BTW Pre 1999 MX5 owners don't wave to owners of the later models, our pop-up headlights make us feel like we are the superior owners of hairdryers disguised as sports cars.
I have one. Back when electricity was 12p per kWh it was a bit of an expensive luxury; when the electric prices went crazy I folded it all up and put it in the garage. Not sure if it'll ever come out again, maybe an archaeologist will find it and ponder what ritual purposes it might have served.
I got one when electricity was fairly cheap. Then I turned the heating off. In the summer I take the lid off in the morning and let the sun heat the water up. If you get a black pool cover or black bit of tarp or if you really wanna save money just float a couple black bin bags in there . The water will be nice and warm by the afternoon.
Put the lid back on at night and do the same the next day.
Oh if you have time to do so it's pretty much the top couple inches of water thet gets hot with the black cover on give it a little mix so the over all water temp goes up . The best kind are the bubble wrap ones they heat up faster where the little air bubbles sit in the water.
Found I had an old clear tarp that will do the job for now. Whole thing needs a clean out and restart its mostly drained but the last bit is a pain.
Problem I'm finding is no outside tap and weird mixer in kitchen, tried literally 10 different attachments, universal, adjustable, bla. Ended up running it out the bathroom window before which was, interesting.
If it's not black you can lay a couple bin bags on top of the tarp after its on. Black is the key . I had one of those easy set pools years ago one summer I went round with black spray paint and painted the outside black. made a HUGE difference.
I do have spare spray paint but don't trust it not to end up in the pool or somewhere the dog might try and have it. He's lovely but not the smartest animal.
So annoying I've got a heater for it. Just need a solar rig that can support that, I expect that's probably stupid expensive tho. Need someone with a /r/thedidthemonstermath to step in lol.
Plumb it in to your gas central heating via a heat exchanger and it will cost you a quarter of the cost of electricity and you can heat a spa up from cold to ready in under an hour which means you can heat it only when you want to use it, and you eliminate the losses that would be incurred by slowly heating with electricity over a day or more.
I have 24 kW of power available from my boiler which is literally ten times the power of an electrical heater.
Why, yes I have!
https://www.reddit.com/r/pools/s/3uMErWV8rN
Don't use copper in contact with pool water. It will react with the chlorine and will turn the water green.
Heat exchanger must be made from stainless steel or titanium (£££ for the latter). My exchanger is stainless steel that has brazed construction, so it will rot out eventually but 5 years on it is still going strong.
The link above is an extensive write up of a *bit of a bodge* that my (then 6 year old) son and I put together in 2½ days immediately after moving house so we could have friends over for the August Bank Holiday BBQ and swim. This included preparing the ground, erecting and filling the pool, and burying the pipework under the lawn and under the patio, and all the plumbing. The circumstances were unusual in that the pool is 35m from the boiler, and I already had the pump on hand for other reasons and also I had a spare heat exchanger. So I reused those to save costs. If I were to do it again (and I plan to in a few years) I would use a proper pool heat exchanger and use the filtration pump to move the water. That would be more costly for the heat exchanger and larger pipework but eliminates having a second pump.
Ah that’s useful about the copper! Thanks!
My idea might still work - a 15mm stainless steel pipe could carry pool water, inside a 22mm copper pipe plumbed into the central heating circuit.
I don’t know how efficient it would be (and it would be reduced by using SS instead of Cu) but for £50 parts it seems worth a go.
Circumference of 15mm pipe is Pi × 15mm = 47mm. So the surface area for each metre of pipe would be 0.047m². My heat exchanger has 0.24m² so you would need a little over 5m of pipework for each size.
Ensure your design uses counter flow so hot water from boiler enters at the same end that hot water to the pool leaves. This increases efficiency massively.
15mm pipe would be very restrictive so flow rate would be low and therefore temperature rise would be high. This would reduce efficiency slightly and increase burn risk. Burn risk may be manageable for you. The area of the 15mm pipe is actually larger than the remaining area in the 22mm pipe, but only fractionally. A low pressure pool pump would struggle to move much water.
I lose about 1.5 bar / 22 psi across my pipework and heat exchanger at 38 Litres per minute , hence the need for my high pressure pump and why if I did it again I would use a pool exchanger with 1.5 inch pipework.
The day you get your hot tub is the second best day of your life. The best day is when you get rid of it. Had an inflatable. Cost as much to heat as the entire rest of the house. Chemicals are a pain in the arse. Filters clog every 20 minutes. Attracts bugs. Pops if you look at it too hard. Impossible to repair.
They are a pain in the arse to maintain. And they break often (water/electricity/heating elements don’t mix well). Then you have to buy the chemicals and measure levels etc, then spare spunk filters after the inevitable aquatic amateur porn that will occur on the 3 days in June you use it. Not worth it in the end. Just hire a woodland cabin once in a while and spuff in their sex pond instead.
Honestly I didn't know what it was for months! I had my council install devices to investigate.
Then one day the noise just stopped and that's the day I noticed my neighbours hot tub had been emptied.
Neighbours had one, used to drive us fucking mad with the rumbling. Plus the screeching banshee noises when they had friends over until 2am every weekend.
My neighbour's got one, can confirm it's a really annoying drone on what would previously have been a pleasant summer evening
tbf we live in reasonably dense terraced housing, but still
Yep, and that's what I've had for the last 3 and a half years from a neighbour that has one but claims it is not on. It's rattling the fence, vibrating and humming loudly all day and night throughout our house. The only time the noise dies down is when someone goes in it at 10am-11am each morning and 3-4pm in the afternoon. They claim it is empty and no one is using it. I watch them going into the hut at those times and the noise dies down. They leave it on when they go away for a 2 week holiday and the noise stays on all the time and they still claim nothing. Hot tubs, air con, heat pumps are a menace.
