A hot tub (or a jacuzzi if you prefer) is a great addition to your home. You will spend hours relaxing in it, both in the summer and the winter, and it will also increase the value of your property when you come to sell it. Finding and buying one is not difficult, but there are some things that you need to consider…
Cost – How much a hot tub will cost you depends on how big it is and what features you want with it. You can get a perfectly good for one for $5000, which will be big enough to comfortably accommodate five or six people at once. By paying more, you can get some cool extra features, such as fiber optics and speakers to play music from. As well as the price, you also need to think about the length of the warranty being offered. As hot tubs can be quite expensive to get repaired, it is worth paying a little more upfront for a hot tub with a long warranty.
Technicalities – Choosing a space in your garden for your hot tub and getting it installed is the hardest part of the process. Having it as near to your house as possible is advisable, and you should really lay some kind of foundations for it. A poured reinforced concrete slab works best as a base (which will set you back about $750), or a well-constructed level patio or deck. A standard 110 volt household current might be able to run the heater or pump on a five person hot tub, but not on all models. Therefore, you might require dedicated wiring of 220 volts. An electrician can take care of this for you, but they will need to do the work before the hot tub is installed, not afterwards.
Cover – It makes sense to buy a gazebo to cover the area where you install your hot tub, as you will then be able to use your hot tub all year around, and not just in the summer months. If you fit a gazebo with lights and a heater, and put some chairs and a table in it, then you can basically add another room to your house. A good quality one will set you back a couple of thousand dollars but, in the long term, that represents good value for money. It is not something that you have to decide on immediately though, as you can set one up any time you want after the hot tub has been installed.
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