It’s one of the idyls of our age, to imagine oneself lounging in a hot tub watching a golden sunset, glass of wine in hand and the love of your life at your side. Along the way though it’s one that’s become diverted from the original, instead of a Scandinavian style wood fired tub in the forest we’re more likely to be thinking of an electric whirlpool spa made from fibreglass, as much a status symbol as a leisure item. It’s refreshing then to see [sirClogg]’s home made hot tub, a simple wooden tub with associated wood stove to heat its water. We can’t wait to step in!
The tub is simplicity itself, being made from softwood planks held together under tension by some steel cables. He admits though that he made a mistake using green wood, as it has now contracted leaving the tub with some gaps. But it’s a simple enough build that he can contemplate dismantling and rebuilding it to correct for that oversight.
Heat meanwhile is provided by a pipe that circulates water from the bottom of the tub through a heat exchanger coil inside a brick-built wood stove adjacent to the tub. The fabrication of the heat exchanger is detailed in the video below, we enjoyed seeing the copper piping filled with salt to ensure it doesn’t collapse when being bent around a five-gallon bucket. It doesn’t get much simpler than this, and the reward of a hot tub must be a sweet one indeed.
For hot tub enthusiast hackers, it’s always worth remembering that the excellent Danish hacker camp BornHack has a hot tub as part of its wellness area.
Nice build but how do you go back in time?
I wouldn’t, it’s akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water and reappearing as an acorn. A Warm is tub better as it comes with no disfiguring paradoxes.
I wouldn’t; it’s akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water and reappearing as an acorn. A warm hot tub is more comfortable and avoids any disfiguring paradoxes.
Chernobly.
Nice.
Weird. Was just looking at doing this last week with a galvanized steel trough from tractor supply.
They might have a wooden water trough available there.
Google stock tank hot tub, you’ll see what I mean. I missed the outdoor 露天風呂 from living in Japan for a few years, seemed the easiest way to get those back without becoming a cedar cooper.
Dunno how you keep that from leaking over time with all those knots…
We have a 50 year old 3000 gallon redwood water tank for our drinking water, it’s really something pretty amazing. But all the wood is 100% knot free. (Very difficult and expensive to get these days…)
keep patching it with marine epoxy until it’s all good. probably better to get a massive bucket of the stuff rather than the little 10 gram hunks they sell at Home Depot for $15.
Mother Earth News called from the 1970’s… wants their hot tub design back.
Now I can have a Petticoat Junction flashback.
Here comes Uncle Joe, he’s movin’ kinda slow, at the Junction…