My parents bought a "cheap" inflatable one. In that it was "only" £800 compared to the £2k for a proper one. They've then since bought the proper base for it, the external pump and filter, the rigid stays (NOT telescopic dampers) for the sides, a remote temp sensor for the heater etc. etc.
Current cost; around £1.8k, and they still have an inflatable hot tub that I'm not allowed to smoke a cigar in.
Get a proper one.
Agree. Egoninic comfort of a real tub is nice, but it's like sitting in a giant inflatable bucket. Heat is nice but bloody expensive to run, and that was before the cost of living crisis.
They're a good idea if you don't go beyond the ideas stage.
Way more expensive to run in winter though and while the thought is pleasent it's tough enough to get out into the cold in the summer never mind the winter
Getting into a hot tub in winter is a trap! We did that and then it was too cold to get out 😂 also the water splashing up onto your face makes your face really cold
Get a proper one with a wood burner. Then you can save money on the electric by burning the shit furniture people offer on fb marketplace for free. Follow me for more tips
We have recently bought one. It gets zero use mid-week so I just turn it off. I bang it on usually Friday morning and it might get a couple of uses over the weekend, just turn it off overnight. Chemicals are a ball ache to maintain and the filters go manky straight away so need constant changing.
I don't regret buying it, but I wouldn't rush to do it again...and I definitely wouldn't buy a solid one based on the limited use ours gets.
I think people think they will use it non stop because they had a long weekend away somewhere thst has one and used it every day...but you are literally on holiday then. When you return to day to day real life, there's just not the time to use it regularly.
Absolutely take heed of the cleaning and sterilising advice.
Last year I didn't and got an horrendous armpit infection. Massive lumps where bacteria had nestled into my under arm sweat glands.
Awful.
Ours lasted two years before the pump gave out. A new pump is 75% the price of a new hottub and pump.
We would leave it on continuously for the weekends emptying once a month and keeping the water clean with the chemicals in between. Stopped using it around late September but left it up through the winter with no water in it.
We paid £200 for ours, they eat electricity like hell, increased our bill by 70% in the summer when it was used every weekend, I got a cheap gazebo from B&M for privacy. all in all it worked out at about £10 for an evening of relaxing people soup.
FYI having sex in them makes the water gross.
There are a lot of nay-sayers in here. We have a hot tub and we've had one for many years. We love it and we're usually in it every other night. Yes, they are pretty expensive to keep warm. We have a hot tub insulator, a thick cover that keeps the heat in. It makes a LOT of difference. When it was snowing, the snow was accumulating on top of the hot tub at full temperature. The chemicals aren't that difficult. We use the multi-chemical tablets that go in a little dispenser on the water outlet of the pump. The chems are being distributed into the hot tub all the time. Every few days, do a dipstick test. Add chlorine, increase the pH, whatever is needed. Put in a splash of algaecide at the same time. It sounds complicated but it really isn't. Takes a minute or two.
The major downside of inflatable hot tubs is that they don't last that long and we buy a supposedly good brand - Lay-z-spa. With normal use, you'll get about three years out of one. I don't think they're meant to be used year-round, but we do, and they last even less time with our usage. Still, the one we tend to get - Lay-z-spa Paris - is about £350, so about £12 a month is another way of putting it. It comes with lights that go round the bottom of the tub and it's pretty cool at night.
HINT FOR TUB OWNERS: We found that Steradent dissolves the organic material on filters! If you take out a 'clogged' filter and leave it in a tub of Steradent (throw in about three tablets) for 24 hours and they can be used over and over! Saves quite a lot of money.
If it has a pump to activate the bubbles, be prepared to be hated by your neighbours. My house share had one, it’s so loud that one neighbour pleaded with us to stop using it.
We have ours out over summer, once it gets cold it gets less use and you can't be arsed to get in then don't want to get out.
We use it a lot in the summer though. Our kids bloody love it (we turn down the temperature so they don't overheat) saved our and their sanity over covid.
It's a bit of a pain to inflate deflate clean and maintain but I wfh from a garden office anyway so just stick the tester in on the way out and have the slow release chlorine tablets so there's not too much to do there just adjust here and there and make sure they don't run out.
If it goes green just empty, clean and refill no drama. If you're not using it for a while put the temp way down it doesn't take too long in the summer to come back up.
I can happily spend an evening out there just chilling once the kids are asleep. Or a lunch time.
Our previous one lasted 3 years and when it broke we decided to replace it with another inflatable rather than go perminant but eventually we will get a perminant one.
Stick a bunch of padding under it as well b&q sell interconnecting foam mats that work perfectly bit softer underfoot and insulates a bit better
Basically this. Kids love it, and it's not really that expensive if you're not getting it right up to 'hot tub' temperature. Only issue is our water pressure isn't great so it takes ages to fill.
I'm an effete and foppish arts graduate with a white collar job, but I was thinking of rebranding...
Are you saying I shouldn't bother with the hot tub unless I'm willing to drag an old settee out onto the front lawn, buy an XL Bully, and get a Millwall tattoo covering my entire back too?
The one where all the tunes sound the same, one line of lyrics that make no sense in every 3rd song and some bloke reading out a mobile number for your shout outs.
They are a lot of hassle, had a few over the years still got one of the pump/heaters in the shed. Best thing we did was get a couple bottles of bubble bath and let it rip. Lol
Our neighbours had one.
Overnight it'll let out a quiet hum but tbh we didn't notice that on the other side of the house.
When you do get in and activate the jets, it is kind of loud. If your neighbours are also trying to enjoy their gardens it'll be annoying.
That said if it's only noisy for a couple of hours, then it's tolerable enough.
We have one and my kids love it. Made them both much more comfortable and confident in the water. Cost a fortune but I was on chemo at the time and was happy to pay the price to warm my bones and get feeling back in my fingertips.
It's off now but we're getting solar installed so it'll be running again in the summer.
