Shaking Up Hot Tub Maintenance Standards with Jim Walz and Ideal Water Care

Ever wondered if there's more to hot tub maintenance than just adding chlorine and hoping for the best? In this compelling episode, we're joined by Jim Walls from Ideal Water Care, who shakes up our understanding of water care with a lineup of 10 new products, all crafted with top-notch ingredients. Jim guides us through each product, revealing how they provide more value with less effort and how supporting local retailers is the best choice for consumers.

Ready for a deep dive into the world of hot tub maintenance? We delve into practical tips and valuable insights, from the benefits of sodium dichloric chlorine to the correct usage of non-chlorine shock. Jim enlightens us on the importance of adding products to the filter compartment of a hot tub, and the significance of pH and alkalinity adjustments. We also explore the virtues of the filter soaker product, and the role of the guagulator in supercharging your filtration process.

Our chat wraps up with a closer look at their Soft Skin Spa product, a win-win mix of buffering agents, silver, and phosphate-free formula. Jim also gives us a sneak peek into their new website and offers an exclusive discount code for our listeners. Plus, we wrap up all the essential shipping details for our Canadian friends. Join us for this lively conversation with Jim Walls, as we navigate through the fascinating world of water care. Don't let your hot tub maintenance routine get stale; join us to unearth the secrets to pristine water care.

You can buy all the products here:  
 Get the ph & Alkalinity Cheat Sheets here:  https://www.thehottublady.co/ph-alkalinity-hot-tub-chemical-dosage-charts
Buy The Ideal Water Care Line at.  www.idealwatercare.com

 Or from The Hot Tub Lady www.thehottublady.co/shopping
USE CODE IDEAL10 TO SAVE 10%
Chlorine: https://geni.us/idealwatercarechlorine
Shock: https://geni.us/idealwatercarespashock
Sanitizer Bundle:  https://geni.us/idealsanitizerbundle
Cover Protector: https://geni.us/idealcoverprotector
Hot Tub Scrub: https://geni.us/hottubscrub
Filter Soak:https://geni.us/Ideafiltesoa
Drain Clean & Refill Bundle https://geni.us/draincleanandrefill
Stain Control https://geni.us/idealstaincontrol
Water Clarifier https://geni.us/idealwaterclarifier
Foam Away: https://geni.us/idealfoamaway
Enhancer Bundle: https://geni.us/idealenhancerbundle
Alkalinity Up: https://geni.us/idealalkalinityup
pH Down: https://geni.us/idealpHdown
pH Up: https://geni.us/idealphup
Complete Ideal Water Care Bundle: https://geni.us/idealcompletesystem

Looking for answers to your hot tub questions? Look no further than Hot Tub Clarity! Our easy-to-understand guide is available now on Amazon. Simply search for Hot Tub Clarity Book and get your copy today. Plus, while you're there, check out our log books to keep your hot tub maintenance on track. Trust us, you won't regret it!

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:26

Hey hot tubbers, welcome to the podcast of talk with the hot tub lady, and I am your host, jackie Johnson, and today I have a special guest, jim walls at ideal water care, and he has some really super exciting announcements to make for what he's got going on in his business over there. So I'm just going to actually bring him on right now. Hey, jim, how you doing?

Speaker 1: 0:53

I'm great. How about you, Jackie?

Speaker 2: 0:54

I am absolutely fantastic and I've been excited and waiting to have you on the show for this particular podcast and tell me what you got going on, tell me what's new and exciting in the world at ideal water care.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Yeah, so sorry for delaying. You just trying to make things to be as perfect as they possibly can. So there's a couple of things that we're doing. One were we've come out with 10 new products on water care products and, as you know me, it's something that the ingredients really make a difference. On all my other products, I really dive into the actual ingredients and I did the same thing with these 10 new products. So it took a while to develop these products, to make a full line of water care products, from chlorine to non chlorine, to your stainless scale, your water clarifier, your defomers, your I've got to cover protect a filter soak, which is amazing. We've got your pH up, your pH down, your alkalinity increase or, and we're. We've also created a couple of different little bundles. But there's 10 new products and those products again are ingredient driven and in the, I guess, the days of a lot of manufacturers trying to cut cost, save money, cheapening their ingredients, we went the complete opposite direction.

Speaker 1: 2:19

Because of our eye care product, you can actually learn the effectiveness of the products that you're using. We wanted to have the highest grade products so the customer technically gets to use less. So when you look at the price of something. There's one thing to look at the price, but then how long does it last, how effective it is? And our products are designed to add less and give you better results. And the value in adding less is the fact that you're not increasing your TDS or your total resolved solids as much, which allows you to make your water last longer and easier to manage, based on the overall TDS, which we can get as detailed as you'd like to with ingredients or talking about TDS and the TDS levels and how those affect the life of your water. So there's a lot.

Speaker 2: 3:10

There is a lot, and TDS is a bigger. Total dissolved solids is a bigger thing when it comes to hot tubs and people realize because once those total dissolved solids get too high then the chemicals can't move around and do what they need to do. So once you get above a certain level and on a regular hot tub that's usually around 2000 parts per million it's it's requires a drain, clean and refill. So when you have to, when you're adding chemicals that have less fillers in them, it's actually going to make the hot tub water last longer and that's a money saver for you, me and everybody else. So that's a big deal. And so the less fillers you're adding, the better off your hot tub is going to be and the better your water is going to be. So I actually have them all sitting right here beside me. So I don't know, do you want to go through each one of them or we didn't really visit what we were doing with this, so hang with us.

Speaker 1: 4:06

Everybody is. It's an open forum, so people have questions, or you have questions, or I'd be more than happy to take any question, answer it to the best of my ability and if I don't know the answer, we'll find it. We can go product by product if you'd like to, and then, if we have time, we can always talk about the new website that's being launched later on this week.

