DIY bath tub

Recommendation points

• Build a hot tub indoors or outdoors
• Features of the device of the hot tub inside the operated bath
• Dismantling the floor area
• Excavation and preparation of a pit
• Building up the foundation
• Bowl design device
• Font with high sides
• Waterproofing and covering the bowl

Contrast bathing is an integral and very useful part of bathing procedures. But often at the disposal of the bath attendants there is only a tub with an overturner, and meanwhile, equipping a small font is not as difficult as it might seem. We will tell you about the options for its execution in a home bath in this article..

Sometimes wooden fonts are not suitable due to certain circumstances, and the owners of the baths are seriously thinking about building a small stationary pool. In terms of costs and time, this venture can be considered justified. However, the approach to such construction should be as thoughtful as possible..

Build a hot tub indoors or outdoors

You can build a small pool for several cubic meters both inside the bathhouse and outside it. The first option is not always acceptable due to the size, in a small dressing room there may simply not be enough space. At the same time, the comfort of winter use of the hot tub can prompt you to take serious measures, up to internal redevelopment or expansion of a building under construction..

The outdoor hot tub can be operated in winter only when the water heating is working, or if it is planned to erect a protective cap for the cold period. Otherwise, the water will quickly freeze, so this option is acceptable for country houses that are not visited in winter..

Features of the device of the hot tub inside the operated bath

If the presence of a hot tub is not provided for in the construction project, the task becomes more complicated due to the large amount of work comparable to a major overhaul. First of all, solve the problem of disposal of construction waste, temporary redevelopment and reorganize the water supply system.

You can arrange a stationary hot tub in almost any bath, with the exception of buildings on a slab foundation, the material of the walls does not matter. The hot tub is a completely independent structure that does not significantly affect the operating mode of the building..

Dismantling the floor area

On the floor, you need to mark the outer contour of the future font, cut and disassemble the floor covering, dismantle it together with the screed. In the case of a wooden floor, after dismantling the boards, you need to strengthen the joists. Under them, a digging is performed by 35–40 cm, then the formwork is installed and the pillar is poured, having previously placed waterproofing. After hardening within 3-4 days, you can cut the logs and continue working.

Excavation and preparation of a pit

For the font, you need a pit with a strict geometry, which will determine the shape of the walls of the future bowl. The classic version is a rectangular profile without changing the cross-sectional area, but you can also make a cylindrical or trapezoidal font, or add additional tiers.

At the first stage of excavation, the foundation pit is dug exactly according to the dimensions of the future bowl. Then the bottom is deepened and the walls widen by 15–20 cm. If there are several tiers, work starts from the bottom one, it is poured, and only then they move on to the top ones. If you plan to equip the pool with a stationary cleaning system, lighting or hydromassage, all communications must be laid before concreting..

Building up the foundation

If you arrange the font close to the load-bearing wall, you will have to open its foundation and increase the depth. If the font size on any side is more than 120 cm, this should be done in several stages..

The hot tub near the wall must have a side at least 10–15 cm wide and about 10 cm high above the floor level. This space will be used as an open part of the formwork through which concrete can be poured inside. The board of the same height must subsequently be made around the entire perimeter of the bowl..

The pit is dug, dividing it into sections 100–120 cm long along the load-bearing wall. Section by section, the foundation is opened and built up to the full depth of the bowl, keeping the thickness of the existing base and adding 10-15 cm of the sides to it from the inside. Thus, the role of the back walls of the poured form is played by the soil, and formwork from OSB or moisture-resistant plywood is mounted from the front of the bowl..

1 – the height of the font; 2 – trench; 3 – formwork; 4 – existing foundation; 5 – stackable foundation

It takes 10-14 days for the concrete to harden, after which the formwork is removed and the soil is removed in the next section. The operation is repeated: the soil is cleaned and washed off from the concrete surfaces, a new formwork is mounted and concrete is poured. The horizontal reinforcement of all sections must be made with solid rods of profile reinforcement with a thickness of 14–16 mm and a density of at least 1.6% of the total section. Therefore, in the side panel of the formwork, holes are drilled along the diameter of the reinforcement and let it out. When pouring each next segment, the side shield is simply shifted to the desired distance and the vertical reinforcement is tied.

When building up the foundation, one or two finished bowl walls are formed. Only after completing this stage, you can start pouring the bottom and other walls..

Bowl design device

The device of the remaining walls is performed by analogy with the previous method. The role of the rear wall is played by the soil, the inner surface is determined by the panel formwork. If there is a desire to make the bowl semicircular, OSB is replaced with PVC sheets 5-6 mm.

The bottom of the bowl is poured first, releasing reinforcement rods along the edges for reliable fastening to the walls. Only after 4–5 days, when the concrete becomes strong enough, they erect the formwork of the walls and fill them. It is recommended to fill all the walls at the same time, collecting all the formwork at once in the shape of the future bowl. Spacers of 40×40 mm timber are mounted inside the formwork, one spacer for every 0.8-1 m2 of surface.

The bowl, as well as the build-up foundation, is reinforced with reinforcement with a periodic profile with a thickness of 14–16 mm. The fittings are laid in horizontal and vertical directions. The number of embedded elements in the walls of the bowl is 1–1.4% of the total section of the reinforced concrete massif.

Font with high sides

To reduce the amount of earthwork, the bowl of the inner font is buried only 90–100 cm into the ground, so that the base rests on a layer with a sufficiently high bearing capacity. The required depth of the bowl (140–160 cm) is achieved by raising the sides above the floor level.

This reduces the amount of earthwork, but when constructing the sides, a constructive error cannot be made. The best option is to lay the brickwork in a half-brick spaced 10–12 cm from the inner surface of the bowl and fill the space with concrete. Reinforcement of radius elements is convenient to carry out with a mesh with a rod of 6 mm and a cell width of up to 6–7 cm. In other cases, profile reinforcement of 10–12 mm can be used.

Boards with a height of more than 30 cm should be limited by laying in one brick, over 40–45 cm – in one and a half bricks. The boards with a height of 60 cm are made entirely of concrete with a thickness of at least 25 cm.

Waterproofing and covering the bowl

Even if the bowl is made of concrete with low water absorption, it will be necessary to apply coated bitumen insulation with preliminary surface preparation with a primer. A double treatment with inexpensive domestically produced compounds, such as “Skrepa” or “Technonikol”, will be enough..

After the waterproofing has hardened, the bowl can be finished with any material for the pool, from PVC film to stainless steel or tile.