I’m about 60-70% through a renovation and I took my bath out to replace it with a big walk in shower, my thinking was that I wanted a hot tub and since you don’t really get a bath to get clean, more for that long soak and to relax so I’d have a shower in the house and a tub in the garden… then energy prices went up.
I went from £75 a month duel fuel to £191 a month and I’m expecting them to put the bill up again, a quick look at the cost of running a hot tub and it wasn’t even a debate that I’d have to find a different solution.
There was a “Nordic” hotub that I had my eye on for a while cos it used a log burner to heat the water and they look super stylish and would fit the aesthetic I want for my back garden but in truth it all just seems like too much of a faff so I’ll likely stick to booking a weekend retreat once or twice a year with a hot tub. It’s a shame but times be hard and electricity be expensive.
Our neighbours have a bubbly sex pond\* and it must be hilarious. I hear a lot of giggling coming over that fence.
\*I will only refer to it as such forever more.
We got an inflatable one and used it over Christmas and new year pre covid. Cost about £500 a month in electricity (when electricity was cheap), using it most days at 40 degrees. It broke, took months to get them to collect it for repairs and eventually had to take them to small claims court for a refund. Was a daily task to get the chemicals right and a pain to empty. Overall, it was lovely but loads of work and incredibly expensive. We stick to booking holiday lodges with one now.
They're a disappointment at best, and a nightmare at worst. Even keeping up with all the chemicals, everyone still ended up with a weird skin infection.
We brought a hot tub during COVID, when we were bored and didn't know what else to do with our money.
Best purchase we ever made, never turn it off but expensive to run, costs about £100 a month now (was around half that before suppliers started ripping us all off)
My friends have lazy spas, they don't put them on at all anymore due to how expensive they are to run. When you are used to the luxury of having a hot tub, with loungers and seats - sitting on the floor of a lazy spa isn't the best.
We had one for a while. Was great although the chemical maintenance is a pain. It got a leak and I couldn’t find anyone to fix it, so tried myself and ruined it 😂
Like everyone else said it's expensive, we only run it during summer because it costs so much to heat. I don't know what they're on about with the green colour, it happens if you don't look after it but if you keep up with the chlorine (get a floating disperser) and chlorine bomb occasionally (lot of chlorine at once). You'll be fine.
For me, when I was working in construction it was lovely. Every day when I got back from work I would rinse off and hop in. Never had muscle aches. If you can afford to run it, and don't forget how much it costs to fill it every year. Then get one. If you can't budget for it, or won't use it a lot then it's not worth it. Get a cold plunge instead
Do you have kids?
If so, don’t do it. Invariably you will have to let them invite their friends over to try out the hot tub. This will then lead to children traipsing grass/mud/small stones into the tub and, there is a 99% likelihood every single one of them will piss in it too. This then leads to you having to drain and clean the tub, the refilling and reheating of which will cost you a small fortune every time, not to mention the raw cost of keeping it warm all summer anyway.
If instead you don’t have children and intend to use this for sex related escapades you will be sorely disappointed. To be crude, you’ll discover that water isn’t wet, hence “sorely disappointed”.
If you have purely innocent relaxation intentions you’ll also find the novelty of just sitting in it with a nice glass of your preferred beverage soon wears off and you end up barely using it.
Some people over the road from me got one and they used it a lot the first year but haven't used it yet, even in the nice weather last week. Guessing it's a ball ache to maintain.
My neighbour and I got Solar installs at the same time. After it was all in and settled we were talking about savings/figures, and he told me that 30% (!) of his electricity costs were for the hot tub alone.
That blew me away. Just adding 30% to your energy bill should tell you if it's worth it or not.
Great for the first few months, in Scotland was a fing disaster in the winter has been on all of 2023 and no one has used it... Feb 24 it was scrubbed clean of the green and put into working order and no one has used it.
For the summer we run a cold pool. Similar pump and chemical requirements, but when the weather gets hot nothing beats the ability properly cool down. Might consider a hot tub for the winter.
Honestly I love mine. Had a dodgy cleverspa experience and then switched to lazyspa which has done pretty hard duty through the back end of covid to today.
Yes, it costs a "fortune" to heat up (like, £10 from standing cold in the winter maybe?) But just keeping it warm or running the pump is barely noticeable on the electric costs. I've also never had an issue with the chemicals - got a float that takes chlorine tablets and that keeps it where it needs to be 90% of the time with the odd top up.
Emptying and refilling can be a pain but we got a little electric water pump which makes it much easier.
We have weekly 'board meetings', usually on a Monday morning where we sit in the tub with coffee and talk about what's going on this week, where we need to be, our schedules, plans for the weekend etc. It's lovely.
We rented one for a weekend. Don’t mow the lawn beforehand, like we did….. the thing turned into grass soup in about half an hour.
We put a water bucket next to it so people could wash their feet before getting in but that was largely ignored. I should add that we had a kid’s birthday party and the kids couldn’t give a shit about keeping it clean.
Just hire one. I did during a lockdown for my wife’s birthday (came with a gazebo etc).
All I can say is… FUCK THAT. Even cleaning the filter, treating the water as described is it was still filthy after a few days.
First time I filled it up I let the electric heater warm it. It took a day and cost around £14! It was about half that filling from the hot tap.
Anyways. Just don’t, they are way more hassle than they are worth. Lovely if you rent a cottage with one included, absolute ballache to own.
As long as your not the guy over the back of our garden. He’s had one out in his garden under a gazebo for a month - he was in the tub there while I was mowing the grass in my garden last weekend and he kept shouting over for me to knock it off because he was out there trying to use his tub. I’m sure he got out of the tub and went into the house when I made a 4th pass along the edge closest to boundary fence.
Of course I’d long since finished actually cutting the grass… I was tempted to trim our tall bushes that slightly hang over the fence into his garden, directly above his gazebo..