Speaker 2: 4:28

I've seen the new website quite a bit and it's going to be up probably around Friday, you think.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Friday. Yes, friday should be the new launch of the new website, which will then have these 10 new products on the site. The current site does not have these 10 products, so if people go to the current site and the URL is not going to change, so on Friday, when it switches over all of a sudden, you'll just see a new look and feel and more products, and really the idea behind it is to make it easier for customers to navigate through the site, to give them additional information and to be able to see pictures, whether that's the eye care product and knowing how the different menus work or the water care products and understanding how water care affects the overall water or chemicals affect the overall water. Okay, so I just pulled up this. Pulled it up because we're we're out of time.

Speaker 2: 5:21

But I just love the new look and how pretty it is and it's got all your new water care products on there and it's actually been really good. But then it's very easy to navigate. You've got your home, you've got your shop, you've got your water monitors, your water care, your photo gallery and then of course you mainly you work with dealers quite a bit, or retailers. That's one of the things that you do is you supply retailers and so you work with that, but you do self direct to the public as well.

Speaker 1: 5:52

We do. I always like when the consumer goes to their local retailer. That's just my background, that's my history. I come from a large family and we want people to be able to support their local retail, so that's always the first option. But for those that want to go buy stuff online, we make it super easy If the retailer doesn't have an online store, we just make it really easy to be able to buy from our online store. But first option is always go to the local retailer.

Speaker 2: 6:20

And I agree with that. I'm 100% in support of that. People come to me for quite a bit of just knowledge and questions and that type of thing, but I really do encourage everyone to go to their local retailer first, because they know your water, they know your product, they know your hot tub, they know you, they know the history of what you've got going on if you got six kids soaking in there and that type of stuff and so they can give you more detailed, specific advice. However, not everybody has that luxury and that's why both yourself and I do have these products for sale on our websites.

Speaker 2: 6:56

So Jim's website is I do have the links in the show notes and I thought I put it up as a graphic here, but I can't find it but Jim's website is ideawatercarecom. So pretty simple. He can find that. Websites are down below and, of course, mine is thehottubladyco, and you'll find all of these products that we're talking about on both these websites. So if you need something, we're definitely here to help you, but I think we should just bring them up, and if you guys have any questions along the way, please ask and we'll be more than happy to do. The goal is that you're going to have these tied to the eye care, correct.

Speaker 1: 7:31

That's correct. When it starts giving recommendations, it would give the recommendation to have the ideal chlorine or non-chlorine, or pH up or pH down or alkalinity increase. There's some products that are not within the eye care app and that's simply because those products are determined by your source water. So, as an example, some people need a stain and scale preventative product and others don't. The soft skin spa is already integrated with the app and if somebody's using the soft skin spot, then the app will tell them exactly how much to add and when to add it, and we can get into that product too if your viewers want to talk about that product. But again, it's about the ingredients. The ingredients truly do make a difference.

Speaker 2: 8:19

Yes, and that one makes a huge difference. What I love about that one is it actually locks in your pH and alkalinity, and for a lot of people that's a big deal. And that is the one product I didn't bring into my pile here, so I don't actually have that one to show, but we'll bring it up on the website. But let's just start at the top. Most people need a sanitizer. Chlorine would be the first one I'm bringing up. Tell me about your chlorine. What's special about it? What do we got?

Speaker 1: 8:47

So the chlorine? There's a lot of different variations of chlorine. Our chlorine is a sodium dichloric chlorine, not a calcium based. So for most people in a hot tub you can find cheaper chlorine that is calcium based, but calcium is. You don't want to add calcium to your hot tub, especially a hot tub that is made out of acrylic. You do really don't need to have a bunch of calcium in the water. So ours is a sodium dichloric based. It's 99% chlorine. The available chlorine is less than that which most are in a sodium dichloric mixture.

Speaker 1: 9:25

So the important thing with our chlorine is the fact that it is a sodium dichloric, not a calcium based. It is super fine granulars and the reason why we're using super fine granulars is to make it easier to dissolve into the water. You'll see some chlorines that have large granulars. They don't dissolve into the water quite as easy and it's no different than baking or cooking. When you have something that has a finer granular, it just dissolves into that mixing pot that much easier. So we've got super fine granulars to be able to dissolve into the water more quickly and more effectively.

Speaker 2: 9:58

And it does what the little bit that I've used it. It seems to work really well. It does dissolve super quickly and it's just. You got a chlorine reading right away. I don't feel like I'm having to keep adding chlorine just to get the chlorine to show up. So I do believe it's a very superior chlorine is my personal opinion. Anything else you want to add about the chlorine or no, no, it's chlorine.

Speaker 2: 10:20

It's your sanitizer, so it's chlorine is the sanitizer is one of the things that you need, which that would take you next into the spa shock. So, that is your monopersulfate, correct, correct.

Speaker 1: 10:33

Non chlorine shock, which is a potassium monopersulfate, as Jackie had said again super fine granulars. The advantage to using a non chlorine shock is it is an oxidizer, so it is something that allows the consumer to add to the water and get into the water right away. The other advantage to utilizing non chlorine is you really can't overdose on non chlorine, whereas with a chlorine you can add too much and now your chlorine levels are too high. So it depends on when you're going to be using your hot tub, when or how bad the water is. But it's always a nice thing to be able to have on hand that. If you just need to oxidize the water, clean it up a little bit, non chlorine is really the easiest solution to be able to do that. You still want to have a chlorine residual, but you don't have to have it super high to be able to get in and use the water if you hit it with non chlorine shock.

Speaker 2: 11:29

So if we have anybody new watching, do you need both products? You need chlorine and shock. Can you just do chlorine?

Speaker 1: 11:37

So that's a great question Do you need both products? No, you could just use chlorine, but you've got to be more diligent on keeping those levels where they need to be. The advantage to a non chlorine is it just makes your life easier and having it on hand when you want to go oxidize, you just hit it again. You can't overdose. You can continue to add it again and again and if anybody is using a silver based product, which is like soft skin, spa or mineral cartridges, non chlorine will turn around and oxidize the silver in that water and that silver is a natural bacteria stat. So you can use non chlorine or chlorine. But again, if you don't like being in a lot of chlorine, you can have a little bit of chlorine and then much more non chlorine. So it's not you have to. It's just nice to have, and many people do is just have it on the shelf. Use it when you want to use it how you want to, to be able to make your water more clear.

