Wood fired hot tub anyone?

[iluvjazznjava]

Found this browsing around the Costco Canada site today: http://www.costco.ca/Dundalk-Wood-burning-Cedar-Hot-Tub.product.100178627.html

I must say my curiosity was piqued. It looks intriguing, but obviously seems like a lot more work than a regular electric hot tub. On the other hand, it give me another way to burn wood Anyone have any experience with one of these and care to share if they are worth the investment?

 

[Ashful]

Sure beats the old way of doing it:

 

[Montanalocal]

I saw an old fashioned way of doing a wood fired hot tub years ago, and actually built one.

You scrounge up a livestock watering tank, and dig a trench under it. Then at one end you install a vertical chimney pipe. Put a steel plate over the trench and place the water tank on top. Throw wood in the open end of the trench, and let it burn for about 2 hr. The water will heat up nicely.

Sorry, no pics. Everything is under about 18 in. of snow.

 

[woodsmaster]

some of the guys with boilers on here have converted electric ones to wood heat. they heat house, tub, household water and even their barns all from one appliance. some have even made hot water heat clothes dryers.

 

[maple1]

Would be a pain draining it after each use, then filling it again when you want to use it.

Unless you either kept the fire going all winter, or like hot-tubbing in glycol.

I think if I was going for a hot tub, I would get a conventional electric one, and plumb in a HX to the indoor boiler. That's what most boiler guys do that have one. You could set the electric stat just high enough to prevent freezing in case something happened on the wood side.

Actually, you could hook it up to whatever type boiler system you had - wouldn't have to be wood. Not sure that would be any more economical though than just using it electrically and making sure it was well insulated.

Looks neat though.

 

[peakbagger]

While assembling my storage tank I was thinking about this, the tank is designed to filled with an open top, the top panels are just insulation and don't contribute to the structure. The only issue with this is the coil hanging off the side. The tanks PVC liner is a heavy duty version of what you would find in a pool. Plus no need for chemicals, just run it up to 180 degrees in between uses. Of course I don't think AST designed it for that use.

 

[velvetfoot]

I'm intrigued by the thought of a wood fired sauna.

 

[johneh]

Not so handy \buy one ready made

http://www.amazon.com/Wood-Fired-Hot-Tub-Burning/dp/B0091JCDQK

 

[iluvjazznjava]

I'm intrigued by the thought of a wood fired sauna.

This is easily done - put a wood stove is a cedar hut, put a barrel on top filled with metal (we used old plates off railroad ties). Heat for two hours, then pour water over the plates. It's called a wet sauna, which is way better than those commercial dry saunas, best sauna experience ever!

 

[Knots]

When I was young, we built a wood hot tub, put a pool liner in it (it was big), dug a hole about 20 feet away and put a copper coil in it. This is where it gets dicey: the copper was hooked to the tub by plastic line, and there was an old well pump pushing everything around.

The night of the party we built a fire in the hole and started the pump. It worked great. Well, it worked great until the wee hours of there morning when somebody kicked the cord on the pump and the copper coil got too hot and melted the plastic line. Design mistake: we put the fire pit down hill of the tub. Sooooo, all the water flowed into the fire pit and that was the end of the fun for the night….

 

[scooby074]

How about wood fired AND FLOATING!

 

[iluvjazznjava]

Lol ... lots of cool (or hot) posts ... but nobody has answered the original question - anyone tried a wood fired hot tub and care to share their experience?

 

[firefighterjake]

No.

 

[johneh]

How about wood fired AND FLOATING!

That their is a big pond to be heating with one stove

 

[johneh]

Lol ... lots of cool (or hot) posts ... but nobody has answered the original question - anyone tried a wood fired hot tub and care to share their experience

To answer your Question yes in 1967
Share my experience NO The young lady (now much older ) may object