Hot Tubs and the California Drought

If you live anywhere in the western United States there is no doubt you’ve heard countless references to our historic drought.  With all the talk about conserving water, it is easy to think that things like pools and spas are absolute water wasters when in fact they can help you save a significant amount of water over the course of a year.

  • Filling an average size hot tub will take around 400 gallons of water and it will need to be drained and refilled roughly twice every 12 months.   Let’s call it 800 gallons per year.
  • Watering a 10′ x 10′ section of grass requires roughly 50 – 100 gallons per week.  Over the course of a year, that means 2600 – 5200 gallons of water are used by just a small patch of grass.
  • If you currently use your shower or bathtub to relax sore muscles and you spend just two extra minutes each day in the shower with a 2.5 GPM shower head, in a year you will use an extra 912 gallons of water.  If more than one person in your house uses the shower for relief the number only goes up.

It may be easy to think that if you purchase a hot tub that you will automatically use more water by simply filling it up a couple of times per year.  But if you look at the numbers and how people actually use their hot tubs you quickly realize that net water usage actually goes down, sometimes by a great margin as is the case when you remove a small section of grass to accommodate your hot tub.

So if the only thing holding you back from getting a hot tub is the fact that you think they use too much water just take a quick look at the numbers and realize that hot tubs are actually great water savers.

Kinda makes you want to tear out your lawn, doesn’t it…

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