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James Arjuna, President
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 1997 through 2017
The Spa Specialist
Havenmade
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Quality Spas and Hot Tubs

How To Purchase A Haven Spa!

Havenmade

"Promoting ethics in the spa industry."

“We trust we have an honest conscience, as we wish to conduct ourselves honestly in all things.”—Hebrews 13:18.



Question:  I want to own a Haven Spa and not be forced by economics to purchase an inferior spa? I just don't understand how spas can be so expensive?

A:  I know that many people are in need of owning a spa for heath, enjoyment and life improvement.  I was in the same boat.   When I first got into the spa industry, I drove a 12 year old car, because I had a family and mortgage to support.  I bought my first portable spa with payments and it was worth every penny in interest.  It was also a very good well made spa.   I had the advantage of knowing spas.  That spa never needed any warranty service either.

When I needed extra money, I always had to borrow it and make payments.  I still do that, now rarely, in my business, but the end result of borrowing money allowed the business to grow. 

I do not consider some (most) spas to be a “home improvement”. Rather, they are a waste of money.

Consider that a Haven Spa is a 20 or 30 year item, depending on how you treat it: It is an actual HOME IMPROVEMENT, not a detriment.

The "short version":  Buy a Haven which is a home improvement, and if you need to finance it with your home improvement loan, it will still pay for itself in savings.

One of the best sources for money to purchase a quality spa is in your home.   I do not recommend this for most anything else but to expand your home, or to put in real improvements.   I do not consider some (most) spas to be a “home improvement”. Rather, they are an aggravation and waste of money.

  I do not recommend putting money on a spa that is going to cause problems to people who can barely afford to own a spa.  Those are the people who also cannot afford to pay to have them fixed regularly.  (Labor Costs, for hot tub repair, today are over $100 per hour in many cities.)

If you buy a cheap hot tub or used, you need to be mechanically/electrically trained and inclined and forget about any support for your purchase. You buy cheap, because it is all you can afford and I hope it works out for you. The DIY spirit is good. But you cannot make a lemon spa into a good spa by hard work.

We have service customers who bought cheap and have no mechanical electrical skills.  The spa had a very short warranty, and is now in need of repairs.  Normally these spas are purchased from mass merchants.  When they get the repair bill for $500-$1000 on a new $4,000 to $6000 spa is should be a “wake up call” and it will be a “sign of things to come.”  You can figure about every 6 months to be on first name basis with your hot tub service guy. 

I have a friend (spa service technician of 24 years)  who called me the other day.  He told me that Lowes is getting some cheap line of spas.  Then he said:  “I guess that will insure job security”  for him, because he is  doing warranty work for the other companies. 

I have, personally, participated in warranty for 16 different spa companies, and Haven Spas are nothing like those spas.  We are truly the least amount of warranty company in the spa business.  I mean we don't do much warranty work at all, because the spas work so well, as they were designed to.

When you pay way too little for something, it costs you money in the long run.  On some spa brands you pay high for the original prices and you pay a lot for keeping it running.  In the case of poor quality spas, it is a lot of money in the long run.  I see people dumping those spas by giving them away or they sit in the back yard for years, before going to the dump.  Nobody is going to put $1200 into a 6 year old spa that is worth $1000 in running condition.  By the way, Haven Spas have the highest resale value of any spa I have ever sold. 10 year old models sell for 60% to80% of the original price.

Typically the spa company's  main line of spas is sold through dealers.  Those dealers, do not like threats from Lowes or Costco, Target, Sears, or Walmart (nor HavenSpas) on their income, so you know the Mass Merchant version spas are cheap and made to not compete with the main line of spas.

Since I consider the latest “premium” corporate spas to be a poor to mediocre value product,  you have to realize my opinion of the mass merchant version of those spas.  Why buy something that is built so cheap?  Don’t you know what the professional spa service people think?  My number one question I pose to spa shoppers: "How much do you know about spas?" Don’t you know how much electricity it costs to run a poorly insulated spa? Don't you know that spa repair people are in great demand and get up to $150 per hour.

Enough of that.