Speaker 2: 13:12

So my recommendations would be to use it on a non salt water hot tub. I would recommend using this about once a week. It would be typically, I would say, pick a Saturday or Sunday and that's the day when you're done using your hot tub to shock your hot tub out. But I've used shock so many ways over the years. I've used it with the silver stick and actually did that instead of chlorine. So I would do the silver stick and then a little bit of the shock and then add chlorine on a weekly basis. So if you're like doing the spa frog or something like that, you could use it that way and it's a good product. And I am a big shock believer. I believe I believe much more in shock than trying to oxidize with your chlorine. I think it's easier, I think it's more forgiving and there's a lot more involved in that. But if you just shock with chlorine, you have sometimes it's real hard to get that level back down. So that's why I'm right and I agree.

Speaker 1: 14:07

And just so everybody knows, the reason why Jackie suggested to do it on a weekly basis is over a period of time. If you add in chlorine, you're slowly using that chlorine and now that chlorine is called a chloramine which is the bad chlorine by using a non chlorine shock, what that does is that burns off your used up form of the chlorine, your chloramines, and it allows the chlorine that's in the water to become more effective. When you do shock it, I would recommend I don't know about you, Jackie, but is to take the cover off and then run the jets for 10 or 15 minutes. The purpose of taking the cover off is to allow it to off gas or those to leave the hot tub. If you leave your cover on, you'll notice that your bottom of your cover gets trashed a lot faster because those chloramines are attacking the bottom of your cover.

Speaker 2: 15:03

They are, and I actually recommend taking the cover off all the way and I recommend doing it for a half hour letting the jets run for at least a half hour.

Speaker 2: 15:11

That's my recommendations. Has there been a few times I've been in a hurry and I've done 10, 20 minutes. That is the case, but that would be what I would recommend. And then, while we're talking about all these chemicals, one of the questions that comes up a ton is where do I actually put my chemicals? My suggestion is to put them in the filter compartment, and you may agree or disagree, but to put them in the filter compartment because if they wouldn't dissolve which yours are a real small, fine granule, so we aren't going to have to worry about that. But if they wouldn't dissolve, I have seen them etch the actual shell of the hot tub like actually stain that or bleach that out. And so if you put them in the filter compartment and they land on the filter and don't get quite dissolved, the worse it happens is you have to buy a new filter and you have to replace those every couple of years anyway. So that's my take on it. Where do you suggest people will actually put their chemicals when they're?

Speaker 1: 16:06

I would agree. The only thing I want to add, just because I want to be clear on what most hot tub manufacturers are going to recommend, which most now will say put them in the filter compartment area. I just want to make sure that people are turning their jets on first and then adding the products to the water, because if you just put them in the filter compartment they're going to fall to the bottom and it's going to not dissolve in as fast. So just make sure you turn the jets on and then add any of your products on top of the filters filter or filters.

Speaker 2: 16:35

Okay, I would 100% agree with that and I should have mentioned that to begin with, so hopefully that helps. Where do you want to go from here? You want to go balancers.

Speaker 1: 16:43

You choose. It's up to you.

Speaker 2: 16:45

Let's go, we're going to go. Enhancers, stain control, so this is a great product. I'm just as impressed with this as I am with other brands, so there's a couple of brands out there that I really think are just great, and this is right there with it. Tell me about stain control. Why do you need it? When would you use it?

Speaker 1: 17:04

Stain control and it's actually also it has a little bit of a clarifier in that product also. So stain and scale control is designed to be able to. It's a preventative, so it's a once a week application. You're going to turn around and it's going to help prevent any staining, typically from metals that are in the water. Those metals will end up. It's technically a chelating agent, so those metals are going to be put together and they're going to end up in your filter or filter. So when that happens, it is very important that within, let's say, it's a fresh fill and that's where you're going to have the most metals in the water at that given time. So on a fresh fill, you add your stain and scale, your filter filters are going to go, pick them up and you want to rinse that out of your filters and you don't have to use any type of solution. It can simply be just hosing them off and by doing that you're going to take those metals that are now collected in the filter or filters and get those completely out of the water. If, for some reason, you don't, what ends up happening is those metals go back into the water.

Speaker 1: 18:09

So it's add a stain and scale on initial fill, get the metals out, you'll see your filter or filters literally will turn brown from the metals. You hose that off and then you put the filters back in, depending on the severity of the metals in your water. You may have to do that a couple of times, but some people they do it once and they're good to go. So that timing from when you initially add the water on your fresh fill, adding the stainless scale to cleaning the filters, is probably no more than about 48 hours. You would then want to go rinse those filter or filters.

Speaker 1: 18:45

The scale portion of it is really so you don't have a scale buildup on your heaters, your salt systems, your pump seals. That's preventing that scale from collecting in those areas. And then the clarifier is just simply a guagulator. It's basically taking small particles, making them bigger particles so the filter or filters can pick them up. Sometimes particles are so small that they go right through the filter and the water always is this cloudiness and by adding a guagulator you're basically making them a little bigger so the filter and filters can pick them up.

Speaker 2: 19:24

So that's awesome. So some of the products that are out there add a lot of phosphates and that can play a factor on salt systems. Is this going to be like those, or is this going to? Where's your phosphate can on this, do you know?

Speaker 1: 19:38

That's a great question. About five years ago, a lot of manufacturers switched to phosphate based ingredients, whereas there's sometimes where you can not have any phosphates, like on our soft skin spa, we've eliminated all phosphates out of that product. The stain and scale does have some phosphates, but not at the same level as others. That's probably the biggest culprit of adding phosphates to the water outside of your source water. We do minimize it, but there are some things that phosphates do in a stain and scale that we just can't get around, but we do minimize that the phosphates that are in there.

Speaker 1: 20:15

So it's less than a lot more than anybody else.

