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Wednesday February 8th 2012

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Should You Put Solar Panels On Your Hot Tub?

People who are trying to save the environment and use a little less electricity might be interested in getting a solar powered hot tub instead of a regular type. One concern of any new hot tub owner is how much energy does it use and what will the heating bills be? A solar hot tub sounds great but is it really going to work and save energy like you want it to?

Hot tubs usually don\’t completely turn off and they have a system that maintains the temperature at a certain level. This can be cheaper than turning off the power and letting the water cool between uses and then having to heat the water back up again when you want to use it. One thing any hot tub owner needs to keep in the heat in and use the least power is a cover that traps the heat. If you don\’t have a cover that helps keep the heat in, you will have costly heat loss that will use unnecessary energy.

You might be able to find hot tub covers that have solar cells on them that will assist with maintaining the heat. Of course you really need to live in a place that gets a lot of sun for this type of cover to be effective. If you don\’t live somewhere where there is a lot of sunshine, any sort of solar panels for your hot tub will probably be a waste. The main reason why the manufacturers don\’t make solar tubs is that there are not enough people to buy them that live in places that get enough sunshine year round.

If you do have a lot of sun, is it really worth the extra price you might pay to get one? Will you truly save energy and how long will it take for you to recoup the extra dollars you might have to spend to get one? These are questions you should research before you spend too much time and money equiping your hot tub with solar cells. Solar cells are usually expensive so you have to know what you are doing first.

Anyone who is just trying to save energy and go green will probably not care about the possible money savings or whether it is truly a good economic decision. However, trying to heat your hot tub by investing in solar panels is sort of like the hybrid car in that they might not be worth it in the end. With gasoline prices having gone back down, sales of hybrid cars have gone donw as well because they are more expensive and perhaps not worth the extra investment. Solar hot tubs are much the same in that you may never get your money back in energy savings.

Are you looking for information on a solar jacuzzi heater? If so, please visit my website Solar Hot Tub.

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