Anybody done it?

I am inexplicably now living in one of the higher rent districts in the Bay Area. Most of my longtime clients are 10 to 50 miles away.

Our neighbor, literally a walk through the back gate away, has a 20 year old (approx) Caldera spa. Looks like it could comfortably seat 3 to 4 people, more in a pinch, of course.

The lady says that for the last few years, it will only hold water to about halfway up, and the electronics are no longer working. There are three water jet ports that are all very close to the top of the water level. One of them looks like the water is exactly at the bottom of it, I'm guessing the gaskets are bad.

The fiberglass, however, is in pristine shape, not a hint of any cracking or problems.

I'm finding some good leads on replacement spapacks - their phrase. Calderas's website give a new model price range of $8500-$26,500. Some of the photos look outrageous. My eyes glazed over trying to count the water jet ports, I think it's 50 or more. What could go wrong?



They had to get a crane to place the first one, God only knows what that would cost.

The downside, I'd have to remove most of the wood siding in order to replace the gaskets and also to clean out all the rat debris. There is a huge amount of chewed up insulation of some kind. Making this kind of stuff rat proof is a tall order.

But this model seems more sane and sober. I didn't count the water ports, but I think the number is around 10 or 12.

I entered the model number and the catalog number in search and got exactly no results. They are into their current models.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I just bought a new Jacuzzi filter for mine. Just another day in paradise

Wouldn't you know it, the one person who weighs in is an habitual smart ass. This thing has been infested by rats for years, I opened up the front panel and there was a huge amount of chewed up foam insulation, the rats do that to make bedding. I suspect they nibbled the wires as well.

I'm looking at it because it might be a $3000 payday for about a week's work.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I did a lot of work to an inheirited sundance spa not too long ago. I replaced pretty much everything in it. Leaking jets are common, and indeed youd be looking for cracked housings or cracked hoses.

Be prepared to replace all the hoses. The electronics are fairly simple for mechanically/electronically minded folks. You generally have your interface, a central control board, heater, main pump, circ pump, ozonator, and various flow valves. Many of the parts (like pumps) span a wide range of makes and models. Some generic parts can be fitted if they fit the specs (I recall I put in an aftermarket circ pump in mine which was much cheaper).

Worth it? Depends how you value your time. Full replacement of all those parts is well over a grand plus quite a few hours of labor. Replacing hoses and chasing leaks can often lead to tearing your hair out. We had ours for about 5 years then disposed of it once I moved out and started renting the house -- cant count on my tenants knowing how to maintain and clean it.

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TC
Current stable:
- 2004 Mazda RALLYWANKEL
- 2007 Saturn sky redline
- 2004 Explorer...under surgery.

Past: 135i, GTI, 300E, 300SD, 300SD, Stealth

Great! Thanks for that.

The one thing that makes this one approachable, I think, it only has 10 or 12 jets. I'd have to count again to be certain.

One part gives me pause - I've never applied expanding foam in large quantities. I gather that most of them are covered in foam after assembly, maybe there's a protected envelope for the hardware like pumps, heaters, etc. The foam is there for insulation of course, and to give structural rigidity to the fiberglass.

Don't think several hundred cans of Home Depot spray foam are going to be the ticket. I've seen video of people using industrial quantities of expando foam. I need to research that.
. . . snip . . . found this:

https://tinyurl.com/py3k4juw

If I'm going to do it, I want to keep rats out. One idea is to build a square cage of quarter inch steel mesh, commonly used for rodent exclusion around these parts, line the inside with composition paper, I could wire it in place every square foot perhaps, Would probably need to do it three sided at first so I could get the foam in the back side. For the front side, I'd figure a way to secure it to the other two, maybe using some light scale L bracket. At the bottom, you could put a small berm of mortar, maybe a couple of inches high, push that into the mesh, rats aren't gonna get under that.

I hear you though about the labor intensity. My payday might not be nearly as good per hour as I am hoping for. All sorts of obstacles could come up. One thing that makes it appealing, it is literally next-door, and our two houses are sort of a small island amongst a bunch of other islands. This is one of those hill communities, and there are no other houses even in sight.

I'm virtually certain I could arrange regular visitor status as long as I coordinated with them, this in exchange for maintaining the water quality. You would have to see this location. Wow.

The house is grand, 3400 ft.² - two people live there, an early 70s woman and her 95 year old mother.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I just rebuilt my mom's Jacuzzi J-230 back in June of last year. Squirrels had gotten into the insulation and wiring. Needed a whole new control board, heater, and 3 jets. To prevent new intrusion, I dug a trench about 18" deep and put chicken wire all around it before putting the sides back in. I insulated it with spray foam insulation...the Styrofoam type. A buddy of mine sprays the stuff for a living, and gave me a buddy discount, meaning a case of beer plus materials.





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1987 560SL
85,000 miles

Well look at you. Have you fully recovered from the accident?

I survived...I think. Between what Hagerty paid out and what I got in the settlement from the driver, I got a decent payout. Good enough that I was able to buy a few woodworking machines for the garage. With the Mercedes gone, i suddenly had a nice area to build a wood shop.

How've you been?

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1987 560SL
85,000 miles

It is possible the world has been better to me than I deserve So seems you bring the good news that your health is not long term impacted from the hit?

Wow. Great info, and welcome back. I looked at some of your old posts to see how long it has been, I didn't realize you also had the rib injuries. I broke five ribs in 2009 and I learned that broken ribs is something you don't want to do. I count myself lucky that there were no long-term consequences. I've heard of chronic pain sometimes resulting. It was two months before I could walk halfway normally and do any work.

I'm planning to do a good chicken wire surround, perhaps with half-inch plywood on the inside to enclose the foam. I don't want the rodents having a chance to claw any of it out for their bedding. Or at least I'm going to use that 1/4 inch square stuff. The chicken wire with the hexagon pattern might not be a tight enough pattern to exclude rodents.

I've been researching the foam issue, with some good results.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

It still hurts when I cough...broke the sternum and had it wired back together.

As for the chicken wire, look at the wire fencing they use for rabbit cages. It's a thicker wire with smaller holes.

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1987 560SL
85,000 miles

I'll check it out.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Hardware cloth is the name. But why enclose everything? Is there not some sort of cabinet already? Then you only need to button the small gaps?

You apparently have never worked with rat abatement. There is a thin wooden vertical tongue & groove shell surrounding the whole thing, underneath that is mountains of chewed up insulating foam. I will remove the wood, it's in rough shape in a few spots, renew the seals, jets and pipes, encase all that in a sufficiently thick amount of foam to insulate and firm everything up. The hardware cloth will go around that with great care taken at the top and bottom joints - fiberglass above and concrete pavers below, to make it so the little bastards will skewer their tiny throats on the wire tips if they try to squeeze through. The wooden siding would be ideal for them to keep their cute little incisors honed on, no way in hell am I gonna trust that to keep rats out.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I have not worked on rat abatement. I have seen it at other properties. Do they tunnel in from underneath? No pad?