Tub starts by itself
Tub starts by itself
Had a costomer call over the weekend and say that his house experienced a surge or blackout (probably both). He knew this because all his clocks and displays were blinking. The problem was that his hot tub started on its own. Going over tomorrow to take a peak and wanted some advice. I have never heard of a hot tub starting on its own when the tub was empty. He says that it has happened more then once and both times he experienced a blackout. Can the inrush of power from service being restored start a motor? Does this indicate any red flags that im not thinking off?
If the tub is empty, the power should be turned off at the maintenance disconnect and/or the main breaker.
If the power was left on, the tub should detect it is empty and throw an error code that shuts down the pumps and heater. The tub will be 'shut down' for all intents and purposes but will still have 220V and an error code on the digital display. It should pull less than 1 Amp in this state.
If the power is reset, the tub will reboot, perform it's self test and attempt to restart until it triggers another empty-related error condition. The restart cycle often includes automatically turning on pumps and other components. If the tub is empty, it may go through this restart cycle four or five times before it triggers a 'hard error code' that can only be cleared with a power reset.
I would bet the tub behavior is not the cause before the power outage but the effect of the tub rebooting after the power outage.
I have seen lots of tubs take some pretty good power hits including one that had a hot Neutral while the power company repaired lines after a storm. Every electronic component in the house with the hot neutral was fried. The tub was 100% operational.
If nothing else, it sounds like they don't use the tub. Pull the disconnect or turn off the breaker and take the tub out of the equation.