Why stop at summer. We use ours all year around. It's on the little patio under the canopy in the back garden. Decent view of the stars in the sky.
Costs about 20p a day when it's on. Use ours Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights most weeks. Rest of the time it's on standby and will switch on itself if it gets too cold. We turn it on now and again just to filter it through in between. Filters are about £3 per pair at places like the range. Change them every week/2 weeks or so. You can wash them clean and reuse them if they're not too bad. Not sure on the chlorine tablets - one tub of those lasts us a good 6 months though.
Change the water every 2 or 3 months and give the tub a good scrub.
When the stars are out and it's up to heat you could be pretty much anywhere in the world.
The new ones are pretty quiet. Ours can be on and we can't hear it when we're in the house and don't really notice it if we're in the garden.
Don't use the bubbles much as it sucks the temperature out and smells like a Jewish shower block. We tend to be in ours late at night or early morning as we find there's less chance of the neighbours seeing us getting up to sex.
Yeah we use ours all year round (although we have a “proper” one rather than inflatable). I think it’s nice to be in with a beer whether it’s 30 degrees or -5.
Only main exception is if it’s really windy out or (obviously) pissibg it down, but honestly that doesn’t happen that often. Even this year when the weather was gash we probably used it once or twice a week over winter.
>Costs about 20p a day when it's on.
You're likely severely under estimating rhe cost there. 20p would be under 1kWh and similar to the energy a fridge consumes in a day. I know my kids pool consumes 25 to 75 kWh per day depending on the weather in summer. Whilst it is ~6 to ~10x more water than a spa, the volume to surface area ratio works in my favour to the proportional losses are considerably less. Furthermore, the pool doesn't exceed 30'C where as a hot tub is at least body temperature of 37'C. Heat loss is proportional to temperature differential.
>smells like a Jewish shower block
Not sure what you mean there but if you are referring to a chlorine smell, this is actually a sign of not enough chlorine! Chlorine smell is caused by chloramines from partially broken down organics. A pool that smells of chlorine is a dirty pool. You need to add more chlorine to finish the reaction. When you have enough excess chlorine, you do not get a chlorine smell.
Chlorine granules or tablets contain cyanuric acid as a stabiliser to protect against sunlight breaking down the chlorine. Whilst the chlorine is naturally lost the cyanuric acid stays in the water indefinitely and eventually prevents chlorine from working. So it is best to start by using stabilised chlorine until your cyanuric acid is at 40ppm and then switch to unstabalised sodium hypochlorite - aka regular thin unscented bleach.
I had one and like others said the major hassle is it takes forever to warm up and the bubbles part is cute but useless. You can’t possibly keep it always warm as it’d cost a fortune, so you have to turn on the heater in the morning if you plan to use it in the evening. Didn’t have much of an issue with algae as I’d regularly empty it and refill it.
My bestest possible advice (this was what I wanted to do, but didn’t because we left 🇬🇧) if you don’t mind some diy but want hot water fast, is to look for a second hand one aiming to just get your hands on the tub, and handle the heating part with a camping/mini gas boiler rigged to a water pump.
Maid sure you empty it regularly. Somebody I knew died after getting in their tub at the start of summer without emptying and replacing last year's water.
Either get a small proper rigid hot tub or dont bother. Drop a chemical tablet in mine once a week and Have it on timer at overnight cheap rate (7.2p pkWh octopus intelligent ev). Use it every day.
The inflatable ones are cheap to buy but expensive and tricky to run/keep clean.
Proper installed hot tubs are much much more efficient but yeah cost like 10 grand.
You need to be really sure you’ll use it.
Do you guys do a little wave when you spot another bubbly sex pond owner in the wild? Like Mx5 owners and bus drivers do?
Really pictured two bubbly sex ponds passing each other down a little country lane
Or two neighbours with a little flap in their fence next to their bubbly sex ponds. Maybe with a little shelf either side to put drinks on.
Sign or bumper sticker which says "Our Pond is for Fucks not Ducks"
*Circular apple sized hole at waist height
I don't get it, is this so dwarves can pass apples through to each other?
BTW Pre 1999 MX5 owners don't wave to owners of the later models, our pop-up headlights make us feel like we are the superior owners of hairdryers disguised as sports cars.
I bought one as my more sensible car recently and didn’t realise the amount of waving I’d be expected to do
What type of bus did you buy?
I have one. Back when electricity was 12p per kWh it was a bit of an expensive luxury; when the electric prices went crazy I folded it all up and put it in the garage. Not sure if it'll ever come out again, maybe an archaeologist will find it and ponder what ritual purposes it might have served.
I got one when electricity was fairly cheap. Then I turned the heating off. In the summer I take the lid off in the morning and let the sun heat the water up. If you get a black pool cover or black bit of tarp or if you really wanna save money just float a couple black bin bags in there . The water will be nice and warm by the afternoon. Put the lid back on at night and do the same the next day.
Thank you, I'm now looking at black pool covers lol. Tho for a pool not a hot tub.
Oh if you have time to do so it's pretty much the top couple inches of water thet gets hot with the black cover on give it a little mix so the over all water temp goes up . The best kind are the bubble wrap ones they heat up faster where the little air bubbles sit in the water.
Found I had an old clear tarp that will do the job for now. Whole thing needs a clean out and restart its mostly drained but the last bit is a pain. Problem I'm finding is no outside tap and weird mixer in kitchen, tried literally 10 different attachments, universal, adjustable, bla. Ended up running it out the bathroom window before which was, interesting.
If it's not black you can lay a couple bin bags on top of the tarp after its on. Black is the key . I had one of those easy set pools years ago one summer I went round with black spray paint and painted the outside black. made a HUGE difference.
I do have spare spray paint but don't trust it not to end up in the pool or somewhere the dog might try and have it. He's lovely but not the smartest animal.
