An inflatable ice bath that proves the cold on a patio before any pool is poured

The first cold tub, not the last

Most people who end up with a plunge pool in the terrace started with something like this: a tub in the corner of a patio, a bag of ice from the petrol station and a doubt. The inflatable settles the doubt for a few hundred euros. It arrives rolled in a bag, inflates with the pump in the box to a stiff, flat-walled tub you can lean on, and is full from the garden hose the same afternoon. If after a winter you still want the cold, you build; if not, you have lost a weekend and the price of a decent coat. We sell it as the entry to the collection, and we say so.

Ice, tap water or a chiller

In Galway or Porto the mains water comes in cold enough for much of the year that two or three bags of ice do the job for a session or two. In Valencia in August the tap runs warm, the tub sits in the sun and ice is a losing battle; that is the climate the chiller was made for. The chiller is a plain box that stands half a metre from the tub with two insulated hoses and a filter; it is the smallest unit on our chiller page, and it holds the tub at 3–5 °C through the night.

Why we size the chiller on 260 litres

The tub holds 300 to 450 litres to the brim, but it is never filled to the brim: an adult getting in displaces 70 to 90 litres, and the water rises to meet them. Filled to the line we mark, there are about 260 litres to chill, which is what the 1 HP class holds at 3–5 °C in our table; fill it fuller and the water spills, chill it fuller and the unit runs longer than it should in a hot courtyard. The kit builder lists the inflatable at 260 litres for that reason and adds the 1 HP chiller as its own line.

Set-up in an hour: what you provide

1. A level floor of about 1.5 × 1.5 m: paving, a deck or a garage floor, not grass and not a sloping drive.
2. A hose within reach, and a way to empty 300 litres: a drain, a gully or a border that can take it.
3. A power point on a protected circuit for the chiller, under cover, within three metres.
4. Shade if you can: a pergola, a north wall, a sail. A tub in all-day sun fights the chiller and melts the ice.
5. A towel hook, a mat and a step, because everything round a cold tub gets wet.

We bring the tub, the lid, the pump, the chiller if ordered, the hoses and the fittings, and we leave with the tub cold and a one-page sheet on draining, refilling, dosing and storing it.

Inflatable, free-standing or built in

The rigid composite tub on its own page is the next step up: the same chiller, a tub that looks like something and lasts for years. The built-in pool is where the collection begins and where most of our drawings end.

Homes, athletes and the one-room studio

Three kinds of buyer take the inflatable: a household that wants to try the cold before it commits to a pool; an athlete who wants a tub by the back door, cold at seven in the morning, without a project; and a small studio, a physiotherapist or a one-room gym, that wants to offer cold water to one client at a time without a plant room. To the studio we say plainly: the tub is drained and cleaned between clients, the water is dosed and tested, and the insurer and the local health authority should be asked what they expect of a shared tub, however small. If the answer is more than a routine can carry, the plunge pool is the right basin.

Frost, storage and the wind off the sea

In frost the tub and its hoses are drained and brought in: drop-stitch does not mind the cold, but ice in a hose is a repair. On the Atlantic coast the lid is strapped against the wind; in the Mediterranean the enemy is sun on the fabric, so the lid stays on and the tub stays in shade. Rolled dry in its bag it takes less room than a suitcase.

The inflatable is a line of its own in the kit builder, which adds the 1 HP chiller for you; the price list shows what the step up to a rigid tub or a built-in pool costs.