The question comes up on half the first visits in Seattle: the tub came with the house, it is twenty years old, the heater has just failed — is it worth fixing? There is a real answer, and it has little to do with age.
What actually ends a hot tub
Three things: a cracked shell, a rotten frame, and plumbing in the foam that is letting go at several joints at once. Everything else — pack, heater, pumps, topside, jets, ozone, cover — is a replaceable part on a well-built tub, and the parts are a fraction of a new spa.
The checklist
Shell. Acrylic over fibreglass on a quality tub rarely fails. Blisters, crazing or a crack at a jet opening are the warning signs.
Frame. Older tubs have wood frames. Press the cabinet corners; if they give, water has been in the frame for years and the tub is on borrowed time.
Foam. One leak in the foam is normal and repairable. Three in two years means the glued joints are failing in sequence.
Pack. Balboa and Gecko packs are supported for decades. Some brand-specific boards from the 1990s are not, and a tub with an unobtainable board is a tub you cannot repair.
What we do on the visit
If a tub fails any of the first three, we say so and leave a written condition report instead of a bill for parts. If it passes, we quote the repair and tell you what else is likely to come due in the next two years so you can decide with the whole picture. On a Seattle tub that has been fed unbalanced soft water, the next item is usually the heater; on a tub under trees, the circ pump.
Questions
Is a twenty-year-old Hot Spring worth repairing?
How much is too much to spend on an old tub?
Related services
Next note: A hot tub maintenance schedule for Seattle weather