How to Clean and Care for your Hot Tub Cover
Maintaining a hot tub cover is very simple and can greatly increase its life expectancy. However, most owners fail to take much interest in their covers until it is too late.
A hot tub cover will eventually fade, crack, or take on water and become very heavy. Here are a few tips to keeping your cover looking new, light, and long-lasting.
Clean Your Cover
Clean your hot tub cover about once every 2 weeks or more. Most covers are made with an outdoor-grade, marine vinyl, which has more resilience compared to indoor vinyl – this is the same vinyl that is used on boats, so it’s made to last long. However, it is still very important to clean your cover with a specially designed hot tub cover cleaner.
Cover Cleaning Tip
Jerry Greer of HotTubWorks.com says:
…covers are notorious for producing a musty or mildew smell after a while. That’s why it’s important to keep your cover clean and free of these foul odors.
Use a small amount of bleach (10%) added to water (90%) and wipe down the bottom of the hot tub cover every 90 days. This will help prevent your cover from getting that musty smell that everyone dislikes.
Cover Care & Conditioner will protect your cover from sun damage just like it would your car interior, which is also vinyl.
NOTE: Covering your entire hot tub and cover in a plastic tarp you will greatly increase the life of the cover. Keeping the cover dry and out of the sun is one of the best defenses against aging. If you tend to close your tub for a few months, then take the time to wrap it for storage. A regular tarp works best and will seal out rain, snow, and damaging sun.
Keep It Dry
On very nice days, take the cover off your hot tub and unzip the zippers on the end of the cover to let it dry out for a couple of hours. This will keep your cover nice and light.
Somer covers can become waterlogged and this can make your cover very heavy to take on and off your hot tub. By minimizing the amount of water the cover soaks up by drying it once in awhile, you can ensure the lightness of your cover for as long as possible.
Repair It (if needed)
Over time, the vinyl can tear or seams can open. Most covers have a zipper system that allows you to quickly remove the vinyl cover and check the foam. If water, or steam from your hot tub, finds its way past this barrier, you will notice quickly that your cover will become very heavy and may need to be replaced.
Inspect your cover to make sure it’s properly sealed. You can use duct tape to temporarily repair any seams or areas that may allow water to seep into the foam. I recommend doing this a couple times a year and before storing it away for the season.
Does Your Cover Have A Mildew Smell?
- On a dry sunny day, take your hot tub cover off your spa and set it up like a tent on a flat surface. Basically make your hot tub cover look like and upside down V: ^.
- Unzipper your cover to let the dry air into the foam inserts.
- Use can use a variety of cleaners to help get rid of the smell, but I suggest you try Original Lysol® spray. It’s a disinfectant so it will help destroy the mildew.
- Let your cover stand like this for several hours to help really dry it out. It will become lighter to more you do these steps.
Quick Tip: Do this several times a month to help keep your hot tub cover looking and feeling brand new.
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