Home made hot tub advice

[mjk123]

OK, not exactly RM style bushcrafty, but I know there's lot's of diversity on this site so hopefully I can garner some informative data.

Basically the problem is this. My wife wants a hot tub but they're very expensive to buy and I can't find anywhere near me that you can use for just a night, like a hotel. Anyway I got to thinking that all I need is a water source and a container and a heat source. Fortunately there are many places around me with available water in the woods (permanent fountains/troughs) and lots of firewood. Often there are permanent fireboxes too. So I though I could take a kids inflatable pool, build a big fire then heat up the water in 5 gallon steel drums and tip it into the pool. Another more advanced idea was to make a mega Kelly kettle from an old milk churn and pump the water through it.

Has anyone any experience with such things?

Cheers.

 

[myheadsashed]

www.badatunna.eu

 

[myheadsashed]

www.stewardwood.org

 

[robin wood]

We visited some friends of friends over on the Welsh coast and they have a huge home made hot tub. This is how it works. Tub is a big black plastic thing designed as a cattle drinking trough, well insulated. heater is an oil drum cut in half and both pieces put end to end like a giant BBQ with copper water pipe running up and down 4 or 5 times. They start by having a BBQ and whilst thats going on run cold water into the tub through the pipes...its pretty warm by the time it gets there. The final part of the set up is a small electric water pump, when the tubs full but only warm they flick the switch so the water starts circulating through the hot pipes a second time. the tub is over 10 foot across and 2-3 ft deep and takes about 2 hours to fill then another hour to come up to a decent temperature..sure a smaller one would be quicker. It struck me as quite a lot of energy and water and hassle for one evening hot tub but was very nice.

 

[mjk123]

Robin,

Sounds interesting. A bit like a steam engine then. Presumably there's some kind of safety to prevent the the whole thing over presurising and showering the bathers in hot coal, superheated water and leftover hamburgers.

Regards,

Martin

 

[BushTucker]

I built my own american style hot tub, if you want help pm me.

 

[Still Waters]

I used to heat my daughters paddling pool(large rigid one) by solar power using an old radiator painted matt black and some wombled copper pipe and an old hose pipe.

Some days the water got so hot you had to wait to later in the day to get in it.

Hope this may be of help.