Hot tub covers are very simple devices and thus can be easily overlooked or under-considered. However, their importance cannot be overstated. Junk, garbage, airborne pollutants, and related things are kept out of your hot tub with a hot tub cover. What's more, a hot tub cover could be a very important safety component if you have pets or small children that may get into the tub and get themselves scalded or even drown.

One thing to keep in mind: if you do have small children you'll probably also want to have a lock for your hot tub cover. Children will be curious Georges and spend considerable energy trying to lift even a tied-down cover, and they may just succeed through sheer hard-headed persistence.

As if that's not practical consideration enough, there's always the bottom line to consider. Hot tubs keep the heat in your tub when you're not using it and therefore save you substantially on your heating and hot water bills--especially in the winter.

Therefore, you want to buy a hot tub cover that fits very snugly, like the lid on a Tupperware container. You'll also want it to be made of very sturdy material so that you don't have to go replacing it year after year or worry about something falling from a tree and crashing through it--or a person, for that matter.

A top-quality hot tub cover will have an inner layer of insulation to keep the heat in (and the cold out). It should also be able to be tied down to keep it from coming undone or blowing off in heavy winds or storms. However, if you live in a warmer area with minimal Winter, you don't have to lay out as much money for a heavily insulated hot tub cover.

If possible, you should also find yourself a hot tub cover that includes a gusseted ("slitted") skirt. The standard skirts have many inherent problems as compared to gusseted skirts. These skirts hang much straighter and don't have the tendency to get bunched under the cover as you're trying to put it on the hot tub, which is a condition that significantly diminishes the insulation property.

Also, when sunlight beats down on a hot tub cover there can be great heat build-up between the skirt and the outer lip of the tub, possibly damaging that lip. But the gusseted skirt allows that excessive heat to escape.

If you live in an area where the Winter can be fierce and you have the potential to get a great deal of snowfall, you may want to consider an aluminum hot tub cover. If a huge amount of snow piles up on the cover and lays there for days it could eventually sag-in and wreck a cover made from less-steady material.