Speaker 2: 20:19

So what I will do, if you guys stay tuned, I will actually do a separate video on just the scale control or the stain control, and I will actually do a phosphate test just so that you guys have that and know that and know what's going on. But that will be a second video somewhere down the road, but that way we can have the knowledge of what we need to know on that. And I'll do that on my salt water hot tub and we'll find out if it works or if it doesn't.

Speaker 2: 20:44

And then let's do foam away Everybody's favorite product. Everybody loves to buy an antifoam or a foam away or something like that. I haven't used it yet because I don't have any foam, but tell us about that.

Speaker 1: 20:57

So our foam away. We literally have retailers that have other brands in their stores and they're loyal to those brands and those brands make some really good product. But literally I have some retailers that they go you know what, we're not going to do anything with those, the other products that we offer but they struggle with finding a good antifoam or foam away, to the point where they only buy cases of our foam away and put it on their shelves because of how good it actually works. It's a great product, it works instantaneously and you just you got to use it to know the different. But I'm telling you it gets rid of the foam, it does a great job. And they it's not me saying it, it's other retailers that carry our products now and they literally say our foam away surpasses anything else out there in the market.

Speaker 2: 21:51

So I will make a fun video with that. I'll, right before I'm going to drain my hot tub, I'll add a bunch of just to my hot tub and we'll we'll foam that up and see what happens and see how well, it does work, but it's now something I have.

Speaker 2: 22:04

So, again, I've been in the industry forever just as long as you have not quite as long as you have but one of the things that I used to notice about antifoam or foam removing products is, if you overdose them, you could cloud the water and not necessarily recover from that. Would that be the same case with this? Are you going to stick along the lines of a few drops goes a real long way, or how do you?

Speaker 1: 22:26

A few drops, few drops do go a long way and, unfortunately, if you do add too much, that's just one of the things that happens with adding a foam, a defoam or of some sort. I wish there was a way around it as of right now there's not. I don't want to tell people just that there isn't. So, just be a little goes a long way and you don't need to add a bunch. You'll see it dissipate very quickly, yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:52

In the past I've always said that a few drops goes a long way and let me grab the bottle. No, I dropped it. That bottle, so that quart size bottle. So a bottle this size that should last you six months to a year easy, you shouldn't be it really should.

Speaker 1: 23:09

Yeah, you really. If you have that much foam in there, because the foam away is simply a temporary solution to other issues that are happening with the water, and just everybody knows that's a pint size bottle, not a quart size bottle If you went through a pint in a couple of months, you probably should just drain and refill the hot tub. Just save yourself the hassle and drain and refill it. You've got other things going on that are causing that foam to come around. I just don't want you to add a bunch of product and again you're going to increase the TDS and you're going to shorten the life of that water anyway. But again, less is more in this scenario.

Speaker 2: 23:48

And I would agree with that. My philosophy on foam removers has always been it's a band aid, it's not a solution. It fixes the immediate problem, but there's something more going on and you need to get that taken care of. You need to see the doctor on that stuff. It's not just the band aid over the top. It's not going to make the problem go away permanently. And then that takes us to the clear spa, which is your water clarifier. Tell us about that.

Speaker 1: 24:17

So this product is. Let's say, somebody doesn't have a need for stain and scale and they just want to be able to have clear water. So the first thing with either a stain and scale with a water clarifier or the water clarifier itself is water clarifiers only work when the bacteria is dead. So you first have to go fill it with a chlorine or non chlorine and now that's still floating in solution and they're so small that the filter can't pick them up. So again, what it does is it takes those dead particles, makes them stick together and then now it's big enough for the filter to go ahead and pick up. So the water clarifier is not turning around and going to if there's something alive in that. Water clarifiers don't work that way. Water clarifiers, you've got to first kill it. Now you can add the water clarifier. Even if you have the water clarifier ahead of time, it's really not going to go active until that bacteria is physically dead or killed and then the filter goes ahead and picks it up. This is another product where it's a once a week application.

Speaker 1: 25:25

Only add exactly what is recommended. Don't add too much, because if you add too much you will see some of that stuff show up on the water line Because it is nothing more than a glue that is taking small particles and making them larger particles. And it tends to work. It does, and you'll notice that water line. So some people go I don't like that water line, it's sticky on the sides. The way to prevent that is to add your water clarifier with the jets running and then turn the jets off and just allow a very low circulation to slowly get that stuff into the filter. It's the reason why you see that stuff up on the water line is because you're agitating the water and it's sticking to the sides before it can get into the filter or filter. So by running it at a, whether it's with a CERC pump or a low speed, by having less agitation on the top, you'll have less issues with that water line and that stuff sticking to the side above water line.

Speaker 2: 26:27

And that kind of brings me to another question when people are adding their chemicals, do you suggest that the aeration gets turned off and it's just water moving?

Speaker 1: 26:37

I do Because of the fact that it's causing less agitation. Anytime you're inducing air, you are changing the chemistry of the water. Literally, air will affect your pH levels. So by running the jets, adding chemicals and reducing the air intake, you will not affect your pH as much by doing so. Okay, good Along with other things like you were mentioning.

Speaker 2: 27:03

Yeah, good stuff, good stuff. Okay, let's go to. Let's go to balancers. So I'm going to bring this one up and I'm going to give you a tough question. With this one Alkalinity up. I personally think that you need to start with alkalinity and I know you and I disagree with this, disagree on this, but in my opinion, alkalinity is the buffer for everything else and once that's in line, everything else will stay in line. You have some alkalinity increase in your line up, so tell me about it.

Speaker 1: 27:35

So I don't know if we I don't know if we necessarily disagree on this, but the thing that a lot of people aren't aware of is the only thing that affects your pH imbalance or bounce, is a low alkalinity.

