Should you buy a cheap Chinese Hot Tub or a proper made American or European Product? Well what are the advantages and disadvantages? The price is one consideration as cheap Chinese poorly produced goods are cheaper than properly made American or European products. The pumps in the Chinese spas seem to be of a reasonable quality The Jets may be made outside of China or they could be Chinese but it does not matter as the Jets they install are very basic even lacking the ability to adjust up or down. Over a little while the chemicals that are used in Hot Tubs will destroy the moving parts of the Jet, something that the American have had some 40 or 45 years to solve What other drawbacks are there? The first and major one is that the designs are out of date and lack the developments that the Americans have developed in both Hydrotherapy and Hydro massage. After all Roy Jacuzzi was of Italian origin and was not borne in China other wise he might have been called Roy Chiang Kai-shek. Also it is a lot easier to understand and indeed telephone Americans or Europeans it is a lot harder to telephone China. Our client tried to so this two or three times to no avail.
The Chinese tubs are made in an oppressive regime where athletes attending the Olympic Games cannot even have freedom of speech. This reminds one of a similar european country run by a dictator some years ago in the 1930's. The point is the labour conditions are poor. The quality control does not exist. How can I say this, simple, we have recently installed a Chinese spa for a client The spa looked good until we probed a little.
The problems Bad wiring - cables dragging on the floor not properly tied up or secure/ Low capacity cables and badly layed out No floor, so the whole spa was exposed to the ground the elements and those lovely little beasties that chew threw car ignition leads and those beasties will make mince meat of the cables on this spa The frame was made of iron and looked like it had been assembled by a couple of children. It was not square or properly put together. The filter was designed in such a way so that the water would not flow from top to bottom so that the whole of the filter would not be used. Very bad design.
The circulation pump would not start as it was cabled up incorrectly on the main circuit board. Not a problem that was an easy fault to fix. However, the circulation pump has no timer or ability to be programmed perhaps into a sleep mode it is either on or off.
The Ozone was pathetic in that it just seemed to produce big bubbles and not ozone and in a small area only the ozone was not being injected into the water. No insulation either on the side panels and whilst heat rises a lack of a floor is a definite disadvantage. This spa may have an initial lower cost but the real cost over its useful life will probably be very expensive. This is a bit like spoiling the ship for a happorth of tar a famous old English expression but as with all things you tend to get what you pay for. As they say if you pay peanuts you get monkeys or what I would call a pig in a poke.
I would not give you house room for one and if you offered me one for free I don't want it as the thought of catching alight or shorting out is too much of a risk to take; People often think that buying some thing that looks good for peanuts is a clever idea but when it comes from a country that whilst an engineering giant is many decades behind the west in basic manufacturing standards and all it really has is very very cheap and inexperienced labour. The best advice remains buy a product from a reputable American manufacturer and from our point of view whilst it was an interesting experience we will not touch a piece of junk like that again.
The author Jacuzzi John supplies premium quality American & European Hot Tubs from Estepona on the Costa Del Sol In Spain and his web site is at Jacuzzi Spain
