Do You Want An Outdoor Bath?

Bathing beneath the stars or in the early morning sun sounds like a holiday idyll but a growing number of UK households are choosing to enjoy an alfresco soak.

While there’s constant talk of ‘bringing the outside in’ when designing interior spaces, a growing trend has been to take the inside outdoors. Installing an outdoor bathtub can sound like a big step but it is not only for holiday retreats. They are surprisingly flexible and can be heated or cooled whenever needed!

This article will explore what you need to consider when installing an outdoor bath and then finish off by explaining why copper bathtubs are perfect for outside.

Practicalities of Installing an Outdoor Bath

Before you opt for an outdoor bath and a soak surrounded by birdsong and trees, you’ll need to consider a few practicalities. These include:

Privacy
Space
Drainage
Water supply

First and foremost is whether you have privacy. The only real way you can relax in a bath is with privacy. If your neighbours can see you in your bath you may be more self-aware and unable to have a relaxing soak.

Although a bathtub is not very large, you still need outdoor space to put your bath somewhere. So, you need at least a courtyard or garden with high fencing. Also, you may not want to keep your bath outside all the time, so storage space might be appropriate.

Flooding your garden or courtyard is not the appropriate way to empty your bathtub. Especially if you use certain bath products whilst bathing, as they may damage the environment. Ensure you have adequate drainage, ideally with an outlet pipe that connects to your regular bath waste.

Finally, you need a water supply. While some tubs are destined to become ice baths (which do not require plumbing) others are intended to bring the indoors outside with a full bathtime experience in the great outdoors. Therefore, a heated water supply is beneficial.

Choose What You Will Use It For

We have touched upon a couple of ways you can use your outside bath, here we expand on that further with ice baths and heated baths.

Ice Bath

An ice bath is perfect as an outdoor bath. If you are outside it is likely to be colder than inside so the shock when you enter the ice bath is lessened.

Also, when you empty your bath you can scoop the ice out or allow it to melt without cooling down the bathroom.

Heated Bath

The main consideration of having a heated bath outside is how to heat the water. There are a number of ways you can achieve a heated bath outside. The easiest way is to connect a hosepipe to your kitchen tap.

Other ways are likely to be costly. These include:

Solar
Electric
Wood

These all are relatively expensive to install and run each with their benefits and drawbacks.

Copper Baths Are The Ideal Outdoor Baths

Often when you look into installing an outdoor tub you will find suggestions of wood, plastic or fibreglass but by far the best option is a copper bath.

Copper baths are easy to clean, easy to install and easy to move. They retain heat or cold better than any other type of bath as the material is a superconductor. This means they warm up quickly and retain the heat for long periods of time.

If you are searching for the perfect bathtub for outside, then buy a copper bath.