We want to let you in on a dirty little secret about how to clean a hot tub: you don’t need special spa cleaning products. Sure, it might feel easier to stop at your local pool and spa shop for a hot tub cleaner, but you really don’t need to.
The other thing is, maybe you’d prefer to use natural cleaners and avoid ingredients that can be toxic, especially if you have curious kids or pets in the house. Whatever your reason, there’s a good chance you already have everything you need at home to maintain a clean and healthy hot tub.
Before we jump into the everyday household products you can use to clean your hot tub, let’s talk about the types of cleaners you’ll find in your kitchen cabinet. This will help you understand what types of cleaners are best for certain types of work.
For example, you wouldn’t use bleach to clean a sensitive surface anymore than you’d use olive oil to clean your toilet. Let’s not even talk about what kind of mess that would be. Yikes.
Knowing why these products work makes it easier to understand when and how to use them.
So what can you use that’s going to get the job done, but not damage your hot tub surfaces?
If you’re conscientious about cleaning your coffee maker, you probably a bottle of white vinegar sitting in your pantry right now. And if that’s the case, you already know vinegar is an excellent cleaning agent. But have you ever wondered how to clean a hot tub with vinegar? It’s easy.
Typical white vinegar will have an acidity of about 2.5pH, although it can go as high as 4pH. That means it’s strong enough to dissolve messes without the risks of heavy-duty commercial cleaners. For example, it’s less likely to damage a vinyl hot tub cover.
Vinegar cleans by charging the particles of whatever you’re scrubbing. Those charged molecules are then more attracted to positive and negative charges in water molecules, making the offending substance easier to remove.
You can use vinegar to clean all kinds of surfaces, but it’s especially helpful for removing scum lines in your hot tub shell. It’s also really inexpensive, so you’ll save money using vinegar to clean your hot tub instead of a special cleaner.
Important: You may have heard you can use vinegar to clean hot tub pipes too. We strongly recommend against that. It won’t hurt your pipes or anything, it just won’t be effective. Vinegar is an excellent cleaner for a lot of things, just not for the nasty biofilm that accumulates in hot tub plumbing. To make sure it’s removed and your pipes are clear, always use a hot tub line flush product on the plumbing.
Don't let your hot tub fill with hard-to-remove gunk. Clear out the gunk and keep your hot tub water fresh. It removes gunk in your pipes caused by lotions, sunscreens, cosmetics, etc.
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Cleaning Instructions
You can also use vinegar to clean your filters. Simply soak your filters in a 50% water and 50% vinegar solution for two hours. Keep in mind you may need to use an actual hot tub filter cleaner if it’s really grimy, or replace the filter if it’s beyond cleaning.
All-natural and diluted to a cleaning strength of 30% acidity.
If you’re looking for other ways to use vinegar to clean around the house, you may be surprised at how many uses it has.
OK, when you think about how to clean a hot tub, you probably don’t think about using oil. That just seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But hear us out.
If you do any cooking at home, you probably have a bottle of olive oil. This common pantry ingredient can also be classified as a detergent because, as an oil, it works to remove other oils that trap dirt.
Say you have a sticky sap stain on your hot tub cover or shell. It’s not something you can easily rub off or wipe away because the stain is basically glued to the surface with an oil film. A detergent or soap helps remove the stain by suspending the grease connecting the dirt to whatever surface you want to clean.
Once you’ve removed the sap, you can use a good surface protectant to keep it from adhering so strongly in the future, saving you some time and elbow grease.
It protects against UV damage, and repels dirt and stains on your hot tub cover. Apply every 3-5 weeks. Last 5 years unopened, 2 years after opening. It is made in the USA.
You’ve probably seen olive oil soap in the natural aisle of the grocery store or at a health food store. That’s because olive oil is mostly made of triglycerides, which are the fatty storage molecules in plants and animals. Triglycerides are a primary component of traditional soap, so olive oil is a green alternative to harsher detergents.
