Stock Tank Pool/Hot Tub
It's a pool for cooling off after yardwork in the hot Ohio summers. Then it doubles as a hot tub for fighting off those winter blues!
Unfortunately I didn't take photos of the process, but it's pretty self explanatory. There are thousands of plans on the internet, we just combined a few ideas and added our own touches. We bought a 6 foot round stock tank. We cut input and output holes for the pump. My husband built an inline heater using a hot water heater element. It works amazingly well, keeping the pool at 101 degrees. It does take about 2 days to get up to temperature though from a cold start. We never let it cool too much but the cost to run the small pump and heater 24/7 is about $1 a day here in Ohio. We purchased some thin 1×2 trim board and thin steel cable. We cut to length 10 trim boards to place horizontally around the pool. We drilled holes to run the cable through and strapped them over a thin insulation sheet against the tank. 6 bundles of inexpensive slats were stained and then used to wrap around the front of the tank. We did not go all the way around where we planned on having the deck. The 6 bundles of slats were enough for the tank and deck.
Here is the finished tub, sorry for the lack of photos. The framing, the stairs and deck were made from recycled pallets. We made sure to leave access points for the pump, input and output, and drain areas. All-in, it was less than $600 for a cooling pool and hot tub. We do wish we had gone with a slightly larger stock tank, 8' would have been better. As it is, 4 people can sit comfortably, 6 people would be pretty chummy!
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CORRECTION:
The trim boards for holding the slats are placed VERTICAL not horizontal (what was I thinking?). Also, after a couple years use, we found it better to place an actual spa heater since pool chemicals corroded the hot water heater element too fast. We had to replace it twice.
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is there a program to figure out the cut angles for the top deck that wraps around the pool? I have a similar layout but it's very difficult to get everything to line up like yours did.