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| By bavetta
  5 ratings
I built a 6 foot tall stand-up personal hot tub for my dorm room. |
After joking around with Cameron about building pools in our rooms, I decided to build a hot tub. I would cycle hot water into the tub at the bottom and drain out the lukewarm water from the top.
I wanted to make a standup hot tub because I have never seen one, and thought that it was an interesting idea. It seemed like you would get the feeling of being in a pool, as you might not be able to touch the bottom, yet you would get the benefit of the hot tub temperature and be able to relax in the warm water.
I chose to make the tub approximately 2' x 2' 4"; x 6'. I decided to heat it by simply adding hot water from the sink when the water got too cold (I know, it's not eco-friendly, but I\'m not using it very often). I would fill from the bottom of the tank and drain from the top. I decided to drain from the top because I wouldn't need to use a valve to regulate the drain, and would never need to worry about it accidently overflowing. Near the end of construction I decided to place the whole tup on a small plastic tarp and create a leak ring from which I could pump out water if the tub started to leak - wise idea it would turn out.
I used .5 inch plywood and 2x4s for the structure. Origionally I was just going to put a tarp inside, but Damon convinced me to use tiles from the basement. The tiles were thin one foot square tiles. I used tile cement that I found a the local hardware store. I followed the instructions on the tile cement can, and used plastic spaces to keep the tiles at a constant distance apart. I caulked the grooves between the tiles with solicone kitchen and bath sealant. This was a bad idea - If I were to do this again I would put a waterproof sheet down behind the tiles, space the tiles further apart, and use grout to seal the cracks instead of silicone. The silicone smelled especially bad, and was hard to get into the small crack between the tiles. Following this, I put a whole bunch of 2x4s around the outside, a couple safety straps around the bottom in case some wood cracked, and then constructed the plastic leak ring.
Trial #1: I filled the tank with water and it was very exciting. My dorm-room neighbors were pretty worried - I guess that's what happens when 200 gallons of water might just suddenly soak everything in the near vicinity with water. I took some precautions: moved some stuff that was on the floor into the hallway, raised the bed off the ground, etc.
At first, there was a very minor leak from one of the bottom corners. Probably a drip every few seconds - not bad. It slowly filled the rest of the way. I switched to a hot water / cold water mix a little way in because of worries that 100% hot water might melt, or at least loosen, some of the caulk.
I slowly lowered myself in. I found one problem: I routed the drain to the sink, but the sink couldn't handle the flow that occurred as I lowered myself in and displaced a bunch of water. The sink was on the verge of overflowing, so I slowly lowered myself in.
Unfortunately, a bigger leak then began on one of the side seams. Crap - I got out, started the drain sequence, then got back in. Salo also got a chance to try it out (See photo) but unfortunately it had already drained quite a bit when she got in. This is when I screwed up. I had to unplug the pump every once and a while to let it cool because it was starting to overheat. On one of the off cycles, I forgot to turn it back on - crap - this meant tons of water spilling onto the floor (while I was in the room - how stupid). There was a major puddle of water on the floor - of which I had previously spilt a glass of water on and the person who lived below me ran upstairs because she thought my room was flooding. This time the room was flooding - no sign of the neighbor though, that was good.
Things I have to do: Fix the leak. It shouldn't be that hard, I'm glad that it wasn't leaking more than it did, but that says nothing about the future.
I want to build in a temperature controller that will input hot water when the tub reaches a certain temperature to keep it warm all of the time. I'd also like to build a pump controller so that I don't have to keep plugging-in/unplugging the pump when it leaks and also help avoid future floods..
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