THE COVER LIFT HAS BECOME such an essential part of a hot tub that it’s hard to think of a time when it didn’t exist. While we knew as far back as the early ’90s there needed to be an easier way to get a cover off a tub, no one was mass producing a lifter. Marc Black, owner of Cover Valet and California Home Spas & Patio, went with his brother Jeff Black to the Las Vegas Pool & Spa Show in 1992. “While walking the show looking for new products for our showroom, we stumbled upon the EZ Lifter,” Mark recalls. “This was the first patented cover lifter, created by Dimension One Spas. It was simple, easy to use, easy to install and is still in use today.” Bob Hallam, founder of Dimension One Spas, recalls many versions of that cover lift, including one that nearly broke the arm of his partner, Phil Sally, who was the main developer. “We’re known for two things,” Hallam says. “Asking the customer what they want and innovating a solution. At that time, we found people needed something to help them take off the cover. [Sally] just starting playing and making different devices to take covers off.” It was the only product that stood out to the Black brothers at the show. On the late-night drive home, they thought of ways they could make it work with the spa installations they had been doing for their customers. Their patented product, The Cover Valet, came out of that midnight brainstorm. Dimension One and Cover Valet were the first to get a cover lift onto the market, and they certainly weren’t the last. Leisure Concepts came out with its own version and quickly became one of the leading manufacturers of cover lifts. Watkins Manufacturing makes its own line of cover lifts, sold through its own distributors. Cal Covers, Ideal Spa Covers, HWP, Prestige Spa Covers and others have since ventured into cover lifts as well. In fact, we found more than 30 different patents issued for cover-lift design.
The Birth of the Cover Lift
THE IMPORTANT ACCESSORY HAS BEEN ON THE MARKET FOR 20 YEARS