Hot tubs. A discussion.

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Originally Posted by Huskier

Missus and I are thinking of taking the plunge. We walked into a dealer. They showed us a model that is more expensive than some new cars. Wat. They showed us a model that was made of shitty White pine lumber planks on the inside admixed with Staples(??). Also wat. They all seemed to have their own proprietary water treatment regime that was both somehow better than all the others and also depended on their proprietary replacement cartridges. There are a million different brands, some just rebranding of other brands. One of them did like a laser light show rave thing. Another one had like extra bubbles. Not regular bubbles, extra bubbles. That feature alone was worth 5K from the next level down.

My question is this: What am I really looking for in a hot tub? Needs to fit four to five people, be reasonably deep, and not immediately go to shit The second we bring it home. All for approximately 10k, maybe a little more. I've got Caldera as a recommendation. Also Marquee. Thoughts?

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You’re in the Seattle area right?

We bought a Viking from Decks and Spas in Redmond. Vikings are no frills; plastic (not fiberglass and wood), but with quality Balboa internals. It’s a “6 seater” (real life 4 seater) with upgraded insulation and top. It was $5300 in 2020. Check them out.

There was another shop in the puget sound that specialized in rebuilding and selling used spas. They had all the high end stuff in really good condition. I don’t remember the name but we almost bought there….


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Hot tubs are a salesman’s dream. Suckers are lining up to buy the product.

Look, it’s a tub, that’s hot. If you want a A water-based fixture with heat, why would you go to some random tub salesman?

Talk to a plumber. Tell him what you’re interested in as a end result. An ask him how to achieve that with a minimum outlay of cash.

with what the tub salesman are asking as a price for quality human stew time, you would be surprised at what you could get custom made. specially if you got any building skills of your own to contribute to the project.


and as far as Controlling your chemicals, there’s nothing new under the sun. It’s going to be chlorine or bromine for your oxidation reduction potential And an acid for adjusting your pH.

There’s a ton of companies that make good ORP/pH controllers. Hook them up to a pump, and your pool chemicals will be taken care of the same way that your heat is taken care of in your house. Determine the setpoint you want it to be, and Machine will take care of the rest. Something like this.

https://sensorex.com/product/tx20-ph...qJsjGJ3yf3-oNW

This is not new technology and there’s a lot of different places where you can get this type of set up. Once you’ve got the controller, just plug in your pumps. You don’t have to worry about your chemical make up just like you don’t have to worry about the heat in your house.

Now you did it. Wait until the “I can’t believe you don’t have the $500 water tester” crowd shows up.


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Is this the place to ask if anyone has a cold plunge tub?
Or find the Wim Hof thread?

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Originally Posted by ::: :::

Is this the place to ask if anyone has a cold plunge tub?
Or find the Wim Hof thread?

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I've got one and can answer any questions you might have about it

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Originally Posted by tgapp

I've got one and can answer any questions you might have about it

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I guess my first would be: what kind do you have?

Then: would you do the same again now that you’ve used it for a bit?

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Originally Posted by ::: :::

I guess my first would be: what kind do you have?

Then: would you do the same again now that you’ve used it for a bit?

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I've got a setup that I picked up used - I got it for cheap, which is its best virtue. What I love about it is everything is modular, and it'll last a few lifetimes.

Barrel: Ice Barrel 400. I love how big it is, I hate that it's not insulated. I added 5mm close cell foam and a barrel wrap to it, and it easily holds at 45 degrees. If I could do it again I would strongly consider an insulated barrel. I would NEVER pay full price for one of these, but I think they are far better than the cheapo low volume plunges. It's really, really nice to be able to fully submerge.
Chiller: Vevor 1/3hp. It's slightly under gunned, but not bad. I would probably upgrade to a 1/2hp chiller of this kicks the can. Vevor is a great budget brand, if I built another I would use Vevor for sure.
Filtration/water treatment: in line filter + ozone generator on a 30 minute timer + Ice Barrel stabilizer. Love the ozone, I got mine from Box Plunge and it works awesome.

All of that is hooked up to an InkBird thermostat which does a great job. Overall - I would do the same thing, which is to say, obsessively check Facebook classifieds until I found a used setup that checked as many of my boxes as possible. If not that, I would start with a Vevor (1/3 or 1/2 HP depending on where you plan on having it and how cold you want it), add in ozone, etc, and find a big enough thing to plunge in (lots of decent options). I hear that the converted freezer models often fail after a few years, and they are hard to drain/clean.





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Do you have it indoors or out?
How frequently do you use it?