Speaker 1: 27:49

So if you have a high alkalinity, I'm not so concerned with that, especially in a salt water hot tub, because if you have a salt water hot tub, your pH is inherently high, and if your alkalinity happens to be high, your because your pH is always high you're adding pH down, and so when adding pH down, you're also lowering the alkalinity. So I would sooner have high alkalinity on a salt water hot tub, or higher alkalinity, even on a chlorine bromine system, rather than a low alkalinity. I have gotten to a point where, if my pH was low, I'll double check my alkalinity, and almost always my alkalinity is low. And so, even though we have two different products, a pH increase and an alkalinity increase I only ever add alkalinity increase Because by raising the alkalinity to your point, jackie, by increasing your alkalinity, when you bring that into the okay range, your pH will follow. Now the difference between an alkalinity increase and a pH increase is our alkalinity increase will raise the alkalinity faster than it does the pH, whereas a pH increase raises the pH faster than the alkalinity. You could technically raise your pH, but if your alkalinity is still way low, your pH will not be stable. Again, I don't know if we'd necessarily disagree with this.

Speaker 1: 29:13

So raise your alkalinity when it's low and then if for some reason you still have to add pH up, then add a little bit of pH. That's one of the reasons why, when you look at the size of the bottles, that alkalinity increase is dramatically larger than the pH increase. Because, again, if a consumer needs to raise their alkalinity, they can technically raise their alkalinity, their pH will follow and literally it's half the size. So people are less likely to need pH up, more likely to need alkalinity increase. That's the reason why it's twice the size. And if people can test me on this, raise your alkalinity, only use alkalinity increase. That's what I have gotten to. I don't use pH increase, I use alkalinity increase. I raise my alkalinity. If my alkalinity went to 120, 150, my pH will follow. My pH will automatically come up because I was using alkalinity increase.

Speaker 2: 30:08

Okay, so here's the tough question on this. It's going to come up because it has come up. So on the eye care, it doesn't measure alkalinity. So now you're selling an alkalinity increase, but your eye care product doesn't measure that. Tell me, how are we supposed to answer that question?

Speaker 1: 30:28

Okay, so the reality is most people are dealing with their alkalinity on a hot tub. They may have to adjust their alkalinity, maybe once every two or three months. So by putting a sensor in there and looking for the alkalinity or something that they're having to adjust every two to three months normally, and if they raise it to the high side of the body now, they've given themselves more of a buffer to play with along the way. And I would suggest, even if the and you're going to once you get this pattern let's say your eye care tells you to go add pH increase To my point earlier go add alkalinity increase and you're going to see your pH come up with it automatically.

Speaker 1: 31:16

The only time that I wouldn't suggest that is if you're on well water and you have high pH, high alkalinity right from the start. As an example, I have some in-ground pools where they're on wells. Their alkalinity is 320. So in those scenarios I wouldn't tell them to use alkalinity increase or I would tell them to use a pH up if they needed to raise just their pH. So once you have an idea of how your source water functions and eye care tells you to go add pH up, go add alkalinity up in most scenarios and you'll be perfectly fine.

Speaker 2: 31:51

Okay, good answer. That's a good response to that. So, since we're talking about it, let's do pH up next. That's your next product and there are a lot of. There's a lot of brands out there that are putting this in the same bottle. Why is yours in a separate bottle?

Speaker 1: 32:08

Yeah, so the reason why we do it in a separate bottle is you have to have the ability to adjust your pH and alkalinity independently. So a pH down lowers the pH, it'll lower the pH down and it lowers alkalinity. So let's say that your pH is high but your alkalinity is low. If you go add pH down now, you've driven your alkalinity further down. And if it was all in the same bottle now you go add the pH, slash, alkalinity increase and all you did was go back to the same measurement you had before. So we allow you to lower your pH if you need to raise your alkalinity when you need to, and that way you're overall. You can actually make that adjustment by putting the pH and alkalinity in the same bottle is no different than putting the pH alkalinity down, which is just technically the same chemical. So there's no way of separating it on the way down. But we can separate it on the way up to be able to adjust pH and alkalinity independently.

Speaker 2: 33:12

Which is going to take me back to my original statement when we came to Balancers. My personal opinion is you start with alkalinity, get your alkalinity in line because you could. It takes two chemicals to take that pH up and it takes one chemical to take them down, and, for example, we're. I'm just going to take that right into the pH down and that's also going to be your alkalinity decreaser, and so this works really well. And my cheat sheets I actually did do the math and my cheat sheets that I have will work with these chemicals. So there, I'll put that link link in the show notes as well. But it gives you your dosages and you and I are both from Nebraska super high alkalinity, super high pH in where we cut our teeth in the hot tub industry, and I have seen cases where you have to put in three tablespoons of pH decreaser every day for 18 days to get your alkalinity in line, and because?

Speaker 2: 34:20

tell me why that works this way with this.

Speaker 1: 34:26

So when you're, if you're having, the reason why you're adding it in a slow amount each day is you don't want to have too much of a reaction or to add too much. So you're better off taking baby steps to lower your pH, because if you lower your pH too far, then it's acidic. So when your water is acidic, it can do damage to your components that are irreversible, whereas if your pH or alkalinity works too high, that's going to cause damage to your pH. So the reason why I'm adding pH to this is because when you're lowering your pH to a low level, the pH that you're adding to your pH is going to be too high. So if you're lowering your pH to a low level, then you're going to have to add too much pH to your pH. So when you're lowering your pH to a low level, it's more important to have a slow process when you're lowering that more so than when you're increasing your alkalinity or pH. So that's the reason why you do it slowly throughout multiple days.

Speaker 2: 35:38

And then, once you get that pH or the alkalinity in line, you can usually just a day or two later, one dose of the pH decrease or one dose of the pH up. Those will fix themselves within a day once your alkalinity is in line. And then how do you feel when someone adds a pH down and then they go test their water 15 minutes later and they're like it didn't work? What is your?

Speaker 1: 36:09

So there's two things and the reason why it wouldn't work If they have low alkalinity, so low alkalinity and they have gauge down, it didn't work. But I think the point you're trying to make is you go add something and then go test it 15 minutes later. You really haven't had enough time for that water to totally circulate. I've literally seen it on iCares to, where you go add a product and all of a sudden the iCare goes and takes a test and they see their pH has dropped to six and they go oh, I got to go add some pH up. No, you don't. You need to let that water circulate, stabilize, levelize and then go back the next day and go test it. You've got to give it time to mix.

