How to choose a heater for outdoor Hot Tub?

The rate of heating water in outdoor Hot Tub depends on several factors:

• The external temperature
• The presence/absence of heated lid and thermal insulation in Hot Tub
• The type and power of the heatable element

A wood-fired or electrical heater is traditionally used for heat outdoor Hot Tub. However, modern technologies allow combining these types of heating, and you can choose the optimal option for your budget and site.

1. Wood-fired Hot Tub

If you have decided to buy wood-fired Hot Tub, you won’t have any problems with choosing the site for setting it up and labor-intensive (and possibly expensive) work for installing the electrical wiring on your site. You only have to follow basic fire regulations, for example, we do not recommend setting up your Hot Tub close to trees and bushes.

The main advantage of a wood-fired heater is its fast rate of heating, up to 18 degrees per hour and eco-friendly usage.

Though we can point out the following disadvantages:

• The wood-fired heater cannot support the set water temperature in the outdoor Hot Tub, you constantly have to keep an eye on the timber supply so that the water does not cool down or overheat. To ensure comfortable and safe bathing, we recommend the use of additional accessories, for example, Wireless Digital Thermometer
• The lack of a pump leads to water separation: hotter water from the heater is going upwards, while colder water is getting down to the bottom. You can use a paddle or another similar device to mix the water in your Hot Tub from time to time.
• Smoke is one more potential problem. To avoid arguments with your neighbors, we advise you to agree the project with them and choose the optimal chimney height
• Additional cleaning: you have to clean your Hot Tub woodfire heater from ash each time you have used it.

When you choose a wood-fired heater for your Hot Tub, remember that a more powerful heater will heat your Hot Tube much faster, and vice versa wet timber will lower down its heating rate.

2. Electric Hot Tub

An electric Hot Tub is usually chosen by those customers who want to get a full outdoor jacuzzi with such options as whirlpool, Bubble system and LED-lights. The heater is delivered together with a water filter and pump, installed in a wooden box with a hinged lid to protect the tub from bad weather.

Depending on the heater type, they can be set to one-phase power (up to 3 kW) or three-phase power (over 9 kW). To effectively heat the outdoor jacuzzi of 1000 litres or more, we recommend pre-installing the warm insulation and use heaters of  9 kW or 12 kW.

Electric Hot Tub advantages:

• The electric heater will constantly support the set temperature, you have to set it on the thermostat.
• The temperature is uniformly distributed all over the internal jacuzzi volume.
• Easy to use.
• There is not any noise, smoke or problems with neighbors!

3. Outdoor jacuzzi Hybrid

The advantage of hybrid heating means that you can choose your own heat source at any time, optimizing heating time and energy consumption. For example, you can use a wood-fire heater for fast heating and then switch on an electric heater to maintain comfortable temperature.

Traditionally, we recommend using a wood-fired heater, but to control the temperature further, switching to Electric heater 3kW and setting any temperature from 5 to 40o C with help of the thermostat.  When it is necessary to heat water with an electric heater instead of a woodfire one, it is rational to use Electric heater 9kW, but remember that the heating time will increase by  2.5-3 times.

Comparison of heating rates for electric and wood-fired heater

As you can see there a lot of ways to heat your outdoor Hot Tub. Baltresto online-shop offers you an opportunity to choose the ideal option satisfying your special needs, and our customer’s service is always glad to help You!