I Built A Cold Plunge With Filtration That ACTUALLY WORKS

Over the last couple of years, I've built two different styles of cold plunges. One like this and one like that. But the problem with cold plunges is that they're extremely expensive. Especially if you want something that looks nice and has all the filtration and the coldness you can ever imagine. Well, in today's video, we will building one ultimate perfect cold filtered beautiful cold plunger. Let's get started. What we're working with is a 150galon poly tank. Poly resin tank to be specific. I bought this at my local farming equipment store. They also sell them at your local hardware stores, Home Depot, Lowe's, the whole shebang. I've built two other cold plunges before. One, put a picture right here. This one looked awesome, but it had zero filtration and with all the weather, it started falling apart, at least the exterior siding that we [music] used. The second coal plunge I built is out of an old broken down chest freezer. It had a little bit of filtration, but it completely sucked. Well, in today's mission, we will be building the ultimate cold plunge. One that is beautiful to look at, so it's not an eyesore. One that's not too big, and one that will stand all the weather. Not to mention, it's going to be ice cold. We are predicting 38 39° F. And it's going to have the professional filtration system that's going to be handsoff for us. Let's get started. So, my previous cold plunge was a classic coffin look. It was a rectangular. It looked awesome. But when I want to try something different. So we have this radius 150galon tank. So what I want to do is follow this profile on it that kind of gives it almost like a barrel sauna kind of look. And then we're going to do vertical cleats on it. Right? So the tub is going to go inside. We're going to have a little bit of gap here. I'm going to put an apron on around. And that apron will allow for the drainage. It'll conceal the lip portion of our tank here. um and also give it a nice fitted look. As far as cover, there's a few options. We can always build one, and I I think we might, but they also for this setup, for this exact container, they actually have insulated cover. So, we'll see which one looks the coolest. I also don't want to have my chiller built into the unit. uh my previous setup did and what I've learned and I've learned a lot of lessons from the two cold plunges I've built is that in the summertime when it's like 90 95 100° outside that chiller has a hard time cooling off. So, we're definitely going to have it outside to make sure that our cold plunge stays cold. It's in the name. Let's get into it. So, what I'm thinking is we first start with the frame uh to accommodate this radius here. So, we're going to use this cheap piece of floor uh subflooring uh plywood. And what I want to do is cut out the outer ring. That's going to be about yay wide. Um that we'll start building our frame. And then we need the bottom piece all recessed in. I think I'm pretty confident that we can accomplish all of it with just this $30 piece. Oh, and by the way, this 150galon tank was $116 after tax. So, you kind of know where the budget is. Make sure you stick around to the end because I'm going to show you what was wrong with the previous versions and what this entire budget cost us. So, I traced the outer rim around it so it's completely flush. Then I'm adding a 3 and 1/2 to n let's do 3 and 3/4. [music] Uh, this section is going to be for our 2x4 framing to go around the radius. So, we need this little apron plus to fit any kind of insulation because just because that's a container, it could be a very inefficient container. So, there's smarter ways to do it and Kyle just informed me. Uh, I could just take a block of 2x4 and trace the bin as it sits over my first stencil and it'll create the perfect gapping. You're a genius, Kyle. Not just a wizard with a camera, but a wizard in building. Little blade feeding trick's not working. We give it one last chance and then we'll try to create a pilot hole. Ah, she doesn't want to do it. >> All right, look at that fancy ring. Well, I'm happy that it's not too big, but we're catching on some stuff, which is probably a good thing cuz I can get a snug fit out of it. Oh, that's pretty. And theoretically, if my math adds up, this should fit on top of this thing. Well, actually, [snorts] I think I'm going to need two of these. I thought this is going to be perfect, which technically we can bevel it. I don't want to bevel it. I'd rather keep it nice and straight like a barrel. Let me see if I have enough material here. Probably don't with my luck, but we'll see. I need another piece. I should have bought two. Yeah, >> for some reason I thought I can fit both in. Oh well. Off to the hardware store. All right, looking good. So, my OCD is kicking in. Uh, I don't like how wavy these cuts are. They're not going to make the next step any more easier or harder, but the OCD is talking. