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By Tom Phillips
~Illustrations~
(Continued)
My mother, bless her heart, likes to buy me things for
the kitchen. When I was single and living in an apartment, she bought
me a set of aluminum cooking pots. When I got married, she upgraded us
to a larger, stainless steel set. And she didn't like my electric coffee
maker. It was old, and the housing was cracked from a fall off the counter.
Although it functioned, I thihnk she felt that, while that was OK for
a bachelor to have and old cracked coffee maker, a married man should
have a shiny new one. Have you figured out where I'm going with this?
I dug the old coffee maker out of the attic and removed
the top. (The fall from the counter helped with that part). I attached
a four-foot length of quarter-inch plastic tubing to the out flow of hte
coffee maker and put the end of it in the tub. Then I placed a smaller
diameter piece of tubing to flow into the water well of the coffee maker.
Next I set the coffee maker on some books, so that the level of water
in the tub would be roughly at the same level as the coffee maker. I then
started a siphon flow from the tub into the well of the coffee maker.
Then I plugged in the coffee maker. If you are going to do this yourself,
be careful: water and electricity do not mix. I rigged the coffee maker
to an extension cord so that I can turn it on and off from 15 feet away.
Always remove the heater and any cords from the area before using the
tub.
When I filled the tub, I took a temperature reading;
it was at 90 degrees. The next morning,, I went downstairs, removed the
cover, and found that the water was at 114 degrees. Too hot. The ideal
temperature, at least for me, is 105 degrees. I left the cover off for
half an hour, then took another reading. It was 108 degrees (a tad hot
but bearable), so I climbed in.
So there you have it : I spent $20 for the tub, $15 for
the insulation, and scavanged the rest. A $35 hot tub!
One of the problems that I ran into was that the outflow
tube from the coffee maker, being very hot, caused a bluge in the wasl
of hte inflatable pool. I solved this problem by drilling a hole in the
cover, so that the outflow tube did not rest on directly against the tub
wall.
Another problem I encountered was that I occasionally
woke in the middle of the night thinking it was morning, because I could
hear the coffee maker gurgling in the background. I've since gotten used
to it.
Every now and then I put a cup of bleach into the tub
to kill any bacteria, and I change the water pretty often. I suppose I
could get fancy and buy some sort of testing kit, but that would probably
cost more than the tub. The next step is to rig up some sort of thermostat
that will turn the coffee maker off when the water gets up to temperature.
I also plan on insulating the walls of the tub so that there isn't excessive
heat loss during the winter.
And while the view from our hot tub is of a 30-year-old
furnace and not the Rocky Mountains, we still enjoy it very much.
Editor's note: Hot tub sanitation is important, to avoid
health problems. The following information was supplied by the Spa Factory
Outlet in Phoenix, Oregon.
There are several different methods available to keep
the water sanitary in your hot tub. The most common are treatments with
bromine or clorine, usually in tablet form, dispensed from a floatation
device. These chemicals are also available in granulated form, which is
added periodically as needed. A simple test (such as a dip strip) tells
you when you need to add more.
It is also recommended to "shock" your water with appropriate
chemicals about twice a week (depending on how much use the tub is getting).
This treatment burns off any organics in your water, including "spent"
bromine or chlorine.
With a conventional hot tub, there are a few other elements
of water chemistry that need to be kept in balance, too, including pH
and "totall alkalinity". This gives you the best performance and longevity
from your system.
For more information, contact your local spa professional.
The American Constitution, one of the few
modern political documents drawn up by men who were forced by the sternest
circumstances to think out what they really had to face, instead of chopping
logic in a university classroom.
--George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950
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