Do you have a hot tub in the yard? Soaking under the stars sounds marvelous but…
I don’t have one, but I have friends who do and they love it. I personally won’t set foot in it and they stopped inviting us over after about the 10th time I said I am not going in the tub, but they love it and, in fact, just upgraded to a new one.
I have 4 neighbor’s who installed hot tubs in their back yards, 2 of them got rid of them after a year. The other 2 still have theirs. The concept is nice but I have been told they can be quite a bit of work and expensive to run.
@dcolosi That’s what I was afraid of. A bit like a whirlpool. After the novelty wears off, it becomes a drag.
About the maintenance, etc., I should mention that my friends are quite well off and they also have a regular pool. I think that their pool person services the hot tub as well.
we have one, and sort of regret it. it’s not used much; certainly not enough to justify the expense and the upkeep. the few times its been used has been fun though.
At our old house, we had a beautiful in-ground gunnite pool. It was painted a blue-black inside, so it looked like a lagoon, complete with boulders, babbling brooks, many ornamental trees, waterfalls, stone bridges, a beautiful gazeebo, outdoor kitchen, etc. It had a “spa,” which is essentially the same as a hot tub. It had music speakers that looked like boulders placed strategically around it that would pump in our favorite music. A friend told me our back yard reminded her of Bali.
We LOVED that spa. After we put the kids to bed, we would take some wine out there and enjoy the spa and pool. Our pool guy kept it clean as a whistle, so no worries there.
We elected not to buy a house with a pool after we sold. I probably wouldn’t care to buy a hot tub now, because they really do require staying on top of the maintenance.
It seems like one of those things that will be a detriment, not a benefit, if/when you sell your home. We have had them occasionally when we rent a house on vacation, but only the kids go in- not me! Always seems dirty with scum on the surface of the water. Yuk.
We have a hot tub and we use it year round. I don’t know what it is about pools and hot tubs that make people think they’re so difficult but they really aren’t. I will say you’re either a hot tub person or you aren’t. I exercise most days and to me, especially in the summer, I like to hop in the pool (that I keep at 87) and then in the hot tub and it helps my sore and tired muscles.
When we moved to our current house six years ago and renovated basically everything, we installed a hot tub. I refer to it as “DH’s folly.” He really wanted it, and I figured that wasn’t the hill I was going to die on. The first few years he used it a LOT. The last few years – not so much. But the maintenance is not a big deal at all. Just drain it once a year, test the chemicals from time to time, adjust, rinse and repeat. My major concern is about the very young children who live on both sides of us. I’m adamant about keeping it covered when it’s not in use.
A hot tub is just a jetted tub that has not been properly cleaned. Ever heard of a thing called “biofilm”? I am not a germaphobe, but after I had to do a little research of the subject, I am not going into hotel tubs. No, chlorination does not kill it.
When DS was maybe 10 years old he and the neighbor kid spent some time in the neighbor’s hot tub one afternoon. A few days later son broke out in a rash from the neck down. All over his body. Took him to the doctor who took one look and said, “hot tub folliculitis.” It’s common. If you get a hot tub, keep the chemicals balanced.
I have a hot tub in the backyard deck, and I really don’t mind a bit of maintenance work, sure easier than the pool I used to maintain at my previous house in Tucson! However, a heavy hail one day damaged our current house roof and made a bunch of holes on the hot tub cover. The insurance paid for all the damages minus the deductible, but when the brand new cover got damaged again by the next round of hail and the next hail (climate change, thanks), I got tired of THIS aspect of maintenance, so I tried to talk my wife into just turning it into a backyard vegetable garden by pouring a bunch of Miracle-Grow organic soil into it. She resisted that idea, but we did compromise by placing two 4x4 raised garden on top of the damaged hot tub cover. Now, low maintenance and our own organic vegetables!
@TiggerDad - I have two old porcelain toilets waiting to go to a landfill. Want to use them as tomato planters? They are all yours! 
JK.
Now that our hot tub is dead with a cracked seat, I have a dump run to make eventually and have to fill in the hole in our deck that will be left there. Getting rid of one is a pain. It had to be repaired 4 or 5 times in the 10 years we had it working.
When it was going, maintaining it was only about a 10 minute per week job. We got one of the floating things that you load with bromine tablets. Once you get that adjusted correctly, it balances the chemicals pretty well. It was about $25 worth of electricity to heat it the first day you put water in, then about $25 per month depending on outside temps and how much you use it. Add, I’m guessing, roughly $100 per year for chemicals.
We would make Irish coffees and sit in it after a day of skiing.
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No thanks, I have enough tomatoes.
What’s your plan with that big hole in your deck?
Our hot tub is connected to our pool. The same water circulates and there is a waterfall into the pool. When we want to use the hot tub, we have a remote inside the house that turns it on and can control the temperature there. We use it all the time and love it. The maintenance is easy because our pool guys also maintain it! Two of my Ds have hot tubs on their decks, no pool, and they use them year round. The maintenance takes about 10-15 minutes a week. I can’t imagine why anyone would balk at that. Like anything else, proper maintenance is necessary to keep it clean and safe.
@TiggerDad I’ll just add another section fo decking to fill in the hole. Nothing glamorous. I know some guys with these great outdoor man-cave areas with fire pits, keg coolers, and drop-down flat-screens. It does not fit my personality.
Back when I attended a lot of infectious disease conferences, I saw plenty of poster sessions on drug-resistant bacteria growing in hot tubs. I have been hot-tub-phobic ever since.
With our pool spa, the water was always recirculating with the pool and waterfalls. With most stand alone hot tubs, that isn’t the case, so it seems that this could contribute to bacteria proliferation.
In any case, we never had any health issues as a result of using our spa.