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to throw in like three to four screws, secure these two together, throw it on my sander to make sure they're the same radius, and uh take it apart, and then I'll figure out how to get some depth in this thing. We got our base. We have our top. This is now where we connect the dots. Now, the goal here is to keep this completely flush with the top part here. All right, we got 24 in. That should be absolutely perfect. What I'm going to do is now cut some 2x4s and start basically reinforcing this frame. Now, it's going to have an aesthetic look as well to it. But first, the frame. So, I'm probably thinking 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 maybe eight. Eight tub eyes at 24 in. This should keep it flush with the top. You know what's fun about building things like this? Cold plunges are super expensive between like5 and 10 $12,000 depending on what you get. And it's so cool when you can just build a damn thing. Like, yeah, it's not what the engineers made and whole different kind of quality, but even if you get it to like 80%. That's well worth it, man. All the money saved and you have all the amenities that you always wanted like a cold plunge, it's the [music] best. All right, moment of truth. I'm I I feel pretty good about it, but you know, you never know with these things. Shouldn't have dropped that like that so aggressive. Things could have gone bad. Something could have break. All right, now let's get our level. We are flush. If that was our mission, we accomplished. This is [snorts] dude. This is awesome. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Let's start figuring out the outside frame. Here's what I'm thinking. We line them up vertically like this. We glue and brad nail them to this and this piece of plywood. It's going to give this really cool, like I said, barrel look. I don't like this unfinished part of this 2x4. So, I think what I'm going to do is just one side. I'm going to throw it on my thickness planer just to get a nice clean reference. Maybe I'll trim off some of this little rounded over part just a little bit. And then once we get to these radiuses, well, that's later Alex's problems. Right now, Alex's problem is we need to cut as many of these as we can and start attaching them and then figure out the rest. Here's a plan of attack. We first need to identify where the bend starts happening. It looks like it starts happening right over there. And I want to get these gaps as tight as possible. I'm going to work on the straight line first. Then once we get to the bevel, then we'll start completely going around it cuz I I I do have to put a miter on both ends to contour this frame. [clears throat] And the way I'm going to do this is two parts. I'm going to put wood glue on top and bottom. And then I'm going to shoot 16 gauge nails in there. Now, the g the nails aren't really going to hold it. I mean, they they will, but just enough time for the glue to dry. Once the glue dries, it should be a lot more stable. I want to avoid using screws only for the reason of uh it's not going to hold that great going through. Oh, I'm bleeding. That's cool. Uh through this plywood here. Also, I don't want to see screw holes. I'd rather deal with couple of little pin holes that won't even be seen by the time we have an apron on them. That's what's going on in my my crazy brain right now. So, love it or hate it, it's there. Take just a little scoch off this way. Like that. Split that little scoch over here. So, here's what I came up with for this radius to keep this tighter. I just put about a 5° bevel on both sides of the sides here. And then I'm also putting glue not only here, here, but also along the sides for a little bit added support. So once it goes on, this creates more of a minimalistic kind of look. So as you can see, they're not. And maybe there's a 64th of an inch right here. Pretty good. Not bad at all. It continues everywhere versus if we didn't do these cuts both sides, they're going to be super wide gaps, like almost like a/4 in. So it's working. 5° bevel and the table saw, no problem. The 16 gauge brad nails are holding well. I feel confident about it. We got 49 2x4s all attached nice and dry. We have siliconed all the seams on the inside to keep all the moisture out from outside in actually. And then we have our foam insulation on our tub. And we ran into some problems, but we're figuring that out as we go. So, there's a couple of reasons for the silicone in my mind, the way I'm processing it. Yes, it keeps the water from splashing on the inside and deteriorating the wood, but also uh this is the unfinished part. So, if any of the stuff gets wet in here, it's going to start warping the wood and all the stuff that we work so hard to glue up is going to delaminate versus the outside is going to be finished with urethane. That's not going to do anything