Oh sure, for years we wanted a hot tub. Living off grid as we do that would not be as easy as purchasing an electrically heated spa from the local retailer. We would need a real wooden tub, no fiberglass for us we said, and a way to heat the water that did not use a lot of electricity is a necessity.
Eight or nine years ago we attempted a hot tub coup. My brother called to say he had found a 4′ x 6′ used redwood tub that had been continuously filled with water. The seller wanted $200. There was just the tub, nothing else. Still and all it was a good deal. We went and picked it up. We drove it home on its side in the back of the pick-up.
Oh, I was all enthusiasm. I went to the library and checked out books of hot tub structures and placement. Where we live there is no flat place, unless you make it yourself. We chose a spot beyond the large PV tracker, on a steep, but short rise.
Our friend, Jose, built the structure I picked from a book. Steps led up to small roofed deck that curved around the tub. In the water you could be under the roof or under the stars.
My husband, Bob-O dug a trench and buried electrical conduit and a gas line. We had planned on heating the tub with solar with a propane back up. Under the deck and accessible from the side was room for all the pumps, filters and heater.
Our plans never bore fruit. We could not get the tub to hold water. We set up a sprinkler inside of the tub and ran it everyday as long as the sun shone (solar pumped water) for weeks. Although the wood was wet constantly three inches was all we could get. After a lot of wasted water we gave up. Then we found rot under the metal tub bands. We would not try to save it.
For eight years the project sat frozen in time. Through all the sun, rain and snow the hot tub that needs no towel‚ stood upright and unused. Bob-O wanted to tear the structure down. Now, years later, our big tracking PV array had grown so that the hot tub building partially shaded the PVs at a certain time of year in the late afternoon.
I kept putting the demolition off. I wanted to find some way to move the structure, in toto, to a new location. I was not willing to give up the hot tub dream. Not sure how to accomplish this, even with much discussion, we took easy route, we did nothing.
Then my sister Mary got a Snorkel hot tub. The snorkel tub has a wood stove that sits right in the water, on one side of the tub. There is a fence between for safety. All openings on the stove are above the rim of the tub so water cannot get into the stove, Hence the name, Snorkel.
Next thing we knew my sister Tamra got a Snorkel hot tub. Although used and years old her tub performed as well as Mary’s. We began to re-evaluate the probability of our hot tub dream.
A creek runs through our property whose banks are in continual need of ladder fuels reduction. This means dead and down wood that would keep a wildfire going until the live trees could catch fire also. Usually this wood is cleaned up and stacked in large piles to be burned when the wet weather starts. Locally this is called, burning slash.
We realized that we had a continual supply of small dry, dead wood for the Snorkel. We would not have to broach the wood we buy and stack in the woodshed for winter heating in the house. This was a big consideration for our choosing the Snorkel.
We called Snorkel and ordered our tub. We had decided to tear down or try to move the old structure so we contemplated where would be better. I wanted a place with some solar access so we could place a passive solar pre-heater on the tub.
We found out that Snorkel advises that you assemble your tub within two weeks of its arrival. This is because it is shipped with a certain amount of water content in the wood. Leave it too long in the dry or wet weather and the stave assembly will be more difficult. The cool thing is that Snorkel will hold your order till you get your hot tub pad ready.
We considered several places around the yard. Some were too far from the house and all needed a lot of site preparation before we could send for the tub. I despaired.
One day while Bob-O was at work I went out to the old tub and climbed inside. I could see daylight through the cracks in the staves. I wiggled one and it slipped up out of the metal rings. I threw it aside. Each stave was easier to wiggle out and discard. The metal rings fell around the flat pieced, round bottom. I moved the bottom pieces to be used as a deck for my solar cookers over by the greenhouse. The side staves I stacked for firewood to be used in the new Snorkel when it arrived.
When Bob-O got home I showed him the cleaned up site. “Looks like we’ll put it here”, he said, “Tell them to ship it.” I did, they did and shortly the tub arrived by truck freight for assembly.
We assembled the tub on the flat, clean cement shop floor. With the very cool rubber mallet and wrench that comes with the tub we set to work the next Saturday morning. All told it took us about six hours till we were looking at the beautiful finished cedar tub.
Cedar Snorkel Hot Tub
To move it from the shop to the site we used our tractor. We put the forklift blades on the front bucket and adjusted them out to the sides as far as they would go. Making a cradle between with a large flat piece of cardboard we rolled the tub onto the forks. A single tie down strap secured the tub across the middle.
Bob-O slowly drove the tractor into position. We rolled the tub off the forks and onto the chime joists and foundation for the tub. The stove did not take long to place in the tub. While Bob-O attached the stove to the tub wall I assembled the wood fence that attaches to the stove side for safety. We filled the tub with water solar pumped from our well. A 3′ x 6′cedar tub it holds 400 gallons.
Positioning the Snorkel
That first night we only lost 3″ of water. We replaced that water and started a fire in the Snorkel. The warm water hastened the swelling of the wood and lessened, then stopped any leaks.
We got into the tub that night. It was bliss. We gazed at the stars and made plans to improve the pavilion. The future looked warm and steamy. We did not know then that in a few short weeks the nighttime temperature would drop to 7°F or below consistently for nights on end. Up on the hill our spring froze up and the hot tub would become our only watery solace.
We gathered about a cord of dry fallen wood. I made an insulating cover out of a patchwork of recycled bubble wrap. It was time to hone our skills at regulating the water temperature.
We had a floating thermometer in the tub. We hung a plastic canoe paddle by the tub. The Snorkel is made to run a hot fast fire. Once we had a fire going in the stove we kept track of times and temperatures. When the desired temperature is achieved the stove is closed down, lid and damper. This stops the heat from building by cutting off the fire’s oxygen supply.
