The Hot Tub from Hell

This looks benign enough. A nice cedar gazebo, surrounded by trees, in a nice secluded part of our back yard.

But lurking within is the "Hot Tub from Hell". If I wasn't trying to sell this place, and if the hot tub wasn't a selling feature to some people, I would have cut it to pieces with my chainsaw!

Last winter we noticed a leak, small at first, but still a leak. Within a short while, it was no longer a small leak, and I had to start trying to figure out where it was. With hot tubs the rule of thumb is that the leak will be in the most difficult spot imaginable. My hot tub was true to form, and after digging foam insulation out until my figures had blood blisters on the ends of them, I located the leak.

Now this is not a picture of the inside of some alien's digestive system. This is where the leak was located.

I had to remove the entire manifold and rebuild it with bits and pieces from spa shops. Canadian Tire and a plumbing shop. I have been twisted inside here for almost two days as I cut and glued and pushed and pulled to make my creation fit. My back is now killing me and I have whiffed enough PVC solvent and glue that I will have to check myself into the Betty Ford Clinic to get off of it. It is actually pretty good stuff! But I digress.

I have one more piece to try and fit in and then I can check to see if I have a water tight fit. Again, given the fact that I am no handyman. it is probably going to leak. In which case I will plaster every fitting and connection with "plumber's goop", and develop a new addiction.

I have to have this operational by the weekend for my daughter's champagne birthday party. She will be 20 on June 20 and is having some of her friend's from University come out for the weekend. Hopefully I get this damn thing working or I am going to have a house full of girls. At least with the hot tub working we can keep them 20 yards from the house.

Saturday afternoon I did a hill work out on the bike which covered roughly 35 miles of steady tempo riding. Legs felt really good and strong though and I was able to maintain an average of 18 miles per hour.

On Sunday it was raining pretty heavily and quite chilly so I opted for an easy run on the treadmill. At the 41 minute mark I smelled smoke and shut her down. That was it for the old mill. After 8 years of heavy use it died! A very sad day in the Power household.

Today was a quick swim at lunch as I had to come home to get the house ready for a showing by our real estate agent. After 500 metres of warm up and drills I did 10 x 100 metres on 2:10. I was pretty happy with my splits as I was consistently under 1:50 / 100. Also for the first time ever, I was beating the guy in lane 3 who I have never beat! I actually waited for him to get out of the pool to make sure he hadn't suffered a debilitating injury. And sure enough he had all his limbs! I am actually getting a little faster!!

Have a great day!