In the spring of 2009 I ordered an Island Escape spa (hottub) from choosehottubsdirect.com and was promised delivery in 4-6 weeks. I was assured at that time that deliveries were running much earlier than that, but that they had to say 4-6 weeks because it could possibly take that long. After missing several promised deadlines to deliver the hottub it finally arrived in October.
I had a previously installed hottub so it was fairly easy to connect the power and get the new tub running and it seemed to work fine for the first few days. The user documentation was terrible, but I managed to get the time and other initial settings made.
One morning, within the first week I had it, I came out to the hottub, lifted the lid, and put my foot in the water. I immediately recoiled in pain as my flesh was being seared by the incredibly hot water. I received a first degree burn on my right foot from my ankle down with a few areas blistering to second degree. I checked the display panel where the temperature should have been displayed it is said "FF". After checking the documentation again, I could not find out what "FF" meant. I also got a meat thermometer and checked the temperature of the water. I was 128 degrees! I could not get any of the circulation pumps to come on. I drained about a quarter of the water from the tub and refilled it with cold water and when the temperature registered 113 degrees the pumps would finally work again. I continued to add water until the tub was full again and the temp was 103.
After this fiasco I looked online for any documentation from the manufacturer and found a very feabile website with NO useful information. I did find a yahoo video that gave step by step instructions for setting the basic functions and the preheat and cleaning cycles, etc. After making the changes to the controls I chaulked it up to user error and used the tub "problem free" for another 2 days; however, I soon found out my problems were just starting.
It over heated again 2 days later and I called choosedirect and told them what happened. They said someone would contact me within a few hours, but no call came. I lowered the temperature of the tub as I described above and continued to use the tub as much as I could. But it overheated 3-4 more times. Each time I would call choosedirect sometimes getting a real person and leaving a message. I decided that I would leave the tub off and only turn it on just long enough before I wanted to use it so that it would heat up to about 104.
I was getting very irrate on the phone with choosedirect and they finally gave me the cell phone of Charles East, their spa technician. Charles was very helpful and said he would send me out a new circuit board and two new heaters with instructions on how to install them.
Before I could get a chance to install them two things happened. The hottub started to blow the ground fault breaker and it got cold and started to snow like crazy in Virginia. I had to bypass the GF to keep the water from freezing and there is a pretty good current running thru the tub because I accidently touched the water and got a shock! Now that it is warmer, I have the tub turned off completely. After all the problems I heard about these tubs and after learning that they are not UL approved, I'm not sure if it would be safe to use with the new parts installed.
More to follow...
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