When you realize that you need to spend some "serious" extra money to get a better product, then you need to find the money, do a budget, and you need to evaluate the total costs of ownership. If you pay $6,000-12000 for a run of the mill spa and it breaks down in 5 years, when the warranty is over (and with several trips out to fix it under warranty: CLUE), you can pay for just one service call, $700 on average, and if a main component is dead; $1500.  If you can get 10 to 20 years on the same type of part (Haven Spas), isn't that a better way to go?

In the back of my book “How Spas Are Made” I give an average comparison between the standard spas of Southern CA and  a Haven spa.  Most of it has to do with cost of ownership, not just the cost of the original purchase.  You could make the interest payments on a Haven Spa and still save a few thousand dollars over the life of the spa. This comparison is NOT and exaggeration. Since we have been increasing the "distance" of quality way beyond any competitor, since moving to Holland with our factory, the numbers are much greater in savings by owning a Haven Spa.

http://www.spaspecialist.com/CostVS.Price.html

Every Time I turn on a Haven Spa and listen to it run, just makes me feel good.  It sounds smooth and powerful, as the well tuned machines they are.

The Haven way of building and producing a product, gives you an idea of where we come from.

I have seen plenty of spa shells that have lasted over 20 years and what they look like.  I have seen properly applied fiberglass shells, made with acrylic that are in great shape at over 30 years.  That is why we choose the Acrylic/vinyl ester/fiberglass composite (five layers of hand rolled glass) for our shells as just one example. Our shells follow the example of extremely expensive boats, like those made in Holland.  Holland is famous for yachts and cruisers.  After all they were the first to build boats using technology. This is why we see this tiny country, has had so much influence around the world. 

 We also choose the best motors, I know of.  I am constantly looking for better parts, and we now have a newer more modern motor on all of our spas.  This, along with the DAIT, and our beefed up control system will make Haven SE and SC spas the longest lasting without the constant visits by the service people.

Our new cabinets are HEAVY and have the most durable composite known to mankind for spas. Our spas weigh on average over 1000 LB.






There have been plenty of poorly made spa shells, and I have seen the results and I have seen improper use of water pumps and poor filter designs.  It is rampant in the spa industry. The utter disregard for the ANSI safety standards by the majority of the spa industry is really bad.

To me, a 40 plus years engineer, it is standard engineering we use.  For instance if a pump manufacturer gives instructions on the parameters of use for a pump: Don't you think they should be followed?  We actually exceed them and put in safety and overkill in every part.

How about the use of the control system parameters? 

Structural engineering and composite engineering principles?  Every spa I see, other than Haven, has horrible concessions on standard engineering, and they sound like "thrashing machines" to me when they run. I actually, cringe when I would listen to them.  I would say to myself: "Those poor parts, being beaten to death."

Forcing parts to not run correctly is a disgrace to and a disrespect for all the great scientists and engineers who came before.

Every Time I turn on a Haven Spa and listen to it run, just makes me feel good.  It sounds smooth and powerful, as the well tuned machines they are.
Haven Spas are my personal answer to this problem of poor engineering in the spa industry.

However, they are budget priced (factory direct) to purchase,  And much less costly to own over the life of the spas.  After 15 years of ownership, you will still have a spa running well and still reliable.

If you look at the Haven line of spas and the prices, you  will see that we do not cut the strength of the product, we cut some features (not all can be 5 pumps) , but still maintain therapy in all the spas.   If you want real value, highest quality at a factory direct price,  for your hard earned money, you need a state of the art and engineering, Haven Spa.   In my opinion, there is no other choice. 

You  cannot put twin 4 HP pumps and 30 jets and sell it for less than $9000 to consumers, unless it is low quality (junque) and has poor service life.

 Haven Spas are not made in China or Indonesia, and the cost to produce a truly American Parts made in Holland  is higher, because of the higher quality of lifestyle we are supporting.  (People want higher wages for employees...well we pay higher wages in Holland with full benefits.) How do these “fly by night” companies sell so cheap, something that is made in America?  You think about that.  Cheap illegal labor is the most common methods or made in Mexico where there is no protections for employees and need for safety regulations.