Speaker 1: 36:52

Again, I'm going to compare it to baking and cooking. Baking is a little bit different. Baking is a lot more precise. So when you do this, you've got to mix those ingredients thoroughly, otherwise it's not going to have the same taste on one side to the next, and that's just a matter of time in a hot tub or even in a pool. So you've got to let that water turn over. You've got to let that water settle. You also will see a difference in how, when you're adding products when the water's cold versus when the water's hot. So if you're trying to make adjustments or on a fresh fill, that's going to be different than when the water has actually met temperature. I don't know if that's the direction you were going, but I like two cents.

Speaker 2: 37:36

The thing that I've seen so many people do over the years is I'll send them home with their printout or my cheat sheets and it'll be like they need to do pH decrease or pH down for every day for 18 days.

Speaker 2: 37:52

And so then they'll do the math and they'll be like okay, that's a whole bottle of pH decrease, or I'm going to pour the whole thing in at once because I don't want to mess with this for 18 days, or I'm going to do it. I'm going to do the one dose and then I'm going to test it and it didn't do anything, and so they just do another dose, and my take on it is you have to give your chemicals 24 hours to work, and whether it's the eye care or whatever, what I always tell people is they'll be like my eye care, the pH is at 6.4 and I need to put in pH increase, or I'm like is it telling you to put it in yet? Is that actually an instruction for you? Because it is going to analyze which way your water is trending, if it's smart enough to know that you just added chemical, and yes, it's going to read it at wherever it's at. But if you give it 24 hours, it'll be like, okay, this dropped.

Speaker 2: 38:46

But then it came back up and now you should add this I think, that if we could get people to do that, who don't have the eye care and just realize that there is no bottle out there, that is the miracle bottle that you just pour it in and it instantly fixes any issue that you have on. They all are very quality products and they will get you out there. They'll get you to where you need to go, but everything takes a little bit of time. There's so many variables. There's no way that you can look at your water one time and know that, okay, if I do this every single week, my water is going to stay perfect. We can keep you in a perfect range, but we can't keep you perfect water. Nobody can do that. I've been doing this for a really long time. It's just impossible to do. Swimming pools are actually easier when it comes to that than hot tubs. It's just an impossible situation.

Speaker 1: 39:38

To your point, Jackie, in our analytics of eye care and if somebody doesn't have eye care but to take this and one of the reasons why we put this in our analytics is because of the fact that eye care needs four consecutive tests in the wrong direction before it's going to tell you to dose, because it's looking at how it's trending and saying, okay, let's anticipate this, let's look at if it's going in the right direction, then why add something when you don't need to?

Speaker 1: 40:03

Even if somebody's using a test strip or a drip lab or bringing it into the retailer to have tested, it just takes time. If you were to go test it every hour, four hours you're going to see that slowly change over time. Once that water gets all mixed up, At a very minimum, if all things were completely mixed, it still would be at least four hours before anything would go tell you to dose. Even when eye care is trending and it eventually levelizes, it still needs four tests beyond that. So when you just do the math, if everything played out perfectly, that would be eight hours that it would need before it's going to tell you to have to go add something to that water. Testing with a test strip shouldn't be any different.

Speaker 2: 40:57

Okay, I like it. So you're saying at least eight hours before you test and adjust again.

Speaker 1: 41:03

I still like your idea of waiting until the next day, but if somebody's that impatient and they just want to go add stuff, to waste stuff, yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:14

They are out there. I've seen people waste a whole bottle of test strips in a week just because they're testing every hour and trying to.

Speaker 2: 41:22

I've seen them pour whole bottles of pH, a whole bottle of pH increase in it at one point and you're just wasting money. You're wasting time and money when you do that. Make sure you take the time and let the chemical do what it needs to do, so then that's going to put us into our cleaners, and we're going to start with because I know we can talk about this one for a long time is the filter soaker. That is so. I actually use this. I did a video on it. I actually did several videos on it, because it's so unique. It is just something else that nobody else has got. It's in. It works so incredibly well. So I'll just let you do what you do when it comes to this product.

Speaker 1: 42:05

All right. So this product is something that you are going to let the filter or filter soak. Most people will go put it in a five-yellow bucket. They're going to add a pound to maybe a pound and a quarter, which is half that bottle, and what they'll notice is the whole water is going to turn pink.

Speaker 1: 42:24

This product does have a sulfuric acid in it, so do not mix it with your hand or arm. Take a stick and mix up that solution. There are other ingredients in there also, but it's the sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid turns around and will get rid or pull oils off the filter. If you use any other type of acid beforehand, you'll actually set the oils in that filter. This also isn't a detergent or surfactant based product, so it's not going to foam up and clean a filter that way.

Speaker 1: 42:58

And we can talk about hot tub scrub and how the overall process if you're trying to get the ultimate way to drain and refill your hot tub what those steps would look like. But the neat thing about this product is you put it in a five-yellow bucket, you put your filter in there, you can rotate your filters and the solution is actually going to change color when it's used up, so when you leave your filter. Jack, I don't know how long you left your filter in there. I would say most people turn around and leave them there for a day just because of how it works and if they have extra filters, just rotate them through, let them dry out. There is value in letting your filters dry out after you clean them, because algae if there is any algae algae needs moisture and light. So if you can let the filter dry out, you're actually going to kill that algae on that filter.

Speaker 2: 43:45

So I would I do have a recommendation on that. Please don't put it in a sealed container. When you do that, make sure it dries out in the air, and then, if you want to put it someplace where it's not getting light, that's great, but when you are drying your filters, just let them sit out and dry.

Speaker 2: 44:02

So I did leave mine in there for 24 hours and the color did change, but it's still very red. It went from a pink to a real deep red pink to a pink, and so I'm excited to. I did save it and I will do a video once when I clean them again next month and hopefully it gets used up in that time May not, I think, because I did five filters at once. So I actually did the whole bottle to 10 gallons and that's probably more than most people need to do, because I think you could definitely do a half a bottle to to five gallons and I think that's going to take care of a lot of it for most people. And, to be honest with you, we actually added a little more water because I just wanted to make sure everything was covered, so it was probably a little more. We're probably close to 12 to 13 gallons is what I did to the bottle but, it's a two and a half down bottle, so that's right

Speaker 1: 44:54

because it's one pound for five gallons.

