Rookie Spa

Inflatable Hot Tub Airlock: How to Burp the Pump

By Jake Weber · Published September 20, 2026

Inflatable Hot Tub Airlock: How to Burp the Pump

An airlock is air trapped inside your inflatable hot tub’s pump and hoses, usually right after a fill or refill. It can block water circulation — no water movement, no filtration, and, owners report, often an E02 flow error. The fix most owners swear by is “burping” the pump: unplug the spa, slowly loosen a coupling at the pump until the trapped air escapes and water starts to trickle out, then retighten it.

That’s the short version. The longer version matters, because an airlock is one of the most misdiagnosed problems in the inflatable hot tub world. The same story comes up again and again in owner forums: someone fills their brand-new SaluSpa, turns it on, nothing circulates, an error pops up, and they conclude the pump is dead. For a problem that — when it really is an airlock — costs nothing and takes a few minutes to fix.

Let’s sort out what an airlock actually is, how to tell it apart from a genuine pump failure, and how to get the air out.

Safety note: check your pump against the 2024 recall. In September 2024 the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall of about 866,000 Bestway AirJet and HydroJet spa pumps sold with SaluSpa, Coleman and Hydro-Force spas from May 2021 to May 2024, because they can overheat and catch fire (recall 24-359). Before troubleshooting anything below, read the model number on the label on the side or back of your pump. The recalled models are P05332, P05339, P05711, P05807, P07000, P07001, P05511, P07034 and P07572. If yours is one of them, stop using it and follow the CPSC recall notice or Bestway’s recall page for a free replacement or a refund. The SaluSpa pump recall guide walks through the label check and what to do next.

What is an airlock in an inflatable hot tub?

When you fill (or drain and refill) the tub, water doesn’t automatically push every last pocket of air out of the pump housing and the short runs of plumbing between the pump and the tub wall. These pumps are built to move water, not air — so if a big enough air pocket parks itself in the wrong spot, the pump spins away without actually moving anything. No circulation, no filtration, and since the heater relies on water flowing past it, no heat either.

Here’s an honest wrinkle: you won’t find the word “airlock” in the SaluSpa manual. What the manual lists as no-flow causes are things like filter blockage and “bent pipes or poor water flow” — trapped air is the community’s name for one specific kind of poor flow, and owners tie it to the period right after a fill. Owners often say “no bubbles since I filled it,” but on an AirJet the bubbles come from a separate massage blower, so judge an airlock by water movement at the outlet, not by bubbles. If your tub was circulating fine yesterday and you haven’t touched the water, an airlock is way down the suspect list. If you literally just filled it, it’s near the top.

One caveat before we go further: error codes and pump layouts can differ between Bestway/SaluSpa/Coleman pumps, so treat your own model’s manual as the tiebreaker on anything below.

Is it an airlock or is my pump actually broken?

This is the fork in the road, and it’s where most of the panic happens. A common misconception among owners is “E02 means the pump is dead.” In owner reports it rarely turns out that way — E02 means the flow sensors aren’t detecting water flow, and the manual’s causes run from forgotten stopper caps and a dirty filter to, yes, a broken pump or flow sensor. Trapped air is one of the cheap, boring ones. The full list lives in the E02 fix checklist, but here’s how the airlock case usually looks:

Signs pointing to an airlock:

Signs pointing somewhere else:

The pattern worth remembering: airlocks are a “right after I filled it” problem. A tub that gradually lost flow over weeks is telling a different story: the manual lists a dirty filter and debris screens blocked by calcium build-up among the causes.

How do I get the airlock out of my inflatable hot tub?