harmful for it. But protect the inside also protects the outside, I guess. Now, we're going to hit it with some foam insulation. I'm not sure I got the right stuff. Uh, this goes up to an inch. This is gaps and cracks. Might be the wrong stuff. Let me know in the comments section. Uh, but I can do up to an inch here. We'll throw that on there. And then we'll put in our secondary insulation. Oh my god. All right. This is going to be a mess. So, let's get all barbaric on it. I'm going to try lathering it on. This is stupid. Nope. Lathering ain't going to do anything to it. >> [sighs] >> I should have got like wall insulation cuz that stuff sprays and it sticks. This stuff only fills the cavity. Not happy with this. Not happy. Okay, plans are shifting. Let me figure something out. [music] All right, plans are quickly shifting here. This is working a lot better. I think gravity is working against us there. Uh versus here, this is working actually just fine. I have up to this part to be able to fill it with any kind of insulation that I want, at least spray foam wise. Uh and then we should be in the clear. We found a solution. Yay. This is working a [snorts] lot better when you go slow and you build it up so it has something of a [music] leverage point to keep it from sliding all the way off. I got two sides fully done. We got the sides here and then maybe a little bit in here. Keep the bottom insulated as well. And we should be looking good. All right, I'm out of cans. That's four cans. I probably need maybe two more cans. Make it a total of six. Give this another coat. fill this in. It should be good. I'm gonna let this dry. Let's start working on the next thing because I I still got to run down to the hardware store to get more of these. For our secondary insulation, I'm using this inch and a half uh compressed insulation. This is formula NXG. Uh I like how dense this stuff is and it's easy to work with than trying to wrap all of our batten inside. I also want to stay away from baton insulation. It just I actually haven't thought why, but I there's a part of me that thinks this works better and it's slicker. So, uh correct me if I'm wrong. What we're going to do is slice and dice this thing. And I think we're just going to contour as much as we can here. My biggest concern is to make sure that it's not so rough in dimensions that we're going to have a hard time fitting our tub. So the narrower the pieces, the better chances we have of saving this really snug fit. Oh yeah, this is why I like working with stuff. It's a lot easier to cut. yeah hey yeah hey yeah hey yeah hey yeah hey yeah hey I end up using the remainder of material just cuz I had the room for it and the materials on hand and just kind of insulated some of the random spots here. There's no need to go get another piece. Besides, by the time we use this inch and a half insulation and our foam insulation, which I'm going to hit it heavy again, uh, this thing is going to be better insulated than your Yeti cooler, baby. Well, I have three staple guns and no staples. That's how these projects tend to go. So, we have to throw the liner in there. And we have nothing to secure that liner from falling in. So, I'll add it to my list of going to the hardware store. But, what we're going to do is throw the liner in there, fold it over, temporarily secure with screws, and then once I pick up staples, we'll staple it. Oh, almost forgot. I got to drill some holes through this thing. By the way, I'm 6'2, 205 lb, and this is perfect for my size. This 150 galon is absolutely perfect. Now, uh like I said, I got to get some staples to get the sucker down, but we got quite a bit of gluing up to do uh overnight. So, we need to start working on this apron. The idea here is I wanted to protrude over here by about an inch. And I wanted to come in an inch in here. And that's going to help water drain in here. Uh, and at the same time give us a nice ring around this that if you have a timer that you need to put in here for your three minutes or five minutes, however long you do your coal plunges or you have your phone with you or maybe your cup of coffee, you can have that there. So, let's see what we can come up with for that. This is so sick. 2x8s on the sides. This is going to give it create more of a flush look. We can bump it up to 2 by10, but this works as well. Uh, got this all to size. We're going to have some filler pieces. By the way, all this is going to get glued in. You can use pocket holes from the bottom if you want. Then we're going to add these little remnant pieces in the corners. And the reason why this is all going to match the profile. So, this is going to be a radius. And this is going to be a radius on the inside as well. But that's tomorrow's subject. Today is we got to glue this puppy up. Got everything out of the clamps. Got it sanded roughly. I feel okay about it. I'm a little nervous about this radius cutout, but here's what