Anybody heat a hot tub with wood burning?

[Steph in MT]

Howdy all~
We were given an old redwood hot tub and would really like to figure out a way to heat the water by burning wood. I would love to hear if and how anyone has done this.
Thanks in advance!
Steph

[The Paw]

everything you need right at this link:

http://www.snorkel.com/

[BobK]

yup we've got a redwood hottub heated with a snorkle stove......first thing I would do is get a liner for the hottub.....and when you install it put a layer of 1/4 foam down....the liner will should cost you about $200.......and will be worth every penny down the road! Our tub holds about 1000 gallons..yes its a big one.....and I can heat it to tubbing temps in five hours from a cold start....with a cover on the tub I lose about 10 degrees each day which takes a quick hour fire each evening to get it back to tubbing temps.....enjoy!

[BobK]

.....alternate wood heat stoves and designs would fall along the lines of the chofu heaters.....basically a stove that sits out side of the tub and has either a waterjacket which is heated or a section of pipe run through the tub......like the chofu you can plumb it for convection to move the water or install a pump to circulate water through the heater/coils......

[Steph in MT]

Thanks for the input on the snorkl stoves! My husband's a McGyver kind of guy and really wants to build something himself
It's good to know the snorkl ones work well though if he can't figure something out. Hee hee!
Thanks again~
Steph

[wy_white_wolf]

http://www.stewardwood.org/resources/DIYhottub.htm

The links at the bottom of this page may help

[lgslgs]

Cowboy hot tub may also interest you: http://www.cowboyhottubs.com/

Lynda

[Fire-Man]

Well I have heated my pool by using a 55 gallon barrel heater kit------using a round coil or I should say C shaped coil off of a discarded AC unit------this coil fits down over the 55 gal barrel--------do a little plumbing and a small pump--------build a fire--------Works good and Cheap! Good Luck!! Randy

[Spinner]

Ok, I know you won't want to use this method, but I can't pass up the chance to tell the story....

I have one of those above ground pools from Wally world. I leave it up year round because there's only a couple of months we don't use it.

Last year when it started cooling down my youngest son and his friends wanted to keep using the pool. The took an old radiator from a junk truck, connected the pool pump to the inlet and outlet holes of the radiator. They stacked some rocks to lay the radiator on (imagine a table with the rocks as the legs), built a fire under the radiator, then turned on the pool pump. The fire wasn't real big, but it got the water to boiling and heated that pool up real good. The boys liked to swim at night. The only problem was that they never wanted to get out of the warm pool when the night air got cold. LOL

They kept swimming until the weather dropped below freezing one night, that was the end of their "pool parties".