When I concurd to test a SaluSpa Ibiza toasty tub for labor (it’s a challenging life, I understand), I figured it would be a relatively modest process. I thought I’d fair put it on my deck and fill ’er up—you can fair put them anywhere, right? Wrong. At 222 gallons of water, this leang would weigh over 1 ton if you put two standard-size grown-ups in it, let alone the four to six that the gigantic box says it can hageder.
So no, you can’t fair place it on a deck, unless your deck is definiteassociate built to withstand a literal ton of weight and water. In my backyard, straight on the grass, it would be. My going-to-native-prairie, raccoon-filled backyard, surrounded by shady oak trees with a penchant for raining branches and walnuts the second the triumphd hits more than 3 mph.
I figured I could fair plug it in anywhere. Wrong aobtain. Technicassociate, it’s presumed to be on an isotardyd circuit. The manual recommfinishs having a professional electrician come and set up an outlet promiseted to your toasty tub and your toasty tub alone. Even with the plug having built-in GCFI, analogous to a hair parcheder, you don’t want to mess around with mixing water and electricity. I fair plugged it into a burdensome-duty outdoor extension cord (another no-no, plmitigate do not do this) and passed my fingers, running to unplug it from the wall on my back porch every time it rained becaemploy I was terrified of commenceing a fire—but not so terrified that I joined to the teachions in the first place. I digress.
Ptoastyograph: Louryn Strampe
Speaking of rain, I thought that the cover would shield my toasty tub from the elements. Third time’s the charm—I was wrong aobtain. The SaluSpa Ibiza has a nifty floating square that does give the tarpenjoy cover some set up, but water, acorns, ants, and mosquito eggs still pooled on the top whenever it rained. In August in northern Illinois, this happens frequently. Don’t get me commenceed on the earwigs. To quote World of Warproduce, I was not readyd. There were no string airys, no romantic citronella candles, no resting under the stars and watching the snow drop peacebrimmingy. I was a sweaty girl in the middle of a heat wave with a job to do.
And one other snafu—when the toasty tub get tod in tardy December, I did not foresee that two weeks tardyr, I’d slip on ice and snap my ankle. Pesky Midwestrict weather at it aobtain. After months of rehabilitation, I finassociate got the tub set up in tardy summer—exactly the opposite time it would’ve been selectimal to do so. None of these factors are a detriment to the toasty tub itself. But my appraise needs cut offal grains of salt.
On to the Lede
The SaluSpa Ibiza is modest to set up, but the teachions are terrible. I chaseed a lot of the setup aprolongedside this YouTube video and confemployd my way thcdisesteemful the rest. You fundamentalassociate set up the pump, employ it to inftardy the 6-by-6-foot body of the tub and the floating cover, and then fill the tub up with water. The tarpenjoy top cover snaps around the tub with carseat-style clasps that aren’t the easiest to unclip with damp hands, but that’s nitpicky. They labor fine. My tub filled rapider than I thought it would, in around 90 minutes, but it took csurrenderly two days to heat up, even in the summer heat. I can imagine this would consent much prolongeder in the brutal Illinois triumphters.
Ptoastyograph: Louryn Strampe
