filter for home made spa/v small pool

[Carol]

I am going to build a very small spa/pool - actually a plunge pool so I don't know which heading to put this question under. The pool will be no more that 1.5m wide and about 1.5m deep. It will be left unheated as it is for plunging into after a sauna. My initial idea was not to bother with a filter but to empty the pool every so often, clean it, then fill it up again. There will only be 2 people using this facility so do you think a filter is necessary - what exactly does a filter do? I'd like not to use chemicals as I have ridiculously sensitive skin! Thanks.

[Glan]

Hi Carol,
Good question? its a grey area, basically you would like a plunge pool to jump into once you have got yourself all hot and sweaty in the sauna!
So...pollution? obvioulsy this will be high even with just the 2 of you, but if you built your pool to have a bottom drain outlet, you could just fill it with fresh tap water each time you want to use the sauna.
The sauna i assume takes anything up to 1/2 an hour to warm up, so you could have a switch on and fill routine. As a pervayour of swimming pool filters and pumps :) , I would always recommend the installation of a pump & sand filter combination, but this can get costly, and you will have to use a chemical sanitiser if there is going to be standing water in the tank.
Sooooooo.............. see how long will it take to fill this 3000 litre tank. If its good water pressure you might be able to fill it in under an hour.
I believe it may take up to 2 hours, at a cost of around £2.00 per fill. waste water charges are then normally 95% of incoming, so.... each time you want to use the sauna with plunge, it may cost the best part of £4.00

You need to way this up against chemicals such as bromine, and electricity to filter the water through a sand filter, as well as the greater necessity to have a sealed tank to hold the water.

If this was mine, I would get a couple of Concrete pool fittings, and install them into the shell, at a cost of say £80.00
Then cap them off with a threaded bunge's £0.99 each, and try the simple option first. If you feel that you want to install a sand filter & pump, and (thinking of my huge profit margins) an Ozynator, then you can do this at a later date. Keeping it simple will remove the need for chemcal dosing into the plunge pool, although a scrub down and clean of the tileband and walls may be necessary every so often.

Just try and recylce the water, consider pumping it out with a simple submersible pump.

Hope this helps

Looking forward to the pictures.........

All the best

Glan