Howdy,
I'm the one who built the home-made hot tub mentioned in this thread. As he said, Drewstar dropped me an email and invited me to join your discussion. I appreciate the invite, but I'm not sure what I might add to the conversation. I have few opinions about commercial hot tubs and I'm quite happy with my home made version. I also poked around on the forum and read another thread on home-made hot tubs.
I enjoy doing things myself. Part (much) of the reason for building my own hot tub was because it was an amusing project. I always have some sort of project going. It's what I do (build things). I find great satisfaction in figuring out how to do something, and then doing it.
However, these projects would be much less satisfying if they wound up costing extra money or if they didn't work. The hot tub project actually only cost me about $1300 and has worked great for the past year (I expect it to work for many more years). For that amount of money I amused myself for almost 6 months (planning included) and I have a functional hot tub at the end. Personally, I like the large unobstructed tank better than the molded seats in the commercial hot tubs I've tried.
I won't lie and tell you that every project has worked that well. I have made a few mistakes (just a few), but those are learning experiences as well.
Anyway, I appreciate that some people have found my project interesting (or amusing). I'd be glad to discuss the project or the tub if anyone is interested.
Cheers,
Kelly McCoy
West Texas
p.s. I brew my own beer too (I'm drinking one right now) and it is excellent beer for less $ than the cheapest I can buy at the grocery store (not much less than the cheapest, but a LOT less than the good stuff).
You don't REALLY want to know about all the projects out in the shop.