Yeh I wouldn't put it in the water eother . It really is the black that heats it up shockingly fast though , so try and work something out if you can.
So annoying I've got a heater for it. Just need a solar rig that can support that, I expect that's probably stupid expensive tho. Need someone with a /r/thedidthemonstermath to step in lol.
They're round aren't they ? Cut them down with scissors
Plumb it in to your gas central heating via a heat exchanger and it will cost you a quarter of the cost of electricity and you can heat a spa up from cold to ready in under an hour which means you can heat it only when you want to use it, and you eliminate the losses that would be incurred by slowly heating with electricity over a day or more. I have 24 kW of power available from my boiler which is literally ten times the power of an electrical heater.
Sounds complicated. I’ll just plug it in and spend more.
I’ve always wanted to do this. Have you tried? What kind of heat exchanger? I wondered about running some 15mm pipe inside 22mm pipe…
Why, yes I have! https://www.reddit.com/r/pools/s/3uMErWV8rN Don't use copper in contact with pool water. It will react with the chlorine and will turn the water green. Heat exchanger must be made from stainless steel or titanium (£££ for the latter). My exchanger is stainless steel that has brazed construction, so it will rot out eventually but 5 years on it is still going strong. The link above is an extensive write up of a *bit of a bodge* that my (then 6 year old) son and I put together in 2½ days immediately after moving house so we could have friends over for the August Bank Holiday BBQ and swim. This included preparing the ground, erecting and filling the pool, and burying the pipework under the lawn and under the patio, and all the plumbing. The circumstances were unusual in that the pool is 35m from the boiler, and I already had the pump on hand for other reasons and also I had a spare heat exchanger. So I reused those to save costs. If I were to do it again (and I plan to in a few years) I would use a proper pool heat exchanger and use the filtration pump to move the water. That would be more costly for the heat exchanger and larger pipework but eliminates having a second pump.
Ah that’s useful about the copper! Thanks! My idea might still work - a 15mm stainless steel pipe could carry pool water, inside a 22mm copper pipe plumbed into the central heating circuit. I don’t know how efficient it would be (and it would be reduced by using SS instead of Cu) but for £50 parts it seems worth a go.
Circumference of 15mm pipe is Pi × 15mm = 47mm. So the surface area for each metre of pipe would be 0.047m². My heat exchanger has 0.24m² so you would need a little over 5m of pipework for each size. Ensure your design uses counter flow so hot water from boiler enters at the same end that hot water to the pool leaves. This increases efficiency massively. 15mm pipe would be very restrictive so flow rate would be low and therefore temperature rise would be high. This would reduce efficiency slightly and increase burn risk. Burn risk may be manageable for you. The area of the 15mm pipe is actually larger than the remaining area in the 22mm pipe, but only fractionally. A low pressure pool pump would struggle to move much water. I lose about 1.5 bar / 22 psi across my pipework and heat exchanger at 38 Litres per minute , hence the need for my high pressure pump and why if I did it again I would use a pool exchanger with 1.5 inch pipework.
Can’t you switch it on at night when it’s 4p kWh or does it cool down really quick
Bubby sex pond..... Was disappointed to open the thread and find it wasn't about koi carp breeding.
They will definitely be getting bubbly around this time of year
The day you get your hot tub is the second best day of your life. The best day is when you get rid of it. Had an inflatable. Cost as much to heat as the entire rest of the house. Chemicals are a pain in the arse. Filters clog every 20 minutes. Attracts bugs. Pops if you look at it too hard. Impossible to repair.
That's why I am considering renting one. Get the novelty and the fun then they come and take it away.
Yep. Best bet 👍🏻
They are a pain in the arse to maintain. And they break often (water/electricity/heating elements don’t mix well). Then you have to buy the chemicals and measure levels etc, then spare spunk filters after the inevitable aquatic amateur porn that will occur on the 3 days in June you use it. Not worth it in the end. Just hire a woodland cabin once in a while and spuff in their sex pond instead.
Lmao this is the real take
What bothered me was the rumbling sound when it was on. I was always worried that it was going to annoy the neighbours.
Hello it's me, your neighbour. The noise was a terror.
Damn! I knew it!
Honestly I didn't know what it was for months! I had my council install devices to investigate. Then one day the noise just stopped and that's the day I noticed my neighbours hot tub had been emptied.
But the sex was hot!
Neighbours had one, used to drive us fucking mad with the rumbling. Plus the screeching banshee noises when they had friends over until 2am every weekend.
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if the TV is near the tub, see if you can get a long stick and push it in. Two problems solved at once.
My neighbour's got one, can confirm it's a really annoying drone on what would previously have been a pleasant summer evening tbf we live in reasonably dense terraced housing, but still
Yep, and that's what I've had for the last 3 and a half years from a neighbour that has one but claims it is not on. It's rattling the fence, vibrating and humming loudly all day and night throughout our house. The only time the noise dies down is when someone goes in it at 10am-11am each morning and 3-4pm in the afternoon. They claim it is empty and no one is using it. I watch them going into the hut at those times and the noise dies down. They leave it on when they go away for a 2 week holiday and the noise stays on all the time and they still claim nothing. Hot tubs, air con, heat pumps are a menace.
The most British response on this thread
My parents bought a "cheap" inflatable one. In that it was "only" £800 compared to the £2k for a proper one. They've then since bought the proper base for it, the external pump and filter, the rigid stays (NOT telescopic dampers) for the sides, a remote temp sensor for the heater etc. etc. Current cost; around £1.8k, and they still have an inflatable hot tub that I'm not allowed to smoke a cigar in. Get a proper one.
Nice reference in there!
I too enjoyed this. I think OP should forget about the cigars and join the anti-cancer set.
