Arbor Hot Tub

Essential Hot Tubs 20-Jets 2021 Arbor Hot Tub, Seats 5-7, Millstone Available now in Canada

Step into the Essential Hot Tubs Arbor and step into your own personal oasis. The Arbor spa gives you luxury in a durable unit with a low maintenance, impact resistant exterior. All 20 stainless steel jets are powered by a 2 Peak HP, 2-speed energy efficient pump that allows you to have a quiet relaxing evening or choose a more robust setting and melt away the day’s aches & pains with the Arbor’s high speed hydrotherapy. The choice is at your fingertips in the state of the art command center with digital, backlit display. Plug into any standard 120V/15A household outlet and you’re ready to entertain. You also have the option to convert to a 240V electrical unit allowing your heater to perform at its maximum on the coldest days, which we recommend having professionally installed by an electrician. This rotationally molded spa is made from quality colored granite resin that features a fully insulated interior allowing your spa to retain optimum heat from your Balboa all-season stainless steel heater all year long. The Arbor spa also comes with a heavy-duty, insulated tapered cover with locking clips allowing you to easily & comfortably close your spa while not in use. This product is delivered using a curbside delivery service.

This tub turned our home into what feels like a vacation house. We’re 5 months in, we have an active family that uses the tub multiple times per day. Seating 7 adults would be a stretch but it’s great for 3 adults and could likely fit 4 comfortably. Most of the time, there’s only 1 or 2 using it and it’s absolutely perfect for that.

A couple of strong individuals can move the tub around when empty. We set it on a firm foam mat on top of a brick patio. The foam mat insulates the unit from the ground to save a little energy. Set-up was very easy. We flushed out the shipping antifreeze as well as we could. After filling to a point above the filter, we had to slightly loosen the PVC connection on the top of the pump, bleeding the air out of the system. Gently retightened. After that, we were in business.

Looking inside the mechanical area, I propose this is a well-built tub with parts readily available from many spa manufacturers and parts suppliers. Much of it is made by Balboa Instruments. The components are neatly assembled and the wiring is organized and tidy enough. The access door was loose and rattled but was easily fixed with a bit of self-adhesive backed foam and some adjustment to the keyed latch. We were missing the clips that hold down the cover in high winds and emailed Strong Spas. They responded within a few hours and the parts were delivered within a day or two at no charge. The cover is well-made and is easily removed and installed by one person. I don’t see any need for a cover lift for us… perhaps some may need one. The cover is essentially two Styrofoam half circles covered in a nicely sewn leather-like vinyl.

We currently have the tub running on 110 volts. We have a dedicated 20 amp circuit for it and haven’t had any problems. Concerning heating, we filled it using the hot water connection that normally feeds our washing machine simply because we wanted to use it right away. However, the cover was left off one evening for about 6 hours, the tub got down to 97 degrees, the ambient air temperature was 50 degrees. The tub had no problem getting back to 104 degrees overnight; it was ready the next morning at 7 am. We sit in the tub for about 15-20 minutes at a time and it loses about 2 degrees when it’s 40 degrees outside. We’ve only had a couple of mornings in the mid-30s but it didn’t seem respond any differently. I don’t see any reason to switch to 220v yet. We’ll see what happens in February’s -5 degrees.

Concerning chemicals, we’re still learning. We filled the tub with well water. If you do the same, perhaps get an RV filter that fits on the end of a hose to filter out iron and the like. Iron gets ugly with an oxidizer. We’re using bromine as a sanitizer and it’s a breeze if you add chemicals a little at a time and check the levels with a strip. Here’s what we should have started out with… RV hose filter, 1” bromine tabs, PH decrease, Alkaline increase, non-chlorine oxidizer, mini plastic bromine floater and test strips. To get it started, we should have added enough bromine to create a base of available bromine (I used the powder that’s at the bottom of the 1” tabs container), we only needed 2-3 tablespoons to build it up, from there, we rely on the floater to maintain the bromine level.

Overall, we can’t say enough about the tub. I’ll think about posting a review as the season gets colder. Like another reviewer said… “just get one!”

Update: 1.5 years in and we still use it every day. We’re still on 120v… No problems except for when it’s used multiple times throughout the evening on a cold night. It takes about 1 hour to gain 1 degree. Otherwise, using it for 25 minutes, even in negative 5 degrees Fahrenheit, all is fine. Absolutely nothing has malfunctioned or needed replacing. We keep the temp set to 104 degrees, throughout the winter and down to 101 in the summer. If this tub broke and was unrepairable, we’d order another one without hesitation.