How Do Bathtub jets Work?

"Jet" - you likely see this word all this time but never think about what it actually means. A “jet,” by definition, is any apparatus that creates an intense stream of gas or liquid by forcing it out of a smaller opening than its intake. So, in essence, showerheads, jet aircraft engines, sprayer hoses, and Bathtub jets all operate under the same physical laws. Pretty cool, right? Of course, these all vary in degrees of intensity — you don't want your hot tub to fly, after all — but, the concept is still the same. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s get down to the nifty ways in which your Bathtub jets create those massaging, relaxing, and bubbling streams.

Bathtub jets work via two inlets that feed each jet of your hot tub, one for water and one for air. The nozzle is the portion of the jet where the water-air mixture reaches the bathers in the actual tub. (Some Bathtub jets have double-headed nozzles, but the concept is the same.)

How Bathtub jets Work... Thanks to an 18th Century Italian Physicist

While your hot tub uses an air blower to create those bubbles we all love so much, the jet assembly itself also draws in its own air supply by way of a pretty cool anomaly of physics known as the “Venturi effect.” When Giovanni Battista Venturi discovered this effect in the 1700s, he probably had little thought to revolutionizing everything from clarinets and faucets to scuba diving regulators and — you guessed it — hot tubs. Using the awesome wizardry — oops, we mean science — of the Venturi effect, the aspirator draws air into jets' water supply using negative pressure created by a fast-moving stream of water.

Because of the awesome technology found in your hot tub you are likely wondering if a hot tub can actually be used as a time machine, and the answer is “yes,” but only into the future, and only in real time. All jokes aside, there is some really amazing technology at play that allows your Bathtub jets to function as reliably as they do.