Member Login | Not a FREE member yet? Sign Up Here!

Is A Spa Cover Lifter The Answer?
By: Jeff Sliger

So you have owned your spa for a while and replaced the cover when it got heavy. Now your wondering if you should get a lifter. Well if you want to get one for ease of use they work great. If you are getting one so you can avoid replacing your spa cover then save your money. A cover lifter only works with a spa cover that is not saturated or heavy.

The spa cover lifter was invented as a means to assist in the removal and storage of a hot tub cover while the spa is in use. The mechanism and idea work great and can make the process fairly quick and easy. The trouble is that most spa owners are sold a lifter as a means to remove a heavy cover. Unfortunately no lifter is designed to work with a saturated cover.

The way a typical lifter works is by means of a bar that extends from one side of the spa to the other along the fold in the spa cover. The operator still has to fold the cover back over the bar to begin the opening process. If the cover is already heavy it will not assist this first phase at all.

The second part of the process is to push the lifter back toward the way you want the cover to go. Once again if your cover is saturated and heavy this is where the real damage is done. Since the spa cover was never designed to hang by the material hinge and most are some grade of marine vinyl the heavy cover will pull itself apart merely due to its own weight. In this case that would be the best thing that could happen.

Most spa cover lifters attach to the sides of the spa. If the weight of a heavy cover puts too much strain of these pivot points it could rip the screws out of the sides of the spa or worse tear the sides of the spa off. This might sound impossible but it does happen

The bar lifter does make a nice place to store the spa cover while you are using the hot tub. Again it is important to note it requires a light weight spa cover to work easily. That means, if the reason you bought the cover lifter was to avoid having to replace your heavy spa cover, it is not going to be the answer. You will still need to replace your typical rigid foam filled hot tub cover every couple of years to make that lifter effective. In most cases this would be a lot more frequently then you replace it now.

If you already own a spa cover lifter, you probably know all this. Do not despair. You just need to be prepared to replace that cover every one to two years. When you buy the new cover, store the old one under cover in a dry place somewhere. When the new one spa cover is about a year old you can rotate the old one back onto the spa. When it is stored in a dry place away from the warm steam of your spa the foam will dry and be easy to lift again. You should be able to get some extra life out of your covers this way. Eventually all vinyl will crack and fall apart so this is not a permanent fix. If you get used to rotating covers you can get more life out of them. Think of it like being a football coach. If you have a key player that is essential to your game plan it just makes sense to give him a break now and then.

If you plan on using this rotation method of replacing covers do not bother buying the most expensive foam spa cover you can find because they all fall victim to the same thing eventually and the cheap covers will last just as long with rotation.

Another option would be to purchase a different type of cover that would not saturate, get heavy or pull apart at the seams. It could still be used with a lifter mechanism. If you shop online I know there are options that your local spa dealer does not have to offer. Look for something that will not weigh more that a typical foam spa cover and that can work in a similar way to lay over the bar. Keep in mind the goal is to use your spa, not your lifter. You may have to make adjustments on how or where your lifter pivots from to accommodate a different kind of cover, but if it makes getting in and out of your spa easy that is the real bottom line.