Water Purifiers (Ionizers) for Hot Tubs and Spas

The Process

The Almost Heaven Water Purifier is an electronic ionizer. It produces copper, silver and zinc ions, which are effective at killing algae, bacteria, fungi and viruses. The use of silver ions for the purpose of sanitization is as old as civilization itself, and as new as the aerospace program. The ancient Greeks and Romans used silver vessels to purify liquids, in colonial times silver coins were placed in barrels of water for the same purpose, and the silver sanitization method went to the moon on the Apollo spacecraft. Most recently makers of public kiosks began impregnating their touch screens with silver to help stem the spread of disease.

Silver is used today in preparations for burn patients to prevent infections, for newborns to prevent blindness, to keep cosmetics bacteria free, in drinking water filters, and in dental fillings to help prevent further decay. In Africa, where other forms of sanitization are scarce, silver laden paints line water tanks to combat bacterial growth. Copper based algaecides have been used for decades in swimming pools, fountains, lakes and ponds to safely control algae problems, and the anti-mocrobial effects of zinc are also well documented.

The copper/silver/zinc sanitization process is so safe and effective that at higher concentrations than what's necessary for a pool or hot tub this same method is used to purify potable (drinking) water.

Copper, silver and zinc ions are odorless, tasteless and colorless and, most important, they are stable in solution, unlike chlorine or ozone. Ozonaters only reduce the need for halogens (chlorine and bromine), ionizers eliminate the need. Ozone and chlorine, however, are both active "oxidizers" and this is their main advantage. After you kill those annoying organisms that swim off your skin when you dip into the tub, it can be useful to "burn up" their little bodies, as well as your dead skin cells, body oils, etc., and this is the purpose of an oxidizer.

While it's important and necessary for the process of sanitization (the killing of organisms) to be constant, as it is with an ionizer, there's certainly no need or desire to have oxidization going on constantly. There's a reason we seek out diets rich in anti-oxidants for good health.

Unfortunately, when you use ozone or chlorine as a sanitizer/oxidizer, these chemicals are in the water all the time, and they're going after your living skin cells just as viciously as the dead ones floating in the water that you'd like to burn up. Chlorine and bromine are so aggressive and damaging to wooden tubs that we've specified that the use of a floating chlorine feeder voids our wood tub warranty.

Although the ionizer is effective as a sanitizer, it does not provide the oxidizing action that you get with ozone and chlorine. Therefore, Almost Heaven includes a supply of a non-chlorine based oxidizer with every Spa & Hot Tub Water Purifier, and we recommend the use of such an oxidizer with our pool units.

The oxidizer may only be necessary in small amounts once per week in order to maintain crystal clear water, and there is never a reason to share your dip with this chemical, since it is fast acting and only added occasionally. If you add it to the water at night after using your tub, it will be gone in the morning, along with any dead organic matter that's been able to accumulate over the previous week.

Some ionizer manufacturers recommend the constant use of a low chlorine residual in place of weekly oxidizing treatments, but most of these competing units do not include silver and are therefore not as effective as our units. With our method there is never a reason to share your dip with such harsh chemicals.

The Method

There are two main ways that you can introduce metallic ions into the water. Through the means of electronic generation, or by the erosion method. The Almost Heaven Water Purifier generates ions electronically, which allows you to precisely control the level of ions in the water. Too many ions in the water could cause staining, and with too little, you risk a health hazard. Some of the erosion feeders we've seen float on the surface of the water, and one very popular brand is installed into your filter (providing you have the right type of filter).

These erosion feeders can't possibly anticipate the demand for ions, and in the case of most of these types of devices it's unlikely that they manage to generate an effective ion level at all. That's why all of the erosion feeders still require the need for a chlorine residual. With an electronic ionizer, you have an adjustable control that allows you to accurately set the unit's output, and it runs with the pump, so the more you use your tub, the more ions you get. The proof is in the fact that we supply a copper test kit with every unit. Many other electronic ionizer companies charge extra for this, and the erosion feeder companies don't like to even talk about testing for ion level.

And if the low price of that erosion feeder that goes into your filter seems attractive, check out their life span. You have to buy a new one every three months! The electrodes for the electronic ionizer are relatively inexpensive to replace and last for many, many years.

Worse yet, many units on the market, erosion and otherwise, do not use any silver at all! Beware of copper only units. It's the silver and zinc that kill the bacteria and viruses. The copper is most effective against only algae and fungii.

Why Ours is Better

The above should convince you that electronic ion generation is far superior to the erosion method, and there are a number of reasons why the Almost Heaven Water Purifier is the best electronic ionizer value available.

First and foremost, the Almost Heaven Ionizer is one of the only units on the market that generates copper, silver and zinc. Some ionizers generate copper and silver, some generate copper and zinc, and there are even those that generate copper only, rendering them essentially worthless!

We've been selling copper/silver ionizers for well over 40 years. Silver has been used for sanitization for millenia, and we feel that you should stick with what works. We've seen a number of our competitors switch from silver to zinc, but we feel that the inclusion of silver is critical to halogen free operation. That's why we decided to offer one of the only three metal ionizer on the market. Although we were the first to use a three ion system, we've seen this approach copied by some of our competitors, so we must be doing something right!