Fair warning on sourcing, because I think it matters: burping the pump is an owner technique, not an official manual procedure. The manual’s no-flow advice covers caps, filters, and flushing the pipes; it never describes purging air. But loosening the pump couplings to let trapped air escape is easily the most consistently reported fix in owner communities, and it lines up with plain physics — the air has to get out somewhere. Here’s how owners commonly describe doing it:

  1. Unplug the spa completely. Not just off at the panel — pull the plug. Bestway’s manual requires the pump to be unplugged before any maintenance, citing risk of injury or death. You’re about to put your hands on fittings with water behind them, and nothing below should happen on a live unit.
  2. Grab a towel. Some water is going to come out. That’s actually the goal. Keep the plug and cord well clear of it.
  3. Find the couplings — the large threaded connector nuts where the hoses or pipe fittings meet the pump unit.
  4. Slowly loosen one coupling — don’t remove it. A partial turn is the idea. You’re cracking the seal open, not taking the plumbing apart.
  5. Let the air escape. The common report is a hiss or gurgle of air first, then water beginning to trickle out steadily. Steady water with no more air is your signal that the pocket is gone.
  6. Retighten the coupling snugly by hand. Check that the rubber washer inside is still seated properly — the manual flags worn or misplaced washers as their own flow (and leak) problem, so don’t crank it down crooked.
  7. Repeat on the other coupling if the first one gave you nothing but water from the start.
  8. Plug back in and run the filter — only if your pump isn’t on the recall list above. If the airlock was the problem, you should see normal water movement from the outlet. If the code doesn’t clear once the cause is gone, unplug, wait a moment, restart, and check your model’s manual (resets by pump: how to reset a SaluSpa).

That’s it. No tools, no parts, no teardown — and please don’t open the pump housing itself. It’s a mains-voltage unit, the manual offers no user repairs inside it (internal faults go to Bestway support), and this fix never requires going inside it.

What if burping the pump doesn’t fix it?

Then you’re probably not dealing with an airlock — or not only an airlock — and it’s time to work through the other no-flow causes, free fixes first: water level, filter (looseness and cleanliness), intake and outlet grilles, scale, and only then the pump hardware itself. For that last step the manual has its own test: with the filter running, hold your hand in front of the outlet inside the tub. No flow means Bestway reads it as a broken pump; flow plus the alarm points to the flow sensors. Either way, that’s a Bestway support call. The E02 checklist walks the full sequence so you rule out every free fix before spending money.

And if your actual complaint is temperature — the water’s circulating but staying stubbornly lukewarm — that’s usually a different problem wearing a similar costume. Start with the not-heating guide, and if the tub heats but stalls in the mid-90s, check the set point first (it ships at 95°F) before blaming the heater: won’t heat past 95°F covers the rest.

FAQ

Does E02 always mean an airlock? No. An airlock is just one of several no-flow causes. The manual lists forgotten stopper caps, a dirty or blocked filter, bent pipes, scaled-up debris screens, worn washers, and a broken pump or flow sensor; Bestway’s error-code guide adds low water. The refill timing is the tell: owners see airlocks right after they fill the tub.

Do I need tools to burp the pump? Owners generally describe loosening the couplings by hand — they’re threaded plastic connector nuts, not bolts. If a coupling is stuck beyond hand strength, force is your enemy near plastic threads; work the other fixes first.

My spa is brand new and nothing circulates — is that an airlock? Maybe, but check the stopper caps first. The manual specifically lists caps left inside the tub’s pipe fittings as a flow-error cause on new setups, and it’s a far quicker check than purging air.

Can an airlock damage the pump? I won’t claim numbers nobody can verify. What the manual does say is that the spa must never be operated unless it’s filled with water, to avoid damage to the pump. So treat the flow error as a warning worth heeding, and clear the air pocket rather than repeatedly restarting and hoping.

Did burping the pump get the water moving again — or did it turn out to be something else entirely? Tell me what you found. Reader reports are how this guide stays honest.

Jake Weber

Jake Weber — Jake Weber is the pen name of Rookie Spa’s editor. I don’t sell spas or chemicals, and I’m not affiliated with any brand. Every guide here starts from the manufacturer’s manual, is cross-checked against the questions and fixes owners report most often, and is written in plain English for first-time owners — with a clear warning whenever something involves electricity or water safety.