I don’t live in a place that expects below freezing temps (350’ el) very often. I’d very much like to keep it outside

I like the Nordic Wave Viking just from browsing online, but not sure on buying new

Upstate hot tub ftw

Attachment 499437

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Originally Posted by ::: :::

Do you have it indoors or out?
How frequently do you use it?

I don’t live in a place that expects below freezing temps (350’ el) very often. I’d very much like to keep it outside

I like the Nordic Wave Viking just from browsing online, but not sure on buying new

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Indoors, in our sauna room. I use it daily. The viking is pretty much identical in functionality to what I have (with a stronger chiller) at 6x the price. Granted it looks a lot nicer and is new, but yeah, that's a nice setup.

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That’s what I want to do: pair it with sauna

I’ve had some significant muscle imbalance stuff and a daily hot/cold seems like it could be awesome
Shower isn’t cutting it

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Originally Posted by tgapp

Indoors, in our sauna room. I use it daily. The viking is pretty much identical in functionality to what I have (with a stronger chiller) at 6x the price. Granted it looks a lot nicer and is new, but yeah, that's a nice setup.

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I might have to hit you up for advice. Wife is all in on sauna and cold plunge after yesterday.

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Originally Posted by zion zig zag

I might have to hit you up for advice. Wife is all in on sauna and cold plunge after yesterday.

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Yeah, I have much stronger opinions on sauna than I do cold plunge, mostly because so much of what is sold as sauna in the United States is complete and total garbage. People conflate getting really hot with good sauna, and the two are NOT the same thing

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Originally Posted by tgapp

Yeah, I have much stronger opinions on sauna than I do cold plunge, mostly because so much of what is sold as sauna in the United States is complete and total garbage. People conflate getting really hot with good sauna, and the two are NOT the same thing

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Are you Finnish by chance? :D

Did some laps on cold plung, sauna, and lobster pot yesterday at the hot springs. Really want that setup at home so I dont have to deal with all the people.

Is there a way to add lithium to your hot tub?

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Originally Posted by tgapp

Yeah, I have much stronger opinions on sauna than I do cold plunge, mostly because so much of what is sold as sauna in the United States is complete and total garbage. People conflate getting really hot with good sauna, and the two are NOT the same thing

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We’ve always spec’ed Finlandia kits for clients here
I didn’t realize until recently that they are situated in our backyard (just outside Portland)

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Originally Posted by ::: :::

We’ve always spec’ed Finlandia kits for clients here
I didn’t realize until recently that they are situated in our backyard (just outside Portland)

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Finlandia has some great kits and some mediocre kits. They and Cedarbrook (which we have) are on the high end of kit saunas, which is a bit like being on the high end of prefab homes.

Biggest issue with US saunas is that you can't escape the laws of thermodynamics. Ventilation and (limiting) heat stratification are at the very core of what differentiates a pleasant, refreshing sauna experience from a suffocating/dizzying sauna. Both of these are largely a function of sauna height and sauna volume. Far too many US saunas leave you with cold feet and a dizzy head. While there are some clever things you can do to overcome physical limitations - like mechanical venting designed with convective heat currents in mind or using tower-style heaters - ultimately a sauna needs to be bigger than what most kit saunas are in the US. Ours is 5'x6'x7' (interior), insulated, with a tower heater and a very smart vent design, and it is the absolute smallest sauna I would ever consider. By American kit sauna standards, it's a large/6 person sauna.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by tgapp

Finlandia has some great kits and some mediocre kits. They and Cedarbrook (which we have) are on the high end of kit saunas, which is a bit like being on the high end of prefab homes.

Biggest issue with US saunas is that you can't escape the laws of thermodynamics. Ventilation and (limiting) heat stratification are at the very core of what differentiates a pleasant, refreshing sauna experience from a suffocating/dizzying sauna. Both of these are largely a function of sauna height and sauna volume. Far too many US saunas leave you with cold feet and a dizzy head. While there are some clever things you can do to overcome physical limitations - like mechanical venting designed with convective heat currents in mind or using tower-style heaters - ultimately a sauna needs to be bigger than what most kit saunas are in the US. Ours is 5'x6'x7' (interior), insulated, with a tower heater and a very smart vent design, and it is the absolute smallest sauna I would ever consider. By American kit sauna standards, it's a large/6 person sauna.

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for me, i like to stretch out & at 6-5, that requires a certain interior
mrs ::: ::: never does top bench so i can either sit up or lie down up there

As an arch, I'm still trying to figure out the thermodynamics of these since all the building science envelope research is focused on conventional conditioned living spaces. Finlandia is recommending the old school wall partition makeup that they've been doing since they opened in 1964 (2x4's w/ fiber insul). When you're burning watts on resistance heating, does it make sense to insulate the enclosure such that maybe the heater doesn't cycle as much? Still searching out those answers properly...I wonder what modern scandi archs are building locally.