The ionic ratio of silver as compared to the total is still the same, at five percent, but now, the remaining metal is eighty percent copper, fifteen percent zinc, rather than just the ninety five percent copper our units used to generate.

We have heard some say that zinc is better than silver on account of staining in plaster pools, but we don't necessarily agree with this. Plaster pools can be easily stained for any number of reasons, from leaves falling into the pool to trace pollutants in the fill water. You can just as easily stain plaster with copper and even zinc, and an ionizer used in a properly maintained pool shouldn't stain at all.

We have seen one of our competitors cautioning owners of pools newly finished with a "Marcite" surface to wait 90 days before installing the ionizer, and we'd take it one step farther and make this recommendation for any type of finish, Marcite or otherwise. In the interim, you can use chlorine, and once you do have your ionizer on line, you'll appreciate it even more!

The electrodes in the Almost Heaven Water Purifier are superior to other electronic ionizers, and not just because they're one of the the only three metal electrodes on the market. Look closely at the electrodes in the pictures above, and you'll see just how beefy ours are. Larger size translates to longer life, and you can expect to get five to ten times the life span from one of our electrodes as compared to many of our competitors'. That means you might pay a bit less to purchase a competing model with much smaller electrodes, but over the span of a decade or two, you'll spend many hundreds of dollars more replacing the electrodes each year or two!

All Almost Heaven Water Purifiers include an inline ion chamber. Many others float on the water or include a drop-in chamber which is draped over the side of the tub. Our inline ion chamber mounts easily in minutes, out of sight, into one of your water lines by means of its TEE design. One unit we've seen includes the control box integrated into the ion chamber, which requires you to support the pipe into which you install the chamber. Our ion chamber includes a pigtail of generous length to allow a more convenient mounting of the control box.

Our units are the most electrically versatile. They'll run on either 110 or 220 Volts (to match your pump's voltage), and they're suitable for either 50 or 60 Hz., so they'll operate just about anywhere in the world. Moreover, no switching is necessary. The control box will automatically sense the type of voltage you have.

Ionizers Vs. Ozonaters

In contrast to the Almost Heaven Water Purifier, which uses copper, silver and zinc ions as a sanitizer, an ozonater generates ozone for the purpose of oxidization. Unfortunately, ozone is unstable, so at best this device only reduces (rather than eliminates) the need for having halogen sanitizers or some other residual sanitizer in the water. The copper, silver and zinc ions are also superior as a sanitizer because they are far more stable than chlorine.

Some people find the odor of ozone as offensive as chlorine, and hazardous levels have been established for ozone as an air pollutant. An indoor spa with an ozonater has the potential of reducing your indoor air quality below OSHA standards. You would not be permitted to work on a factory floor with ozone levels that high. The atomic oxygen generated 24/7 by an ozonater represents the very "oxidant" now known to be so harmful to human health. The ozone can aggravate asthma and other respiratory ailments. It will corrode nearby metal parts and eat through the rubber 'O' rings in your equipment. It will attack the plastic wrap around the foam core of a hot tub cover leading the cover to become waterlogged and useless. In contrast, copper, silver and zinc ions are totally safe, even for drinking water.

Lately, there has been some discussion in the industry regarding the idea of using an ionizer and an ozonater in tandem. Such a method may even seem obvious given the notion that while ozone excels as an oxidizer, this is the very action lacking in the ionizer. Yet, while ozone is unstable and fails to provide the necessary residual level of a sanitizer, this is something of which the ionizer is quite capable.

The point has been made that if you achieve too high a level of ozone in a tub with an ionizer, the free oxygen will bond to the metal ions, rendering them ineffective. There are those that simply caution the user to keep ozone levels low enough so that there is only enough to oxidize organic matter, and to make certain that the ozone and metal ions are not introduced through the same piping so that they don't contact each other in their full concentrations.

We here at Almost Heaven have decided that ozone is so hazardous (perhaps even more so than chlorine!), that there is no place for it in any pool or hot tub. While we have supported customers that were interested in combining an ozonater and an ionizer for non-bathing applications, such as a water fountain, we now feel that an ozonater is not suitable for human bathing applications.

That's really the beauty of our ionizer system. While there is a need to oxidize the water in your pool or tub in order to eliminate accumulated organic matter, the need is not constant. A once per week treatment is adequate, and if you use a fast acting agent per our recommendations, you're never in the water at the same time as the oxidizer, unlike an ozone equipped vessel. One thing remains clear. The only universally accepted alternative to halogen sanitizers involves electronic copper, silver and zinc ion generation.

With many countries in the civilized world contemplating bans on halogen sanitizers, and considering their less than gentle effect on the environment, the purchase of an electronic Almost Heaven Water Purifier for your tub or pool begins to look even more attractive. After all, if excess amounts of halogens can eat through the high grade wood in a natural wooden tub, what might they be doing to your skin?

The first three metal Ionizer on the market!

Put the power of Silver, Copper and Zinc to work for you.

Chemical free sanitization, wholesale to the public...

The Process

The Method

Why Ours is Better

Ionizers Vs. Ozonaters