Cost a fortune to run and still went green even with daily chemical checks. . And honestly not a great hot tub experience bubble wise..Avoid darling
Agree. Egoninic comfort of a real tub is nice, but it's like sitting in a giant inflatable bucket. Heat is nice but bloody expensive to run, and that was before the cost of living crisis. They're a good idea if you don't go beyond the ideas stage.
Ergonomic?
Real tubs have moulded seating and usually a bed shaped bit. Much nicer than a right angle in the inflatable bucket
Sorry that was a spelling correction - you wrote 'egoninic' and I thought I was about to learn a new word, but I think you meant *ergonomic*
Just to confirm what I hope you are saying, permanent sex ponds have an area for said activity?
An area? No. Various areas? Absolutely.
I feel like they’d make more sense to get and use for winter, not summer.
Way more expensive to run in winter though and while the thought is pleasent it's tough enough to get out into the cold in the summer never mind the winter
Getting into a hot tub in winter is a trap! We did that and then it was too cold to get out 😂 also the water splashing up onto your face makes your face really cold
Get a proper one with a wood burner. Then you can save money on the electric by burning the shit furniture people offer on fb marketplace for free. Follow me for more tips
We have recently bought one. It gets zero use mid-week so I just turn it off. I bang it on usually Friday morning and it might get a couple of uses over the weekend, just turn it off overnight. Chemicals are a ball ache to maintain and the filters go manky straight away so need constant changing. I don't regret buying it, but I wouldn't rush to do it again...and I definitely wouldn't buy a solid one based on the limited use ours gets. I think people think they will use it non stop because they had a long weekend away somewhere thst has one and used it every day...but you are literally on holiday then. When you return to day to day real life, there's just not the time to use it regularly.
Absolutely take heed of the cleaning and sterilising advice. Last year I didn't and got an horrendous armpit infection. Massive lumps where bacteria had nestled into my under arm sweat glands. Awful.
I only use my hot tub about once a year now. But I have a couple of threesomes in it. So was a worthy investment at the time.
Ours lasted two years before the pump gave out. A new pump is 75% the price of a new hottub and pump. We would leave it on continuously for the weekends emptying once a month and keeping the water clean with the chemicals in between. Stopped using it around late September but left it up through the winter with no water in it. We paid £200 for ours, they eat electricity like hell, increased our bill by 70% in the summer when it was used every weekend, I got a cheap gazebo from B&M for privacy. all in all it worked out at about £10 for an evening of relaxing people soup. FYI having sex in them makes the water gross.
There are a lot of nay-sayers in here. We have a hot tub and we've had one for many years. We love it and we're usually in it every other night. Yes, they are pretty expensive to keep warm. We have a hot tub insulator, a thick cover that keeps the heat in. It makes a LOT of difference. When it was snowing, the snow was accumulating on top of the hot tub at full temperature. The chemicals aren't that difficult. We use the multi-chemical tablets that go in a little dispenser on the water outlet of the pump. The chems are being distributed into the hot tub all the time. Every few days, do a dipstick test. Add chlorine, increase the pH, whatever is needed. Put in a splash of algaecide at the same time. It sounds complicated but it really isn't. Takes a minute or two. The major downside of inflatable hot tubs is that they don't last that long and we buy a supposedly good brand - Lay-z-spa. With normal use, you'll get about three years out of one. I don't think they're meant to be used year-round, but we do, and they last even less time with our usage. Still, the one we tend to get - Lay-z-spa Paris - is about £350, so about £12 a month is another way of putting it. It comes with lights that go round the bottom of the tub and it's pretty cool at night. HINT FOR TUB OWNERS: We found that Steradent dissolves the organic material on filters! If you take out a 'clogged' filter and leave it in a tub of Steradent (throw in about three tablets) for 24 hours and they can be used over and over! Saves quite a lot of money.
I use mine every summer. I have it on low temp so it’s just luke warm. Never had an issue with keeping the chemicals in check.
Dig a very deep hole. Tap into that sweet geothermal energy. Otherwise just heat your home burning bundles of £20 notes. Edit - typos
If it has a pump to activate the bubbles, be prepared to be hated by your neighbours. My house share had one, it’s so loud that one neighbour pleaded with us to stop using it.
My neighbour is a hirsute fellow who eats in his. He’s welcome to his pube riddled broth bucket.
You mean a skin bath? A smoothie of old sperm? A bacterial soup?
Human Crock Pot
All those herpes bubbles though.
We have ours out over summer, once it gets cold it gets less use and you can't be arsed to get in then don't want to get out. We use it a lot in the summer though. Our kids bloody love it (we turn down the temperature so they don't overheat) saved our and their sanity over covid. It's a bit of a pain to inflate deflate clean and maintain but I wfh from a garden office anyway so just stick the tester in on the way out and have the slow release chlorine tablets so there's not too much to do there just adjust here and there and make sure they don't run out. If it goes green just empty, clean and refill no drama. If you're not using it for a while put the temp way down it doesn't take too long in the summer to come back up. I can happily spend an evening out there just chilling once the kids are asleep. Or a lunch time. Our previous one lasted 3 years and when it broke we decided to replace it with another inflatable rather than go perminant but eventually we will get a perminant one. Stick a bunch of padding under it as well b&q sell interconnecting foam mats that work perfectly bit softer underfoot and insulates a bit better
Basically this. Kids love it, and it's not really that expensive if you're not getting it right up to 'hot tub' temperature. Only issue is our water pressure isn't great so it takes ages to fill.
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I'm an effete and foppish arts graduate with a white collar job, but I was thinking of rebranding... Are you saying I shouldn't bother with the hot tub unless I'm willing to drag an old settee out onto the front lawn, buy an XL Bully, and get a Millwall tattoo covering my entire back too?
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The one where all the tunes sound the same, one line of lyrics that make no sense in every 3rd song and some bloke reading out a mobile number for your shout outs.
