Cool alfresco inspiration – Hire a hot tub

Here’s an idea for you. How about you hire a hot tub for your garden?

Before covid, a garden was just a garden for many of us. The pandemic has changed everything. Nowadays we take a lot more care over our precious outdoor spaces and the last couple of years has seen us spending a lot more time in them!

Our gardens and patios, however large or small, have become refuges from the madness. We feel safer out in the fresh air, in places we can safely meet. It’s been tough, but looking on the bright side covid has enhanced our relationship with outdoor living. And that’s never a bad thing.

How to enhance your alfresco world? Here’s what you need to know about hiring a hot tub.

Fabulous fun in your garden, hot tub style

So why would you hire a hot tub instead of buying one? There are some very good reasons why hot tub hire beats spending your hard-earned cash on one, at least at first. How come? We know a few, but how about you? If you have friends who’ve bought a hot tub but rarely use it, they’re not alone. It’s a costly bit of kit. It makes a lot of sense to hire a hot tub first, to make sure you’re actually going to use it as often as you’ve imagined you will.

A hot tub hire firm will answer all your questions about essentials like the site, water supply, electricity, hygiene, maintenance, the chemicals you’ll need and more. They’ll advise you about the type and size of hot tub for your garden, and for the number of people you think will be using it at once.

The best hire firms include free set up and collection in the deal. They’ll deliver the tub and the rest of the equipment, then set it up the day before you ned it – it’ll take about 24 hours to warm the water up. On the last day of your hire they’ll dismantle the tub and take it away.

Safety always matters with hot tubs, since water and electricity are both involved. Make sure they provide tubs with special RCD cut-offs as standard, designed to shut off the power supply if there are any electrical problems. The equipment for hire will be properly PAT tested every year. And the company will hold the right public liability insurance.

Hot tub hire companies often come with exciting extras on offer. You might want to add beautiful ambient lighting or cool inflatable trays for your drinks, for example.

Essential answers

Let’s answer some common questions for you. First, what sort of space do you need? A flat surface with a slope less than 3 degrees is good, but it can’t be muddy. If you want a shallow end and a deep end, a hot tub can safely sit on a slope of 1-2 degrees. Patios, decking, grass and astro-turf are all good surfaces.

You need a space at least 3x3m, 4m square if you’re including a gazebo in the hire package. The firm will need easy access without steps, and at least 70cm of space each side of the tub. They’ll want a nearby parking space, often not more than 15m distance. And they can only handle a few steps, often a maximum of three.

If the installers are coming through your house to reach the garden, they need the same 70cm clear space either side of the tub through your home. Once they’re in they need a hose, tap and a power socket either outside or within 15m inside.

Some practical hot tub hire tips:

• Don’t put it under trees unless you like your hot tub full of leaves and bird poop
• Leave the hot tub on at night as well as daytime to keep it hot
• If you can fill the hot tub from a hot tap that’s a great idea – it’ll take less time to heat up so you can enjoy it sooner
• The temperature? Hot tubs can get as hot as 40C but 37-38 is lovely, and you can stay in it for longer
• Only let the kids use it when they’re supervised and keep the temperature at 37C
• The tub will stay clean as long as you don’t add dirt to it. It can become impossible to use after 24 hours when full of mud, leaves, make-up, sun lotion and more. Without all that it can stay clean for as long as two weeks
• You can add chlorine tablets if you like, supplied by the hot tub hire firm, but they just kill off bacteria. They don’t keep the water clean and chlorine is nasty stuff
• In winter it takes as long as 36 hours to warm a big tub of water up. The smallest hot tubs do the job in 12 hours. It depends on how hot the water you put in it is, the weather, whether it’s covered when not in use, and the wind
• Don’t forget to factor the cost of the electricity into your budget
• Afterwards the water needs to go somewhere. The hire firm can pipe it down your drain, or empty it into your garden. If there’s chlorine there won’t be enough to harm the plants but soil microbes won’t like it. The hire company will need a drain within 6m of the tub, otherwise they’ll have to empty it into your garden