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Cleaning Instructions
Say you’ve got a case of hot tub folliculitis on your hands. If that’s what you’re facing, you don’t just need to clean your tub. You need to clean and sanitize it.
Like vinegar, bleach breaks the bonds of stains. But it has the added benefit of killing bacteria. Bleach forms a variety of chemicals when added to water, including hypochlorous acid and hypochlorite anion. Hypochlorous acid kills bacteria while hypochlorite anions disrupts the natural processes of a bacteria, rendering it harmless.
You can also use bleach if you have tough stains and scum lines vinegar can’t handle. Bleach destroys molecular chromophore bonds, which are what give the molecules color, which is what stains are.
Important: if you are going to use bleach to clean your hot tub, make sure you thoroughly rinse your tub both before and after cleaning and never, ever mix bleach with anything besides water. Mixing bleach with vinegar or other chemical cleaners can create highly toxic fumes which can irritate your eyes and skin or even cause respiratory failure.
What You Need
Cleaning Instructions
Bleach with 7.5% sodium hypochlorite offers powerful sanitizing capabilities.
If you’re looking for a versatile cleaner, look no further than a humble box of baking soda. Mixed with water, it creates a base cleaner, or you can use it as a mild abrasive. So if you have a particularly stubborn bit of scum that just won’t go away, simply add a bit of baking soda to your sponge and scrub.
Aside from cleaning your hot tub, baking soda is pretty much a miracle worker around the house if you’re looking for milder ways to clean.
An affordable alternative to traditional chemicals, baking soda will naturally raise the alkalinity and pH in your water. It's also useful for cleaning tiles and surfaces.
If you’ve been wondering how to clean a hot tub without chemicals and without worrying about noxious fumes, Simple Green might be closer to your preference. It isn’t chemical free—everything is chemicals—some are just more potent or toxic than others. But Simple Green is non-toxic and biodegradable.
You can use it for both the interior and exterior of your hot tub, though you should avoid applying it to suede, leather, and unfinished wood. Your best bet is to always test a small, inconspicuous area when trying a new cleaner.
And note that while it doesn’t give off nasty fumes, it also has a … unique scent. Some people love it, and some people whose olfactory sense is functioning properly absolutely hate it. You may want to take a quick whiff of it at the store before you buy it.
What You Need
Cleaning Instructions
Revolutionary, all-purpose cleaner. Strong enough to degrease your cars engine, yet gentle enough to remove stains from fine fabrics.
Using this one is actually more about looking good than it is about cleaning, especially if you have chrome or stainless steel fixtures in your hot tub. Staring at grubby, fingerprint-laden fixtures can get old fast. Alcohol will shine them right up.
What You Need
Cleaning Instructions
Your hot tub isn’t the only thing around your home that has shiny fixtures and other surfaces that can benefit from a few swipes of rubbing alcohol.
Yeah, the jingle is catchy, but Mr. Clean Magic Erasers (or really, any brand of melamine sponge) is an easy way to tackle stains, especially on the outside of your hot tub.
The sponge is made of a melamine polymer, which is an abrasive foam. Once activated by water, it can remove soap scum, grease, and dirt even in small crevices. Just wet it, wring it out, and scrub the grime away. Of course, if you’re tackling something under your hot tub water line, make sure to drain your tub and rinse thoroughly after cleaning.
It might mean a little more elbow grease for you, but these household products can save you money while still keeping your hot tub clean. But once you know how to clean a hot tub naturally, there’s no need for a special trip to the pool store to get cleaning supplies, especially if you have a well-stocked pantry or cleaning cabinet.
Not only that, but you’ll feel better knowing you’re not adding even more harsh chemicals to your hot tub to keep it clean. That’ll put your mind at ease before your next relaxing soak.
Happy Soaking!
Matt is the founder of Swim University. He's been in the pool industry since 1993. His mission is to make pool care easy for everyone. Each year, he continues to help more people with water chemistry, cleaning, and troubleshooting.
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