HILLBILLY HOT TUB

A Trough of Endless Summer Fun

By the time we were able to cobble our pennies together and buy a house in Bozeman almost two years ago (when we only thought the prices were absurd…), we were spent. Our savings cleared for a downpayment, we didn’t think spending our rainy day fund on, well anything, was a good idea. So when I decided I really, really wanted a way to cool off and enjoy the backyard during the short summer months, I knew I’d have to find a cheap solution. Now, if you’re a parent, or an adult who loves an inflatable pool, you’ve likely run into the same problem our family faces each summer. You buy the pool with the nifty “waterfall” feature (i.e. drag the garden hose to the proper spot and attach it to the jankety pool). You set it up on a blazing summer day. Then after crashing around in the pool, a child (or adult), manages to puncture the pool. Try as you may, you can’t patch that sucker. There’s $50 down the drain and a sulky child (or adult) to boot.

Well, we played out this scenario at our house for far too many summers. Out of sheer desperation, I started thinking of something sturdier than an inflatable pool, but cheaper than a hot tub to place in our backyard. Insert Murdoch’s Ranch & Home Supply. Driving by the Jackrabbit location one hot day, I noticed the lot full of metal stock tanks. You know, the kind animals drink from. But if you live in town, without livestock, that stock tank, glittering in the hot summer sun, looks a lot like pool potential. So I drove home and decided to pull up Murdoch’s website and read more about the stock tanks. What I found, in a word, was hope. Let me attempt to describe this trough of potential for a moment. The tank is made from fully galvanized steel. The sidewalls of the tank are double welded, on both the external and internal surfaces. According to Murdochs, the welds are composed of deoxidized copper wire that creates smooth, one-piece sidewalls, which are corrugated for greater strength and durability. Hear that? Strength, durability, double welding. Consider this horse led to water.

I borrowed a pickup truck from a family member and loaded up my dubious husband. After deciding on a six-foot tank (hello postage-stamp-sized city yard) we wrangled the tank into the truck. At home, we flattened earth and put down sand for our tank “pad.” After weeding a rocky path to the pool, we purchased some cheap paving stones from Lowe’s to create a path from lawn to pool. Since a piece of metal sitting in the sun can get hot fast, I went searching for a large, moveable umbrella to partially shade the pool. I found a gorgeous cloth umbrella a friend was selling on Facebook for $10. I nestled two cozy patio chairs nearby and arranged a few tables for drinks. We were ready to chunky dunk. After a few dips in that arctic pool, my engineer husband decided to jerry rig a heating system for the pool. Enlisting the help of the world wide web, he landed on the idea of using a propane-fueled heater (normally intended to warm camp shower water). To circulate the water, he rigged up a boat bilge pump. He buried Pex piping in the ground to transfer the hot water from heater to pool. Then he built a wooden box to surround and protect our propane flame on a windy day. While the hillbilly tub doesn’t heat quickly, by evening, it’s a dream to sit in bathtub water and listen to red-winged blackbirds and ducks touchdown in the nearby marshland. On the warmest summer days, we don’t even mind the nip of cold water. At least the cold water isn’t seeping out of a deflating pool, we figure.