I have two major projects planed for the garden this year, A proper wood fired bread oven ( not to be confused with a pizza oven) and a Cedar Hot Tub ( not to be confused with a Jacuzzi). However one potential problem I see is with all of these wood fired appliances I am going to need to take on more wood based projects in order to generate the waste wood I need to fire them all.

I have decided to start with the hot tub and as is often the case with stuff I make I can find very little information about making one so the design is mine, as is the wood fired water heater that goes with it. To build it  I have taken delivery of 46mts of western red cedar planks along with several metres of copper pipe and some chimney sections. A bit of a shock to the wallet but the finished project will still come in at about 20% of the cost of buying one, and with a design life of 20 years strikes me as a bargain.

If you haven’t experienced one a cedar hot tub is effectively a large wooden bucket, at 1.5mteres across by 1mt deep its a very large bucket. This is linked to a water heater which slowly heats the water and becomes a luxuriant relaxing bath, rather than the bubbling maelstrom of a Jacuzzi. There are no pumps or whirring motors, the only noise comes from the  wood fire, so you can sit back, possibly with a loved one, and enjoy the peace and tranquillity of an outdoor soak. I cant wait.

The materials are now all assembled, next weekend is a four day weekend,So finally its time to “first build the bath”. keep in touch to see how I get on.

Tom