Welcome to Ozonator Tutor:

What is an Ozonator?  Basically, by using an ozonator you are injecting ozone gas (O³) into the spa water to help sanitize it. It's a great way to keep the need for sanitizer chemicals (bromine or chlorine) to a minimal level. You will have to "Shock" the spa to sanitize on a regular basis to catch up on keeping the spa clean.

There basically are 2 types of Ozonators used for spas: bulb and chip. The bulb is the older generation but used quite extensively to date. A long bulb coated with a special covering heats and creates the ozone gas.  The "New" generation is using a CD chip. This chip creates an arc (like lightning) that produces ozone gas. The two benefits are the arc can create more gas and the chip can be replaced in many ozonators.

Next step once the ozone gas is made to inject the gas into the spa. Usually this is done through a mazzai style fitting. Many Jacuzzi Whirlpool spas come "Ozone Ready" This means the piping and electrical connections are present. What you do is install a "Mazzai" fitting which is a "T" fitting that as water travels through it creates suction. This sucks the gas out of the ozonator and into the spa.

Once you have an ozonator properly installed, the only part to replace is the bulb type ozonator or the chip on replaceable chip styles. The piping and mazzai should not need to be replaced. The only common exception is if the spa water is not kept clean, you might have to clean the mazzai because the water flow can be hindered through the mazzai and stop flow and suction. But this is rare.

How do I know it's working? Either the bulb type or the CD type glow. The bulb's glow many times can not be seen during the day but looking at it during the night you can.  The CD type has a window that you can see the glow is most cases. Also, it's common to have a automatic shutdown of the ozonator when someone touches the topside pad. So if you are checking on the ozonator, the pump must be on automatically and you must not touch the topside.

Jacuzzi Ozonators 1995-2001: Jacuzzi offered "Ozone Ready" spas during this time. That meant the piping and electrical connection was already there. Some models actually came with the ozonator installed. If your spa does not have a ozonator now, you will have to buy an ozonator and mazzai the first time. Then you will only need the ozonator replaced from that point onward.

Jacuzzi Premium Spas 2002-2005: These used the new CD generation ozonator. With the 2005 models they changed the style and designed and discontinued this generation. To use the next generation, you have to purchased one time the adapter along with a new generation ozonator. This adapter allows the new ozonator with a rectangular plug to plug into the square ozonator socket on the 2002-2005 spas. The new generation ozonator produces more ozone gas. As of yet, no replacement CD chip is available.