Ask 'Dr. Spa' Q & A Message Board

: The Quanta heater has two elements as you noted, but both elements are
: energized simultaneously regardless of whether you select high
: temperature or low temperature. That tub has two temperature settings
: so that you do not have to get down to the brown control box, open
: the lid and change the setting. The selector knob on the top control
: panel is for convenience.

: It sounds as if your heater has failed due to either age or water
: chemistry (or both). The fault to ground is a dead giveaway. Also,
: bear in mind that power to the elements passes through multiple
: contactors, so a single sticking contactor is not likely to be a
: problem by itself. That heater is still available from many industry
: sources. It's not cheap, but it is very good.

: More importantly, this tub pre-dates the requirement for GFCI
: protection. It sounds like you have never upgraded the electrical
: protection as recommended years ago by the CPSC. I urge you to
: replace the 60 amp breaker in your main panel with a 60 amp GFCI
: breaker while repairing your tub. It could prevent a fire or
: electrocution in the future. The fact that your fault to ground is
: now in the 70 to 80 ohm range is incredibly dangerous. A functioning
: GFCI would have tripped long before reaching this range. Incipient
: ground faults are generally found with a megohmmeter much earlier
: than this.

: The Quanta is probably the finest hot tub ever made by anyone. The
: fiberglass is so thick and the electrical is so robust, that it can
: literally last for decades with a few repairs over it's lifetime.
: Modern tubs do NOT have those robust contactors anymore and the tub
: vessels have gotten MUCH thinner. Take care of that fine tub.

: John

Thanks for the tip on the GFCI breaker, John.. will definitely look into putting one of those in during the repair. Do you know of any lower-amp heating elements that could replace the 12kw one and have the correct thread size, height, etc? The tub is indoors so there really isn't a need to heat 15-20 degrees per hour. We usually leave it on the low heat setting and have that set modestly (88-90 degrees if I remember correctly).. and would just turn it on high for 10 minutes or so before jumping in to heat it up a little more.

I attached pictures of the underside of the heating element.. definitely cooked one of the coils that corresponds to the "high temp" breaker/relay. The low temp side looks like the insulation's pretty melted too, somewhere in there must be making a connection to ground. Haven't pulled it out yet, looks like we'll need to take the control box out to really be able to work on it. Would like to figure out if there's an alternate heating element I could use there before ordering the exact replacement since it wouldn't be bad to have less amps running through the circuit since it's indoors anyway.