How much will my electric bill go up with a hot tub?

Here in Maine we have some of the highest electricity rates in the nation.  We pay around $.20 a Kilowatt-hour with the national average being around $.13 a Kilowatt hour. Paying such a high rate makes it even more important to us to have a fully insulated and highly efficient tub design.

In Maine, running a hot tub will increase your electricity bill between $20 and $150 per month. Yes, that’s a wide range and that’s due to the insulation factor of the tub you purchase.

The amount of insulation is the primary energy saving factor. When shopping, phrases like “dead air space” or “trapped and recovered heat” are code for no or little insulation.

The tubs we sell here at Sandollar will run you between $20 and $75.00 a month depending on the size of the tub and are the most efficient on the market today.   Far too often we take phone calls from concerned folks who see electric bills increase $100 to $200 a month after hooking up their internet purchased tub.

Sadly we inform them that tubs with little or no insulation will use that much power.

Without proper insulation, you are essentially trying to heat your neighborhood with your hot tub.

Improving Hot Tube Insulation

You can improve the insulation factor of your tub by removing all of the sides and stuffing it full of some type of insulation.  This is not anywhere near as good as a tub that comes pre-insulated but the more insulation the better.

• Foil wraps are better than nothing but barely.
• Fiberglass is better than foil but does lose a good portion of its insulating properties when it gets wet or damp.
• Blown-in insulation comes close to spray foam but settles and tends to leave voids.
• Spray foam is the ultimate in thermal savings and retention but comes at a very high cost to install.