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Originally Posted by nickwm21

You’re in the Seattle area right?

We bought a Viking from Decks and Spas in Redmond. Vikings are no frills; plastic (not fiberglass and wood), but with quality Balboa internals. It’s a “6 seater” (real life 4 seater) with upgraded insulation and top. It was $5300 in 2020. Check them out.

There was another shop in the puget sound that specialized in rebuilding and selling used spas. They had all the high end stuff in really good condition. I don’t remember the name but we almost bought there….


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Very interesting. If the name comes to mind lemme know that seems like a great angle

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Originally Posted by ::: :::

for me, i like to stretch out & at 6-5, that requires a certain interior
mrs ::: ::: never does top bench so i can either sit up or lie down up there

As an arch, I'm still trying to figure out the thermodynamics of these since all the building science envelope research is focused on conventional conditioned living spaces. Finlandia is recommending the old school wall partition makeup that they've been doing since they opened in 1964 (2x4's w/ fiber insul). When you're burning watts on resistance heating, does it make sense to insulate the enclosure such that maybe the heater doesn't cycle as much? Still searching out those answers properly...I wonder what modern scandi archs are building locally.

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https://localmile.org/trumpkins-note...lding-a-sauna/

That's a great resource if you haven't seen it already. IMO where you place the thermostat, how you insulate, and making sure you have an appropriately sized heater all influence how often the heater cycles. Our preference is to get the sauna as hot as we want it (usually 210), and then just allow it to gradually cool off through our 2-3 cycles, ending around 175-180. I hate when the heater trips on.

https://www.saunatimes.com/building-...as-an-opinion/

This is also a great resource. When designing and researching our sauna, I found a really great PDF that had a lot of FLIR images of saunas. We have one vent underneath the main bench and one vent above the heater and another vent in the corner of the sauna, but we always leave that one closed.

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Originally Posted by tgapp

https://localmile.org/trumpkins-note...lding-a-sauna/

That's a great resource if you haven't seen it already. IMO where you place the thermostat, how you insulate, and making sure you have an appropriately sized heater all influence how often the heater cycles. Our preference is to get the sauna as hot as we want it (usually 210), and then just allow it to gradually cool off through our 2-3 cycles, ending around 175-180. I hate when the heater trips on.

https://www.saunatimes.com/building-...as-an-opinion/

This is also a great resource. When designing and researching our sauna, I found a really great PDF that had a lot of FLIR images of saunas. We have one vent underneath the main bench and one vent above the heater and another vent in the corner of the sauna, but we always leave that one closed.

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thx for those -- will read

[eta]just skimming...holy shit, that first one is pretty thorough -- good stuff!

Happy to join this thread as we just took delivery of a Bullfrog. I've always been a bit grossed out by hot tubs but getting old with weird aches and pains and never ending soreness from working out trying to avoid said aches and pains makes it quite attractive.

She's heating up as I type and I'm looking forward to an inaugural soak tomorrow after the gym!

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Originally Posted by The Reverend Floater

Happy to join this thread as we just took delivery of a Bullfrog. I've always been a bit grossed out by hot tubs but getting old with weird aches and pains and never ending soreness from working out trying to avoid said aches and pains makes it quite attractive.

She's heating up as I type and I'm looking forward to an inaugural soak tomorrow after the gym!

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name checks out...

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Originally Posted by Name Redacted

name checks out...

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God damn. Well done.

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Originally Posted by The Reverend Floater

Happy to join this thread as we just took delivery of a Bullfrog. I've always been a bit grossed out by hot tubs but getting old with weird aches and pains and never ending soreness from working out trying to avoid said aches and pains makes it quite attractive.

She's heating up as I type and I'm looking forward to an inaugural soak tomorrow after the gym!

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I’m right there too and starting to look finally. Enjoy.

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Originally Posted by The Reverend Floater

Happy to join this thread as we just took delivery of a Bullfrog. I've always been a bit grossed out by hot tubs but getting old with weird aches and pains and never ending soreness from working out trying to avoid said aches and pains makes it quite attractive.

She's heating up as I type and I'm looking forward to an inaugural soak tomorrow after the gym!

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Word, Hot tub you maintain yourself avoids the ick.
I wont go into most tubs, as I have worked at high end resorts and seen how off those readings can get with $ equipment and good/plentiful staff. PLus I have seen the feed/ footage from resort tubs and know what happens in there.