Speaker 2: 44:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:57

Yeah, so it's still good it's. You can continue to rotate filters through there.

Speaker 2: 45:02

Yeah, and the one thing that I really liked about your your packaging is these are sealed really well and there's just a little thing that you have to tear off to get the to get it to open up, but it's easy, open but still sealed. So that's. It's really good packaging. I don't have to try to poke through the, the seal at the top and we have to have a set of keys or a knife or something to get into it. Your packaging is very good on this and I know over the years we've gone through lots of packaging stuff with you, but I think you nailed it on this one Thank you.

Speaker 2: 45:34

So we did. I've learned with you. I was right there with you. So instead of going into the cover protector, I we let into the hot tub scrub and in my opinion, this is probably one of your premium products. That's again. Nobody else's got out there and I've used this a couple of times. I've been through a couple of versions with you, but this, in my opinion, is by far the best purge that's out there on the market and I love how much, how well it cleans. But I also love that it doesn't like stick to the sides and stuff. When you do it. The foam dissipates very quickly Once you turn the jets off and it doesn't like stick to the sides and you don't have to get in there and scrub and do all the things and I you can actually clean filters with this as well.

Speaker 1: 46:23

So in cleaning, so cleaning filters with that, the way that product functions is the only way it's going to be able to clean. A filter is by agitation. So the way that you would use the product is it's right before you drain and refill your hot tub. So right before you drain your hot tub, what you're going to do is you're going to take your filter filters out. You're going to hose them off, get the majority of the debris out and then put them into the main body of the hot tub and then add your hot tub scrub and so by running the jets you're basically making your hot tub like a big washing machine and we utilize to your point.

Speaker 1: 46:56

Jackie, the reason why we don't stick to the sides like other purges is because we don't use a detergent, so we use a surfactant. So surfactants and detergents are very similar. They both foam, but it's a different type of foam. There is functionality to having the products foam up. That's what lifts biofilm up and off the plumbing lines, when the reason why, again, we don't use a detergent like others is a detergent. Once it gets saturated it becomes tacky and then it sticks to the side of the hot tub. Now I have seen I've got one customer where they didn't. They hadn't purged their hot tub in three years and it was horrible. Rubbs Grubb did a great job in that scenario. They did have stuff sticking to the sides because there was just it was so much after three years.

Speaker 1: 47:48

So that's one of our ingredients, is we use it, utilize a surfactant. That's what's going to help get the biofilm and also clean the filter or filters. The second ingredient that we use is hydrogen peroxide, and it is a high level of hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide, no different than a non-chlorine shock, is going to take care of a lot of things that a detergent or surfactant would not like fungi and bacteria, which is the creator of biofilm. That's what creates the biofilm. And then our third ingredient is actually a deodorizer. It makes the hot tub smell new again. It's actually smells fresh instead of smelling like a chemical. So and then that does work really well.

Speaker 2: 48:33

The deodorizer on there. It's very impressive.

Speaker 1: 48:36

And again it's another product where you're using half the bottle for a drain and refill on a hot tub or the whole bottle on a swim spot.

Speaker 2: 48:43

So I would. I learned that one the hard way. The first time I did it I did use too much and there was way too much foam. And because I've always been, the philosophy is that Elvis has half more, the whole thing will be better. And no, it's. That was a true statement on the. On that particular bottle, half will last two. You really only need to do it once a year is my personal opinion. I don't think you need to purge your hot tub every single time you drain it, but I think once a year is plenty. So that bottle should last you quite a while and it it does really well. And you can use it on swim spots. So that's. I think swim spots get left out quite a bit. I don't think anybody's really focusing on how to take chemicals on that. That's by maybe some. I should go down the road and create some cheat sheets and stuff for that. So the that is great that you've got the swim spa version on there. That's.

Speaker 1: 49:37

So in doing that going back to what we talked about originally in the perfect way to drain and refill your hot tub First is use the hot tub scrub. So what you're doing is you're cleaning the plumbing lines, you're cleaning the filter, you're using a surfactant which is going to foam up. It gets a lot of stuff off that filter as you're draining the hot tub. Now you can use the filter soaker. So you go to stage two and cleaning your filters and you now you have time because it's draining and you're Refilling the hot tub and if you've got an extra set of filters, it's again makes it a lot easier. So if you want to drain, refill very quickly, you can do that. But take the opportunity to take those filters right after you drain and refills and put them into that filter soaker solution.

Speaker 1: 50:20

And then on the bundle that we've created and I don't know if you've created, but is to incorporate the cover protect. So that's another product that is one of the cleaners. So cover protect is designed to help you Not only clean your cover but also protect your cover from UV rays. It is a non petroleum based product so it's not going to deteriorate your vinyl that's on your hot tub cover or some Braille material, but we specifically use a non petroleum based product to increase the longevity of your cover.

Speaker 2: 50:57

So you can use that on the Sunbrella fabrics.

Speaker 1: 50:59

You can okay, that's good because some covers are made out of some Brella and some are just vinyl, so it works on all the covers.

Speaker 2: 51:07

And I've seen more and more of this. Umbrella covers come through the stores and stuff lately and there hasn't been a real good way to to clean those, so that's good to know that you can use it on those.

Speaker 2: 51:18

And then it also helps protect it. So not only is it clean, it helps protect it, so I think that's a really good product. I that's on the list of videos to shoot as well. And then the last thing we need talked about is soft skin. Spot it and bring the bottle in with me. It's. I've got an old box down here if you want me to pull that up, but it's the old that's okay, thank you, and see it on the different sites.