Time, then Temp 9:43 AM, 50°F 10.02 AM, 62°F 10:33 AM, 71°F 11:00 AM, 76°F 11:17 AM, 80°F 12:18 PM, 95 1:04 PM, 102°F 1:55 PM, 114°F
As you can see from my notes it was not that easy to keep track of the temperature in the tub. The last temperature is way too hot to get into. 104°F is the hottest recommended temperature for hot tubs or spas. It just happened. This happened partly because of the distance between the house and the tub.
Tough Tubbing
You gotta be tough to tub at our house. You must brave the chill winds of winter and tread through the snow. The tub is situated out the back door across the driveway and up a short rise to a semi level area. This is on the North side of the house, which means it gets the down slope, down canyon winds that power our wind turbine situated a little further out into the meadow.
We would go out, check the fire in the stove and add wood if the fire had died down. Then we would stir the tub with the canoe paddle, wait a minute then pull the floating thermometer to the side and read the temperature. This is an old liquid in glass type so we had to be careful not to hit it with the paddle. The amount of trips to the tub multiplied as the temperature neared its goal of 104°F.
Set Up and in Use
After we raised the temperature too high several times my husband Bob-O decided to devise a system where we could do the stirring and the temperature check from the warmth of our house.
Since he had already buried a power line to the hot tub structure, he installed an all-weather covered outlet there. After much investigation and a couple false leads he bought an aquarium pump (8watt, 620gph) to circulate the water in the tub as we are heating it. It works great. No more cold water lurking under the benches.
Bob-O found a wireless digital indoor/outdoor thermometer with a remote readout. The temperature probe had to be submersible. He placed the probe about halfway down the inside wall of the tub. The digital remote readout base sits on his desk.
The bubble wrap insulating cover had a frustrating and thankfully brief lifespan. We got the ‘closed cell foam’ insulating cover from Snorkel and cut it to size. By judicious use of the scissors and pattern placement we were almost able to cut two full-sized layers. Having a short flat side next to the wooden fence, that shields the tubbers from the stove, gave us enough extra for this to work. The top of one curve is only missing a 3″ strip. The double thickness foam is very insulative and light enough to move on and off the tub quickly and easily by anyone.
Now when we heat the tub we can tell exactly when it is the right temperature for tubbing, or adding wood, just by reading the remote display. There is also a digital readout mounted by the tub itself so we can check the ambient and tub temperatures while we are in the water. It’s quite a clever set-up.
Tub Tea
We tubbed just about every night. Bob-O would call when he left the job and I would start the fire. On weekends we’d go in a couple times a day. If the sun came out we would drain the tub, scrub it down and refill it using the solar run pump in our well. It was being quite cold and the warmth of the tub was glorious. Ever see pictures of the Snow Monkeys of Japan? That was us. Spikey wet hair and all.
The tannins leached out of the cedar staves giving the water a brownish tint. I asked my sister Mary about this effect, as she had owned a Snorkel tub longer than us. “Don’t worry”, she said, “just think of it as sunless tanning.” After that I eagerly looked in vain for any ‘tanning’ effect, which would have been welcome in the dead of winter.
Just about 4 weeks after we started using the tub it got very cold. I mean really cold for these parts. The temperature got down to 7°F, the next night 6°F, and the next night it warmed up to 8°F. No rain, no snow, just cold.
Our house water system is charged by a spring piped underground to a gravity fed 1000-gallon cement tank buried on the hillside across the creek. The water line is buried from there down the hill, under the road and comes out of the bank about 5 above the creek. This is the weak link in our water system. The pipe crosses over the creek before it is again buried all the way to the house. We have insulated the pipe with foam and covered it with a protective metal pipe. Inside the foam and at both exposed ends we run heat tape around the pipe to prevent freezing. Since we only need to loads run these in the wintertime when we are on microhydro the power use is not an issue.
The night it was 7°F the waterline across the creek froze, even with the heat tape on. We used the solar pump and the well to fill buckets of water for use in the kitchen and the bathroom. We drained, cleaned and refilled the tub. I was thinking this was pretty tolerable. At least we weren’t breaking a hole in the creek ice to get water. Been there, done that.
The next night it was 6°F and the waterline from the solar pump and the wellhead froze. The water we had then was all we would have. The house system froze even more, up the line underground and in the pipes under the house. The next night was 8°F. We could only conserve the water we had and wait for warmer weather. We were in the hot tub every night. It was a real comfort to be warm all over. Well, except our ears. We took to wearing hats that covered our ears in the tub.
Although the nights did not get above freezing for two more weeks we were able to thaw the wellhead and pump line. We dipped water from the creek, heated it and poured it slowly on the frozen areas. Once we had the well water pumping again I used bags of Styrofoam peanuts (we get them in packaging all the time) to cover the exposed areas, then weighted the bags down. Now on sunny days we were able to drain, clean and fill the Snorkel. (Doing that about once a week was just right.) We topped off the water buckets in the house at the same time.
Usually we would be able to hook a hose between the well line and an outside faucet on the house and back charge the house system. Now with all the frozen lines in the house system we just had to wait for a thaw. When the system did thaw out we found that the spring itself had frozen. First time in the twenty years we’ve been here that has happened. By that time though we were able to use the well to back charge the house system.
Christmas Morning
Warmest Regards
Hot water is a miracle. Just wait till you don’t have it. Was it serendipity that we got the hot tub just in time to be such a comfort in our time of need? Clean living? Kismet? We were just glad we had the Snorkel Hot Tub. We are tubbing regularly and look forward to many years of heated relaxation and quiet conversation under the stars.
