How we verify every figure

Where the specifications come from

Manufacturer sources first, always: the product page, the spec sheet PDF, the owner’s manual, the warranty document, the pre-delivery guide. Where a manufacturer does not publish something, we fall back to an authorized dealer and label it as such, so you can see the difference between what the factory says and what a showroom says.

Every figure links to the document it was read from. That is the dot after each figure on this site. Click it and you land on the document, not on our summary of it.

How it was checked

After the data was gathered, a second independent pass re-read the original sources for all 390 models without trusting the first pass. It corrected 439 values across 190 models: warranty terms taken from a dealer knowledge base rather than the manufacturer’s own document, a registration window that did not exist, loungers missing from models whose comparison chart clearly marked them.

149 of those corrections were to the numbers a buyer actually acts on (seats, loungers, dimensions, water capacity, jet counts, weights, voltage and price) across 100 models. Those figures were wrong before the audit and right after it.

The audit is evidence, not proof. When we checked the audit’s own notes against the data, ten did not match, and one of those was a check the auditor said it had run and had not. One false check across 390 models is a low rate, and we are telling you about it rather than quietly deleting it.

What we do when a manufacturer contradicts itself

We publish both answers with both sources. This happens constantly: a product page against its own owner’s manual, a spec table against the marketing copy three inches above it. We found 1,635 of these in hot tub documents.

Silently picking one would make the site look tidier and make it worth less. If the manufacturer does not know how much water its own tub holds, you should know that before you buy it.

The energy numbers

California requires every portable spa sold in the state to certify its standby power, and publishes the filings. We pulled 920 of those listings and matched 317 to models in our catalog by manufacturer and model number. Matches we were not confident about were left out rather than guessed.

The full table is here →

What we still do not know

Prices. Most manufacturers publish no list price, so most models here have none, and buyer reports only exist once buyers send them. Empty is the honest state, so that is what we show.
183 models have no second photograph. Several manufacturers publish nothing but an overhead render. We would rather show one honest angle than pad the gallery with another model’s tub.
73 models have no energy match. Some brands file under certification codes that do not resemble the name on the brochure.
Almost nobody publishes insulation R-values, filter part numbers or pump flow rates. Where a field is blank on this site, it is usually blank because the manufacturer will not say.

Photography

Product images belong to the manufacturers and are shown for identification. We do not restyle them, and we never substitute one model’s photo for another. If a shot is missing, the space stays empty.