Hampton Inn Nowhere tub? no thanks

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Originally Posted by Shredhead

I love mine and am in it everyday, sometimes 2 or 3. It’s often the only pain free time I have in a day.


Salt water tubs still use Chlorine as a sanitizer, it’s just derived thru electrolysis.

All these systems are just manufacturers way of keeping you buying their proprietary chemicals or chlorine generators.

Nothing will be cheaper than using this method.

https://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/i...er-maintaince/

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My total chemical expenditure is < $100/year, using Nitro's approach.

Use Ahhsome once or twice a year
to clean your pipes. It makes cleaning your tub a little more involved, because you won't believe
how much shit comes out of the pipes.
https://ahhsome.com/

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Originally Posted by The Reverend Floater

Happy to join this thread as we just took delivery of a Bullfrog. I've always been a bit grossed out by hot tubs but getting old with weird aches and pains and never ending soreness from working out trying to avoid said aches and pains makes it quite attractive.

She's heating up as I type and I'm looking forward to an inaugural soak tomorrow after the gym!

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Mind sharing what model? Did you get it through Costco?

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Originally Posted by The Reverend Floater

I've always been a bit grossed out by hot tubs but getting old with weird aches and pains and never ending soreness from working out trying to avoid said aches and pains makes it quite attractive.

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Originally Posted by Woodsy

Word, Hot tub you maintain yourself avoids the ick.

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Bingo. Our hot tubs were cleeeeeean. Never an issue. Regular drain/refills, keeping the chemistry dialed, and above all, cleanliness BEFORE getting in goes a long way. After a long day of skiing, we'd always make our guests shower off before getting to use our tub. When it was just ourselves tho, no swimsuits. Don't want remnants of detergents getting in there when you can help it. Clouds up the water. Really does make a difference to keep everything crystal clear and clean. By doing all these things, every time I rinsed out the filters during my drain and fills, they looked good as new and they would last FOREVER.

Public hot tubs are naaaasty tho. People's kids always party in them with their little arm floaties, acting like its the main pool.

I’m deep into a war with ants on the tub… need advice.

We normally get a small infestation on one side of the tub in the shoulder seasons. A single terro bait does the trick.

This year - entire rim, under the cover - massive infestation with eggs…. I turned it off drained it and thoroughly cleaned, put a terro bait on all 4 corners and inside the cabinet. Sprayed a perimeter product on the base and walls. That was two weeks ago. They are just laughing at me. Still fucked. They are tiny normal garden ants (not carpenters).


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Maybe they don’t like the Flavor of Terro anymore? Could try mixing straight borax w some pb&j. I’ve used that mix in the past w great success. Good luck

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Originally Posted by nickwm21

I’m deep into a war with ants on the tub… need advice.

We normally get a small infestation on one side of the tub in the shoulder seasons. A single terro bait does the trick.

This year - entire rim, under the cover - massive infestation with eggs…. I turned it off drained it and thoroughly cleaned, put a terro bait on all 4 corners and inside the cabinet. Sprayed a perimeter product on the base and walls. That was two weeks ago. They are just laughing at me. Still fucked. They are tiny normal garden ants (not carpenters).


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Congratualtions. You've successfully bred an ant-poison-resistant strain of ants. You should patent them before Elon Mush does.

So Rev, how you liking the Hot Tub?

I'm addicted to mine. Every morning and most afternoons.

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Originally Posted by Shredhead

My total chemical expenditure is < $100/year, using Nitro's approach.

Use Ahhsome once or twice a year
to clean your pipes. It makes cleaning your tub a little more involved, because you won't believe
how much shit comes out of the pipes.
https://ahhsome.com/

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Did the full clean today, before the weather goes cold.
Ahhsome really does get the bio films out.

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Originally Posted by nickwm21

I’m deep into a war with ants on the tub… need advice.

We normally get a small infestation on one side of the tub in the shoulder seasons. A single terro bait does the trick.

This year - entire rim, under the cover - massive infestation with eggs…. I turned it off drained it and thoroughly cleaned, put a terro bait on all 4 corners and inside the cabinet. Sprayed a perimeter product on the base and walls. That was two weeks ago. They are just laughing at me. Still fucked. They are tiny normal garden ants (not carpenters).


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you're in Seattle-ish, right? Super ants seem like a whole thing this year. I (and most my neighbors) called in the pros and they told me I had it better than most cases they've seen lately. Should be going dormant soon now, but let me know if you want contact info. I guess the stuff you need a license for works better, even the pet-/kid-friendly material.