This weekend I pulled apart the iron around our spa bath to fix it. What I discovered was that whoever installed the pump did a VERY dodgy job on it.

The spa bath pump wasn’t even bolted or screwed down. Most of the weight of the pump was being held by the actual pipes with part of the back resting on a piece of timber.

Not only was the pump pretty much “floating” there, but there was also no o-rings actually installed between the pump and the pipes. This is why the bath leaked so freely.

I had a lot of good help from Twin Cities Pool Supplies, which is only a few blocks from our house. They gave me good advice over the phone and were able to provide everything that I needed to get it fixed. Here is the link to their web-site:

• http://tcpoolsupplies.com.au/

I had some good photos of the pump and the spa bath with all the iron removed from around the spa, but unfortunately all the photos were deleted before I got them onto my computer.

The spa bath no longer leaks when the pump is off and the pump is now screwed down to some timber. It looks like the pump itself has a broken seal on the inside though, so I still can’t run the pump without it leaking. Since we want to redo the bath in the next few years though we decided just to disconnect the power for the pump and won’t be using it as a spa.

Ever since we have moved into our house we have only been able to have baths that are about 10cm / 3″ deep. This is because if we fill up our bath more than that it leaks out the spa jets.

I have been resistant to fixing it because it means having to pull off the iron that is on the outside of the bath, then having to find the leak and finally having the actually seal it. Then after sealing it I will need to put the iron back on and probably re-paint the iron (I did this originally in the article Painted – Bathroom).

Well we have finally found someone to build in under the house (sort of, it’s a long story). Since they have started that I will need to fix the leaking spa bath sooner than later because we don’t want the spa bath leaking after we have put in the sheeting on the ceiling under the house.

Tamara found a fairly detailed article about how to repair the leaks. Here is a link to it:

• Australian Spa Parts Pty Ltd – Spa Parts and Repairs in Australia

That does bring up another problem though, what happens if it starts to leak again? How will I know until it has actually destroyed the ceiling under it?

Given the option I would just get rid of the spa bath all together and redo the entire upstairs bathroom, but I can’t see that happening any time soon…