Hot Tub Journal

A Large Wood Fired on the deck of an off-grid island cottage in Minaki, Ontario: filled from the lake, used most summer days, and closed up for a minus 40 winter with a routine worth copying.

Yes, a hot tub can run with no electricity at all. A wood fired tub heats the water with a submerged firebox, circulates by convection, and needs only a flat surface, water and dry wood. The short version, with the off-grid guide for the rest.

A backcountry lodge in the BC outback built around mountain biking, fishing and moto recreation. Why a tub that needs no power suits a property at the end of a long road.

Joanne McSporran installed her tub beside the ocean on a remote island in BC, a year into a cabin build. Her siting advice, and an argument for putting the hot tub in before the house.

Ten thousand acres of open range, a Condé Nast listing and a National Geographic write-up. Why a Star Gazing Camp chose a wood fired tub over a conventional spa, and what siting one at a remote camp actually involves.

Filling and emptying a hot tub at a property with no tap. Lake, river, rainwater and hauled water, what each means for water care, and how filtration changes the calculation.

Everything an off-grid hot tub has to get right: getting it there without a crane, filling it from a lake, a well, a tank or the ocean, heating it with no electricity, holding heat through real winters, and how the main tub types compare on each. Then what to verify before buying any of them.

Thirty kilometers outside Yellowknife, on a cabin property reachable only by boat. How Mary got an AlumiTub to her land, and what a decade of off-grid Northwest Territories winters has taught her about running one.

Two remote kayaking basecamps on the BC coast, and humpbacks passing at eye level. Breanne on why Spirit of the West chose AlumiTubs, and the modifications that made them accessible to every guest.