Buying a hot tub cover or spa cover over the internet [continued]

Well, this is getting concerning. I was talking with a few friends that purchased new spa covers online and found something out. One friend in particular was bragging about how his cover not only cost less, but has greater insulating features than what everyone else had. He grinned saying he bought a hot tub cover that was 4" thick and tapers to 3 inches (most everyone else's cover tapered down to 2"). Then he talked about how light it was. This was a bit of a give-away that something was afoul. The majority of a spa cover is the foam. The foam that insulates your spa. If the cover weighs next to nothing, it has to be lacking in insulating foam. I asked if I could examine the cover and he was proud to let me. Upon examining the cover I found a few things that were incorrect from his claims. First, the cover was just over 3-1/2" thick at it's thickest point, not 4" as he said. The thinnest side was only 2-1/2" inches. Not only was it less than the 3" he bragged about, but had the cover been a full 8' square, it would have been a little less that 2". Apparantly some sellers of spa covers seem to be grossly exaggerating what they're selling, and my friend was took. He then said that at least the density of the foam was more than some other covers sold. I asked if he wouldn't mind me verifying the foams density. At this point, being a little disappointed, he didn't care, but wondered how I could tell. Well, I told him about the best web site I know of for spa covers, Abracadabra Hot Tub Covers and Spa Covers, I then told him that they also have this really cool page with a formula/calculator for double checking the density of the foam in your spa cover...... just in case something like this happens.

Pitty, after following the directions, and putting in all the info, it turned out his spa covers foam density was almost 35% less than he thought. It also turned out, he got the least amount of cover for his dollars spent.