Matt Giovanisci:And then you wanna drain your hot tub using a sump pump or you can use the drain plug. Now if you use a sump pump, it's gonna be much faster, so I highly recommend you invest in 1. And then you just need to refill your hot tub, wipe everything down so everything's clean inside, thoroughly rinse the hot tub, wipe it down, all of that stuff, and remove any traces of cleaner that you've used, whether it's been white vinegar or a a specific hot tub cleaner. Because then if you don't, you will end up with foamy water once you fill the hot tub, which would defeat the purpose. You're gonna replace your hot tub filters, put them back in, and then refill your hot tub.
Matt Giovanisci:And I recommend using a hose filter, so you can find these online, or at your local hot tub store. They are essentially filters that you screw onto the end of your garden hose and they filter out, chlorine and metals and all kinds of other things that come in your normal tap water so that you're adding clean, pure water to your hot tub, to get started. Now, again, I mentioned you can do a quick fix of antifoam or antifoam or foam remover or, you know, defoamer, sometimes it's called. Again, you add this to the to the pool or sorry. You add this to the hot tub and just look at the directions on the back of the bottle and whatever it says to add, add it.
Matt Giovanisci:You'll literally see the foam disappear in front of your eyes. However, if you don't take care of the problem, whether you test your water and make sure all your chemistry's correct, or you do a drain and refill, then you are going to have foam come right back. So, yes, it's a quick solution if you're having people over or you're having a party or you're, you know, you just wanna use it and you're like, I can't deal with this foam problem right now, then, yeah. Obviously, you can use Defoamer. I actually recommend people have it just on hand for these purposes.
Matt Giovanisci:But other than that, it's again a quick fix. Now, how do we gonna prevent hot tub foam from returning? Okay? So obviously, you wanna make sure your water chemistry's right. We'll go over all that.
Matt Giovanisci:Here's some ways to do it. And these are not that fun, but, they they will they will work. So shower before soaking. Yes. I know it.
Matt Giovanisci:It kinda feels counterintuitive, but if you got stuff all over your skin, lotions, deodorant. I know like I've I've talked to a lot of men who I say, hey, if you have any lotions or cosmetics on makeup, they're like, I don't wear that stuff. Yeah. But you wear deodorant, don't you? So and you hopefully washed your clothes.
Matt Giovanisci:And then if you're wearing your swimsuit, yes, you have detergent. And if you use fabric softener, that's gonna be a problem too. So you also wanna rinse your bathing suit. That's another way to avoid it, to avoid foam. Also, you shampoo, you condition maybe your hair.
Matt Giovanisci:If you're like me, you're bald, so you don't have to worry about those things. But if you have hair, don't dunk your head underwater because all that stuff in your hair is gonna get into the hot tub. And what's crazy is a hot tub is hot water. If you've ever washed dishes before, and I'm sure that you have, you can clean your dishes a lot better with hot water than you can with ice cold water. So in a hot tub, all that stuff is just melting off of our bodies, where that same thing really doesn't happen as effectively in a cold swimming pool environment.
Matt Giovanisci:But it does happen in a hot tub, which is and it's also a much smaller body of water and then all of that stuff builds up and causes foam and other problems. Also, not a fun thing, but keep sugary or alcoholic drinks away from the hot tub and this because this eliminates the chance of something spilling in the water or backwash, if you know, like, you know, might maybe you dribble a little out of your mouth. I don't know. Buy your chemicals from a trusted source. We at Swim University, kind of our job.
Matt Giovanisci:We recommend the best chemicals because, again, you buy cheap chemicals. We want you to save money. We wanna help you save money with your chemicals. But there are some chemicals that are horrible and cheap, where we wanna look for chemicals that are good and inexpensive. But also just make sure that you're getting it from a trusted source.
Matt Giovanisci:I hope that we are one of those trusted sources since you're listening to us right now. And that's we recommend all of that. All of those trusted sources are on our website and we update them every single year. And we test them. Lastly, you wanna maintain regular hot tub maintenance.
Matt Giovanisci:You wanna you wanna create a schedule, and this includes weekly or biweekly water testing and a full draining and cleaning of the hot tub, again, every 3 to 4 months. If you need help if you need help with creating a maintenance schedule, be sure to grab our free hot tub cheatsheet@swimyou.com/spa sheet. And if you found this episode helpful, subscribe for more hot tub maintenance tips on your favorite podcasting app. And when you do, please leave us a review. Your support will help more hot tub owners just like you find this show.
Matt Giovanisci:That's it. Thanks again, and happy soaking.