Snow is finally losing its hold on our home here in Alaska!   I am looking around the yard thinking of all the work that has to be done.   One of the things we need to do is clean the Jacuzzi spa we have on our deck.   Our spa has been sitting empty this winter and we will be looking for replacement spa covers!   Let me tell you what happened!

Most spa hot tub lids are made of hard foam with vinyl covering.   Thinking we were doing ourselves a favor, we got extra thick foam thinking it would help insulate it in the cold Alaskan winters.    But what actually happened over time was the foam soaked up the condensation and we ended up with extra thick foam that was outrageously heavy!  WE never thought the hard foam would soak up water!!  Especially when it seems that this is the only type of hot tub lid sold!   I could barely lift a corner of  the lid up after it had soaked up the water!  Ray would only lift 1/2 the lid, using only 1/2 the hot tub because we could not move the lid due to its weight!   We tried to let it dry naturally in the air outside but that didn’t work at all.

Then we came home from a trip, saw the hot tub lid cover was off the foam which was broken, laying in the yard with the cover strew about!   We thought a bear had a party on our hot tub lid!   How on earth did this happen?   Who knows, but we had to get a new lid.

Now the Green part started to dawn on me……No one would take the old foam lid, so it sits under our deck!   There are millions of people with spa’s and I’m sure we are not the only ones that have had problems with lids soaking up the water and becoming unusable and/or breaking under the weight!   What does everyone do with their old unusable foam lid covers??

Our new lid from last year, was doing the same thing..soaking up water and becoming so heavy to use.  Between the difficulty lifting the heavy lid and the poor insulation factor for keeping the hot tub water hot,  Ray decided to drain the hot tub this last winter and just keep the lid on to keep the animals: eagles, bears, birds, rabbits etc from ruining the hot tub, let alone all the debris from trees and brush.   So we have this lovely empty Jacuzzi that has a lid too heavy to use and is not doing a very good job insulating the water.  What to do?

I have heard there is a new company, spacap.com, that makes a totally different kind of hot tub lid cover.   They fill their cover with air, not foam, as the mechanism for insulation and it lies on top of the water!   Their cover is light enough that even I can easily lift it on and off with my arthritic joints!  And air, instead of foam, is a better insulation.

I wondered if their hot tub lid cover being so lightweight, didn’t  blow away easily in wind storms?  The answer is NO due to their design.   Their lid contacts the water and the contour of the cover gives no area for the wind to “lift” the lid.    Granted their hot tub cover does  look a bit different….but so what.   I’m NOT getting another foam lid!   It’s time for me to explore the next generation of hot tub lids and start thinking Green!