I take my hot tub water to Leslie’s for testing every week. Sometimes monthly, when I’m feeling particularly confident in my abilities as a hot tub owner—which, as it turns out, I should not be. Cyanuric acid has never technically failed me on those tests, but it shows up on my report card the way my kindergarten teacher’s notes did. Not quite a problem. Just a little glare. A suggestion that maybe you could do better.

This week’s test was unnecessary. I knew the water was fine. I went anyway, because I had a plan, and I needed the ritual of confirmation before I could commit to it. The plan was simple: Andy empties the hot tub for the third time, but smarter than the last two.

That is a low bar.

I bought the Purge, which is a product designed to flush the pipes and biofilm before you drain. The night before, I added it to the water, ran the jets briefly while I sprayed out the filters, and watched in mild horror as bubbles cascaded over the sides of the tub and started a very serious attempt to take over the backyard. Five minutes of filter-spraying produced enough foam to threaten the pergola. Eventually it settled down, and I buckled the cover back on to hold the temperature at 95 degrees like the instructions said.

Morning comes. I stretch the hoses toward the street, drop in the submersible pump, flip the switch, and stand there feeling like a man who has his life together. Then I pick up the Purge instructions to give them one last look, and I find a line I’d skimmed past the night before.

“Run the hot tub pumps to flush out the pipes before emptying the tub.”

The pump is already running, but the water level is still high enough. I flip on the jets, let them circulate for a few minutes, and quietly note that catching this before the tub was half-empty probably counts as personal growth.

I ate breakfast. Did some unimportant things. Came back about an hour later.

The hot tub has seating recesses built into it, which is what separates it from being a very expensive, very shallow bathtub. Those recesses, however, do not drain on their own. When the water level drops below the seats, you’re left with little puddles of the exact stuff you were trying to get rid of, like a hoarder who survived the eviction.

This is where the wet/dry vac came in. It’s lived in my garage for years, hauled from Texas, where its entire career consisted of vacuuming acorns. This was its first water. I hosed down the sides of the tub, vacuumed out each seat recess, dumped that water into the lowest point where the pump was still running, and repeated until there was almost nothing left.

Then the pump hit its depth limit, and I had a thought that felt, in the moment, like genuine engineering: drop the pump directly into the vac tank and let it empty that too. No hauling. No sloshing a heavy vac across the yard. The pump did the work while I supervised, which is my strongest skill.

For context on why this matters:

HT 1.0, I dealt with the entire hot tub using five-gallon buckets, hauled by hand, over and over, and never got within a foot of the bottom. HT 2.0, I had the pump, which helped, but I was lazy about the seat recesses and left behind enough shingle granules to form a small gravel path. (The hot tub sits under a pergola with gutters. Rain still finds a way. It always does.) HT 3.0 ended with clean pipes, almost no residue, and no buckets. It was the first time this process felt like something a competent person might do.

I went for a walk while the tub refilled. About an hour, I figured. When I got back, I thought, “I’ll let it fill a little more while I play online chess.”

Chess, apparently, required my full and extended attention. By the time I turned the hose off, the water level was higher than intended, and when I flipped the fuses back on, the pump had to take a couple of dry gulps before the water reached it. A minor thing. Noted for 4.0.

The water temperature at fill was 73 degrees. It takes time to climb back up to soak-worthy, but by evening we were both in the tub, my wife and I. 35 years of marriage, celebrating with chlorinated water and clean plumbing.

There was a problem. The water was a little high—my fault entirely—and my wife couldn’t sit in the recesses without the water reaching her chin. I offered to remove myself from the equation. My body, as I may have mentioned, takes up a meaningful amount of space. She said no, it was fine.

That is love. Gargling hot tub water voluntarily so you can spend a few minutes together outside. She has many good qualities. Being married to me is just one of the things she tolerates.

Hot Tub 4.0 will involve filling through the filter housing to avoid the dry-pump issue. I’ll read the directions first next time. Maybe.

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For context on why this matters: I documented the original bucket disaster—The Hot Tub Hero—if you want the full humbling backstory. HT 1.0, I dealt with the recesses using five-gallon buckets, hauled by hand, over and over, and never got within a foot of the bottom. HT 2.0, I had the pump, which helped, but I was lazy about the seat recesses and left behind enough shingle granules to form a small gravel path. (The hot tub sits under a pergola with gutters. Rain still finds a way. It always does.) HT 3.0 ended with clean pipes, almost no residue, and no buckets. It was the first time this process felt like something a competent person might do.