Most manufacturing has left the US, but at least some of it is still in the continent.  Haven Spas are Made In the Holland where Luxury Yachts are made.  Some sub-assemblies components come from Italy  and no Chinese parts.    Fortunately, for you Dutch quality is superb.   The Internet has allowed us a market that has a lot less “steps” in the economic “food chain”.

So, to answer the question, you see, why I have to educate on the economics of owning a better product.   Is it worth it to purchase a spa that is designed to outlast the rest, and has the lowest energy consumption of any spa with similar features?

Absolute best therapy.  When spa companies put in tons of weak tiny jets, so they have huge numbers of 100's of jets, there ARE NO PUMPS capable of making those jets work at optimum in a spa like that.  You cannot even put enough pumps under the cabinet to run them, so it is utter ridiculous nonsense. 

We use FULL size therapy jets and put full power of the pumps to the jets, to get optimum therapy.  

Yes, it is worth getting a “home improvement loan” on the equity in your house, in order to own one of the best home improvements there is.  Contact any bank on this..  This interest rates are lower and tax deductible, because it is a home improvement. Most of us don’t have $12 to $20 K around to buy anything with, so if you are wanting something that is worth going to the effort to make payments on, it better be worth it.  Don't you agree?

The other thing and a very important part of our business ethics is that we respect your money.  Most people work hard to make a living these days.  The facts are that those who want a good lifestyle, have to work longer hours and both husband and wife have to work.
 
Does a spa sales person, who knows nothing about spas, nor engineering and is reciting a memorized  sales pitch, and does not know he/she is selling some rip off spa, like a Hoh Sprind Spa product, respect your money? It is not intentional..It is ignorance. I feel sorry for both the salesperson, store owners and their customers, for perpetuating this lie ("We have the best spas, bla bla bla!) on the public.

No, they only want your money!  The ethics is that they will deceive you (and the salesperson selling the spa too you),  into purchasing a stamped out piece of plastic (stuffed with foam to hold it together so it wont crumble under the load of water and people), because it feeds the corporate machine.  Large corporate spas are the worst, because of the way they are produced and the amount of human resources that are wasted, but still have to be paid wages.  The larger they are the more wasted time and effort there is, because they follow the archaic corporate design that is taught in college.  Hasn't anybody besides me figured this out.  The schools are teaching “old school” business management in the age of world economy.

Do you have any idea how much it costs to live in southern California?  It is virtually impossible to produce a quality spa in Southern California and pay the wages needed to buy a home.  Hoh Sprind Spas is doomed to extinction, by the nature of how and where they run the business.  Using automation and cheap materials sold as "the best" is pure evil, in my opinion.  The real market value for the time, materials and energy to produce these cheap things is about $4000 to $5000 at full retail for the biggest models they have. Yet with the marketing hype and cheap production, they sell them for 10,000 and more.

You are going to see them in the mass merchants, "burning" all their dealers as a last ditch effort to keep the corporate machine going.  (We already saw that with HO Sprigs and that failed. They were "screwing" their own dealers. And yet the dealers kept on trying to compete. )

Every mass merchant spa has been replaced many times with some other company's product, that were stupid enough or desperate enough to try it.

The only thing that will save them is to spin off to small efficiently operated companies.

Now it is 2017 and MOST spa factories have gone bankrupt and have been bought by venture capitol marketing companies and these spas are worse now than ever. All of the major brands, today, are far worse than they were in quality.  Basically, they are ruining the industry's reputation which is already pretty horrible.    I hate reading articles like this. The total ignorance of engineering in the spa industry, coupled with greed, is why articles like this exist.

Every time there was a "recession" and the other brands cut the quality down to bare bone, cheap, we kept raising the "bar" and came out with spas such as the Super Custom Fallsburg (and all the Super Custom Models) that is now legendary in that it has outlasted ever spa ever made and outperforms all of them after 20 years of production.  Today the SCF is only made to order and is  $29,000.00.   And it is not the most expensive spa either, but it is the most powerful and longest lasting on earth. 


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