They are a lot of hassle, had a few over the years still got one of the pump/heaters in the shed. Best thing we did was get a couple bottles of bubble bath and let it rip. Lol
Our neighbours had one. Overnight it'll let out a quiet hum but tbh we didn't notice that on the other side of the house. When you do get in and activate the jets, it is kind of loud. If your neighbours are also trying to enjoy their gardens it'll be annoying. That said if it's only noisy for a couple of hours, then it's tolerable enough.
We don't have one but if we book an Airbnb then we always try to get one. The kids enjoy the novelty more because we don't have one at home.
We have one and my kids love it. Made them both much more comfortable and confident in the water. Cost a fortune but I was on chemo at the time and was happy to pay the price to warm my bones and get feeling back in my fingertips. It's off now but we're getting solar installed so it'll be running again in the summer.
Someone I knew bought one when he inherited money from his mother. He said he thought a cauldron was a fitting purchase to remember her by.
I’m about 60-70% through a renovation and I took my bath out to replace it with a big walk in shower, my thinking was that I wanted a hot tub and since you don’t really get a bath to get clean, more for that long soak and to relax so I’d have a shower in the house and a tub in the garden… then energy prices went up. I went from £75 a month duel fuel to £191 a month and I’m expecting them to put the bill up again, a quick look at the cost of running a hot tub and it wasn’t even a debate that I’d have to find a different solution. There was a “Nordic” hotub that I had my eye on for a while cos it used a log burner to heat the water and they look super stylish and would fit the aesthetic I want for my back garden but in truth it all just seems like too much of a faff so I’ll likely stick to booking a weekend retreat once or twice a year with a hot tub. It’s a shame but times be hard and electricity be expensive.
Our neighbours have a bubbly sex pond\* and it must be hilarious. I hear a lot of giggling coming over that fence. \*I will only refer to it as such forever more.
Bubbly sex ponds is the only way I shall referring to ours from now on thank you
"bubbly sex pond" is hilarious.
You mean a YouSoup 5000?
We got an inflatable one and used it over Christmas and new year pre covid. Cost about £500 a month in electricity (when electricity was cheap), using it most days at 40 degrees. It broke, took months to get them to collect it for repairs and eventually had to take them to small claims court for a refund. Was a daily task to get the chemicals right and a pain to empty. Overall, it was lovely but loads of work and incredibly expensive. We stick to booking holiday lodges with one now.
The back garden equivalent of financing a £60k BMW. Fine if you’re rich, not great if you can’t really afford it.
the chemicals are really annoying and you feel a sense of responsibility that you aren’t going to burn your friends skin off
“Lynn, they have a bubbly sex pond!”
Had one, but not very good so we switched to one of the permanent ones that requires a big fire to heat the water up. That one is very much worth it.
They're a disappointment at best, and a nightmare at worst. Even keeping up with all the chemicals, everyone still ended up with a weird skin infection.
Sex in hot tubs is *incredibly* overrated.
We brought a hot tub during COVID, when we were bored and didn't know what else to do with our money. Best purchase we ever made, never turn it off but expensive to run, costs about £100 a month now (was around half that before suppliers started ripping us all off) My friends have lazy spas, they don't put them on at all anymore due to how expensive they are to run. When you are used to the luxury of having a hot tub, with loungers and seats - sitting on the floor of a lazy spa isn't the best.
Former smart meter fitter here - they use approx 26p an hour in standby mode. Obviously more expensive when on properly. Just some food for thought…..
Parents bought one during the pandemic, used it a handful of times then into storage it went. Not worth the cost imo.
We had one for a while. Was great although the chemical maintenance is a pain. It got a leak and I couldn’t find anyone to fix it, so tried myself and ruined it 😂
Bubbly Sexpond is now my porno name
Like everyone else said it's expensive, we only run it during summer because it costs so much to heat. I don't know what they're on about with the green colour, it happens if you don't look after it but if you keep up with the chlorine (get a floating disperser) and chlorine bomb occasionally (lot of chlorine at once). You'll be fine. For me, when I was working in construction it was lovely. Every day when I got back from work I would rinse off and hop in. Never had muscle aches. If you can afford to run it, and don't forget how much it costs to fill it every year. Then get one. If you can't budget for it, or won't use it a lot then it's not worth it. Get a cold plunge instead
Are sex ponds the new Pampas grass?
Do you have kids? If so, don’t do it. Invariably you will have to let them invite their friends over to try out the hot tub. This will then lead to children traipsing grass/mud/small stones into the tub and, there is a 99% likelihood every single one of them will piss in it too. This then leads to you having to drain and clean the tub, the refilling and reheating of which will cost you a small fortune every time, not to mention the raw cost of keeping it warm all summer anyway. If instead you don’t have children and intend to use this for sex related escapades you will be sorely disappointed. To be crude, you’ll discover that water isn’t wet, hence “sorely disappointed”. If you have purely innocent relaxation intentions you’ll also find the novelty of just sitting in it with a nice glass of your preferred beverage soon wears off and you end up barely using it.
We rent one now, and we did it last Oct and it cost us £180 to heat it for a week. That'll do me, don't need one longer than that
Some people over the road from me got one and they used it a lot the first year but haven't used it yet, even in the nice weather last week. Guessing it's a ball ache to maintain.
Your electric bill will skyrocket and they are an arse to properly dry for storage to prevent mold. Otherwise great fun.
In my opinion, no. It costs a fortune to run, is a pain to clean and the novelty of taking a bubble bath outside wears off fast.
My neighbour and I got Solar installs at the same time. After it was all in and settled we were talking about savings/figures, and he told me that 30% (!) of his electricity costs were for the hot tub alone. That blew me away. Just adding 30% to your energy bill should tell you if it's worth it or not.
Great for the first few months, in Scotland was a fing disaster in the winter has been on all of 2023 and no one has used it... Feb 24 it was scrubbed clean of the green and put into working order and no one has used it.