Speaker 1: 51:38

So the soft skin spa, again a great, and the ingredients do make a difference and there's over 15 different ingredients in soft skin spa. It is a once a week application and if somebody has an eye care, the eye care will tell them exactly how much to dose. But in essence it is one cap per hundred gallons once a week and that cap is one ounce. So the Box of soft skin spa has two bottles or the same product. The reason why we put two bottles in there that are smaller, just easier to handle, easier to have out by the hot tub if you'd like to, and In your adding again one cap per hundred gallons once a week, that product is going to make the water feel soft. It's going to make your skin feel soft. Your hair gets in the water. It's going to make your hair feel soft, almost like you put conditioner in your hair. And it's also going to give a layer of protection to your hot tub, the equipment and your body from the harshness of chemicals, similar to how rain X works on a windshield. If you've ever used rain X water just beads off off a windshield water. We'll just beat off of you. It also has buffering agents three different buffering agents to help you maintain your pH and alkalinity.

Speaker 1: 52:51

It also has silver, which silver? Some people use mineral sticks. We just happen to put it in there, the reason why we put it into that product versus coming out with a mineral stick, as a mineral stick is an erosion based product and it tends to work really well at the beginning, not so well at the end and it all depends on whether or not it's in a Filter area that is getting a lot of circulation or not a lot of circulation or a lot of flow or not a lot of flow, so it erodes at a different rate, whereas by adding on a weekly basis you're actually creating Consistency of the amount of silver this in the water from week to week, so it's consistent throughout its entire period that you're using it. But that box of soft skin spa that has the two bottles is going to last a consumer that has about a 400 gallon hot tub about four months and that product again, we don't have any phosphates in there to be able to again Just keep phosphates out of the water as much as we possibly can.

Speaker 2: 53:48

It's a great product. Highly recommend it. Your water feels so much better and everything that happens. I never miss a week on it, because if I do miss a week, I noticed that I didn't do it. So my salt water hot tub it is the ultimate and that's why I didn't bring the bottle in, because it's out with the hot tub. But it's a really good product. It the only thing I would suggest, as we're talking about, is make sure you shake it really good before so I agree but that's a great product and so well.

Speaker 2: 54:16

Congratulations on that. Is your complete chemical line, correct?

Speaker 1: 54:20

It is talked about everything indeed.

Speaker 2: 54:22

So congratulations on getting that out and public. I know you've been working on that for a really long time and I know the website is so close and I've been with you on the website. So that's why I wanted to show it a little bit today, because it's it's a very cool website and I can't wait for you to get it out or people can see it and hopefully Friday or Saturday this week you'll have that going. So one thing that I'm going to do to help you celebrate is Anybody that's listened to the podcast or the watch in the show today. This is the only place you're gonna find this discount. I'm not gonna publish it anywhere else, but on my website.

Speaker 2: 54:54

If you buy ideals chemicals, I'll give you 10% off if you use the code ideal 10. So this is the only place you're gonna see it. This is the only place that we're gonna go from there, but you'll save 10% if you put that in as a coupon code on my website. So well, it's not active yet. Give me about 20 minutes and I'll have that ready to go, but by the time you guys watch this, that will be good to go on that. Anything else you want to add anything?

Speaker 1: 55:22

So the one thing that we're doing on our site when it does launch on Friday, is to make it simple and to offer free shipping on any orders over $99. So start adding up some of the little things. It's very easy to get to $100 and At that point it there is free shipping, there is a toggle for it and you'll see it come up in the cart that if it's under $99 it's a flat rate of $15. And this is for North America. So if there's anybody who's trying to buy outside of the country, this rule doesn't apply, but Within, I should say, the United States. So the lower 48, anything under $100, it's $15 flat rate. Anything over, then we'll turn around and pay the freight. So the reason why I'm telling you this is if you're at 85 and All of a sudden you got to pay $15 shipping and might as well go order another product, you get a better deal. You get another product, even if you were buying two of something. Get over $100 and take advantage of the free shipping.

Speaker 2: 56:30

Yes, I try. I was working on my website yesterday to make that a little more Prevalent and a little more so people would see that because I have had a couple people buy a few things and they've been at like 97 dollars. And it's just by the one more thing, because you still you're still paying the $15 you get it from free at that point.

Speaker 2: 56:45

Yeah, even if you just get in a filter soak or something along that line. So that's definitely a good way to go and I'm super excited for you. Congratulations, I hope this thank you.

Speaker 2: 56:55

Totally takes off for you. I hope that everybody has the little raindrop on there from the oh, I got to get that in the camera the little raindrop from the logo, the ideal water carry. I hope everybody has those bottles in their backyard because it is a really good product and that this is good to go. I do have a quick question From I Perry any chances product can be sold in Canada?

Speaker 1: 57:21

So if the if you have a retailer in Canada, the chlorine is all EPA approved. That's the only thing that has to be EPA approved. So if there's a retailer up in Canada, that you can definitely put them in contact with us. And if we can Set up that retailer and now you can buy from your local retailer, I think that would be great. So the site for shipments into Canada I don't know if that's going to be active right away, but that does have a, in essence, a charge for shipping into Canada. And then there is we ship across borders. We it's something that's not within our control, but the Canadian customs Is going to charge some type of a import fee. That again, it's just outside of our control. So the answer Um your question yes, it can be. First, we would ask that you contact your local retailer and be put in contact with us. If not, it would be through our site and you just have to pay an additional fee for shipping into Canada.

Speaker 2: 58:25

Okay, good, good answer. So hope that answers everybody's questions and we're gonna need to wrap it up today. Make sure you guys buy the bulk hot tub clarity. That's on amazon. You can get that there. Join the facebook group. We have so many people on there, jim's on there. We get a lot of questions asked and answered on the facebook group and it's gotten to the point where it's taken care of itself these days. So that makes me really excited and then. So join that facebook group and then, don't forget, you can download the free seven page guide. The links are down below so you guys can Free hot tub care guide on on all of that, and then I'll make sure to have the links for the dosages For the ideal water care chemicals. So, guys, thanks so much. I think you're the absolute best and we will see you Next week. We've got ryan from a and b accessories. He will be here and that that'll be an exciting show as well. Jim, thanks so much and congratulations on everything. Yeah, thank you.