A hot tub

For many years now I’ve thought a hot tub would be nice in my greenhouse and indeed I wrote about wanting a bath in it back in 2022. But the greenhouse was always too full of stuff to fit one and then electricity prices skyrocketed and I pushed the thought to the far recesses of my mind until my father left for Australia last month and gifted us all a virus as a parting gift. It was just a week-long bug so nothing serious but one weekend when my nose was clogged up and I was sitting over yet another bowl of steaming hot water I found myself longing for a hot tub. There’s nothing like steam and hot water to clear the airways.

I spent the following weeks researching and discovered you can buy inflatable hot tubs second-hand for little more than £100. I let myself get excited until I read they cost £4/day to run. That put an end to that thought. But there’s another type of hot tub that’s a step up from the inflatable variety–it has rigid polystyrene walls that retain heat much better. You can then add thermal wraps and insulation to the ground and these cost as little as £1-2/day if you keep them running all the time. Less if you set the thermostat lower and only heat them up when you want to use them or during off-peak times–hello British Gas and half price Sundays! That is how I became the owner of a Lay-Z-Spa Oslo AirJet. I assembled it this morning and it’s currently heating the water – a process that takes about 18 hours.

There have been some alarming discoveries in the user manual. One instruction said I should not assemble it outside at air temperatures below 10°C. Instead they advised to put it together inside then carry it out. It was about 5°C when I started this morning and as our house is upstairs with a small porch and a tight bend to get out the door there was no way I was putting the thing together in our lounge room then carrying out. It’s very heavy for a start and quite awkward to carry.

Another piece of advice said not to fill it with water that is lower than 6°C. I live in Aberdeen and it’s February. Water comes out of the tap cold. What am I meant to do? I risked it and filled it up. If you’re wondering what the temperature of water coming out of the tap in February is it’s 7°C. Phew!

The most alarming discovery was that the manual says not use an extension lead. How many people have sockets in their backyard? Amazingly I do actually have one outside in the coal shed but it’s still more than 7m from the greenhouse and 7m is the length of the cable they provide. I only discovered this problem after making the purchase and having it delivered so for a moment I thought we’d be having ice baths in the greenhouse. Thankfully I got an electrician out yesterday to have a look at the socket and the setup. He said an extension lead would be fine but to get a blue one which is for outdoor use so that’s what I did.

I’m waiting to get to the bit in the manual where it says not to use it on sunny days at 4pm when the wind is blowing from the east or some other thing I haven’t considered. But seriously, who reads a manual before buying a product? If I’d read all these restrictions I probably would have talked myself out of it as I already felt it was an extravagant purchase and Ben was not overly keen on the idea.

It’s currently a much warmer 22°C now so I’m looking forward to my first dip on Sunday morning. Oh and I’ll still grow tomatoes in the greenhouse this summer. The hot tub may even provide a boost for them.