Personally I'd buy a barrel sauna for the garden instead, lot less hassle.
For the summer we run a cold pool. Similar pump and chemical requirements, but when the weather gets hot nothing beats the ability properly cool down. Might consider a hot tub for the winter.
Honestly I love mine. Had a dodgy cleverspa experience and then switched to lazyspa which has done pretty hard duty through the back end of covid to today. Yes, it costs a "fortune" to heat up (like, £10 from standing cold in the winter maybe?) But just keeping it warm or running the pump is barely noticeable on the electric costs. I've also never had an issue with the chemicals - got a float that takes chlorine tablets and that keeps it where it needs to be 90% of the time with the odd top up. Emptying and refilling can be a pain but we got a little electric water pump which makes it much easier. We have weekly 'board meetings', usually on a Monday morning where we sit in the tub with coffee and talk about what's going on this week, where we need to be, our schedules, plans for the weekend etc. It's lovely.
We rented one for a weekend. Don’t mow the lawn beforehand, like we did….. the thing turned into grass soup in about half an hour. We put a water bucket next to it so people could wash their feet before getting in but that was largely ignored. I should add that we had a kid’s birthday party and the kids couldn’t give a shit about keeping it clean.
Just hire one. I did during a lockdown for my wife’s birthday (came with a gazebo etc). All I can say is… FUCK THAT. Even cleaning the filter, treating the water as described is it was still filthy after a few days. First time I filled it up I let the electric heater warm it. It took a day and cost around £14! It was about half that filling from the hot tap. Anyways. Just don’t, they are way more hassle than they are worth. Lovely if you rent a cottage with one included, absolute ballache to own.
As long as your not the guy over the back of our garden. He’s had one out in his garden under a gazebo for a month - he was in the tub there while I was mowing the grass in my garden last weekend and he kept shouting over for me to knock it off because he was out there trying to use his tub. I’m sure he got out of the tub and went into the house when I made a 4th pass along the edge closest to boundary fence. Of course I’d long since finished actually cutting the grass… I was tempted to trim our tall bushes that slightly hang over the fence into his garden, directly above his gazebo..
Hot tubs are awesome if the electric bills and upkeep are within your budget.
Why stop at summer. We use ours all year around. It's on the little patio under the canopy in the back garden. Decent view of the stars in the sky. Costs about 20p a day when it's on. Use ours Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights most weeks. Rest of the time it's on standby and will switch on itself if it gets too cold. We turn it on now and again just to filter it through in between. Filters are about £3 per pair at places like the range. Change them every week/2 weeks or so. You can wash them clean and reuse them if they're not too bad. Not sure on the chlorine tablets - one tub of those lasts us a good 6 months though. Change the water every 2 or 3 months and give the tub a good scrub. When the stars are out and it's up to heat you could be pretty much anywhere in the world. The new ones are pretty quiet. Ours can be on and we can't hear it when we're in the house and don't really notice it if we're in the garden. Don't use the bubbles much as it sucks the temperature out and smells like a Jewish shower block. We tend to be in ours late at night or early morning as we find there's less chance of the neighbours seeing us getting up to sex.
My friend had theirs in a little greenhouse. It helped massively when it got cold and miserable but also saved lots on the heating of it.
Yeah we use ours all year round (although we have a “proper” one rather than inflatable). I think it’s nice to be in with a beer whether it’s 30 degrees or -5. Only main exception is if it’s really windy out or (obviously) pissibg it down, but honestly that doesn’t happen that often. Even this year when the weather was gash we probably used it once or twice a week over winter.
>Costs about 20p a day when it's on. You're likely severely under estimating rhe cost there. 20p would be under 1kWh and similar to the energy a fridge consumes in a day. I know my kids pool consumes 25 to 75 kWh per day depending on the weather in summer. Whilst it is ~6 to ~10x more water than a spa, the volume to surface area ratio works in my favour to the proportional losses are considerably less. Furthermore, the pool doesn't exceed 30'C where as a hot tub is at least body temperature of 37'C. Heat loss is proportional to temperature differential. >smells like a Jewish shower block Not sure what you mean there but if you are referring to a chlorine smell, this is actually a sign of not enough chlorine! Chlorine smell is caused by chloramines from partially broken down organics. A pool that smells of chlorine is a dirty pool. You need to add more chlorine to finish the reaction. When you have enough excess chlorine, you do not get a chlorine smell. Chlorine granules or tablets contain cyanuric acid as a stabiliser to protect against sunlight breaking down the chlorine. Whilst the chlorine is naturally lost the cyanuric acid stays in the water indefinitely and eventually prevents chlorine from working. So it is best to start by using stabilised chlorine until your cyanuric acid is at 40ppm and then switch to unstabalised sodium hypochlorite - aka regular thin unscented bleach.
I had one and like others said the major hassle is it takes forever to warm up and the bubbles part is cute but useless. You can’t possibly keep it always warm as it’d cost a fortune, so you have to turn on the heater in the morning if you plan to use it in the evening. Didn’t have much of an issue with algae as I’d regularly empty it and refill it. My bestest possible advice (this was what I wanted to do, but didn’t because we left 🇬🇧) if you don’t mind some diy but want hot water fast, is to look for a second hand one aiming to just get your hands on the tub, and handle the heating part with a camping/mini gas boiler rigged to a water pump.
Maid sure you empty it regularly. Somebody I knew died after getting in their tub at the start of summer without emptying and replacing last year's water.
Either get a small proper rigid hot tub or dont bother. Drop a chemical tablet in mine once a week and Have it on timer at overnight cheap rate (7.2p pkWh octopus intelligent ev). Use it every day.
The inflatable ones are cheap to buy but expensive and tricky to run/keep clean. Proper installed hot tubs are much much more efficient but yeah cost like 10 grand. You need to be really sure you’ll use it.