I'm thinking. I think our best option here is going to be just to mount it on top as is. Make sure our alignments are good and then trace it from the bottom. Now, from that point on, the only way I could figure out how to cut this thing out is with a jigsaw. However, I've seen so many awesome builders, creators use a CNC to create a template and then router it out, and it comes out so freaking perfect every time. And I'm so jealous. But I have to make do with what supplies I have on hand, the tools that I have on hand. And unfortunately, with that, it means using a jigsaw. That also means there's a high chance that the blade is going to bend at least slightly. There's no way to control that, at least to my skill level, but I think with a little bit of sanding afterwards and some routing over the edges, we might be able to just to get away with it. Uh, we're running into a problem. Um, I did not accommodate for this radius on the sides. This worked well. This created a nice radius, but we need two small pieces per corner to fill in this gap. You could see the entire lip of that tub. Now, this might be serendipitous for us. reason why for the last couple of days I was contemplating the idea and a cleaner look as opposed to this running into it if we would have like an undermount sink. Uh we would have the sitting on top like a top mount sink. Now the reason I like that idea is because it creates a nice profile with a lip. Number one. Number two because it would sit on top that heavy duty lip I could silicone around so water would never actually spill inside which is brilliant. And number three I think it's going to look a lot cooler by having it fitted on top versus the bottom. I don't know. What do you guys think? Let me know which way you would have gone on this. I think based off of my circumstance here, we're just going to have to do that. I'm going to take the tub out, create the silhouette around it, trace it, and then retract it by maybe I don't know how big the slip is by, we'll call it 3/4 in. We'll call it an inch. And then hopefully it'll just sit flush. Change of plans. That's live for you. This is where stapling. This would have been very handy yesterday. Just like I expected. The foam is in the way, but we can either force it in or slice around it. Ooh, I got a flush cut saw. There's a few more mods that we need to make. Obviously, this little gripper, I guess handle, if you want to call it, we need to notch it out on the side so it matches this profile. That way, it could sit. But I also have some [music] few more bulky pieces of insulation foam that we need to trim off. But I think we're definitely getting there. It's working. Oh, it's working. I just love when a plan comes together. Boy, this situation, we have such a damn strong coal pl right now. Insulated check. badass looking. Check. Waterproofed on the inside like two different three different levels. This thing is so sick. I'm really proud of myself right now. Now, what we got to do still is uh I need to create a radius here cuz this is going to be plum. I know we said overhang, but should have got a wider material. So, I'm going to just trace it from the bottom. Take this all out, flip it over, cut that, and then it'll match the the profile on it. Wait till I tell you what we do with the cover, cuz I got a brilliant idea. Over the years, you guys have always been asking, "Are there plans available? Are there plans available?" I've never done plans until now. So, for this coal punch, better buckle up. There will be plans for you to check out so you can recreate this exact same coal punch. For securing this mumbo jumbo, I'm going to put 3-in screws along the perimeter. Now, we want this thing to look badass. So, I'm going to counter sync uh these screws with this uh bit. And then I'm going to just chop off. These are Craig pocket hole plugs. I'm going to chop off the thing. And I'm going to plug all those holes. If I had dowels, I would have used dowels, but I don't want to go buy dowels. So, I'm just going to use this. I worked this before on the outdoor furniture method. It looked great. And you won't see screws. Oh, don't mind me. Just being resourceful reusing [snorts] pocket hole plugs for screw plugs. Our top is completely secured. And might I add, looking beautiful with these plugs. I love that you can't see any screw holes. A lot of sanding. We got a lot of sanding. I'm going to clean up this radius. We're going to round it over, blend the rest of the bottom in. I already did that the day before, but we're going to blend it with this apron. And then I'm going to run down to the hardware store, see what kind of stain we can pick up. I'm I want to get some natural tones that look like cedar. Um, but I'm not really trying to mimic it, or else we would have just used cedar, which would have been a pain in the butt to do these round over stuff, I think. >> Damn it. I need one more/4 in in order to actually hit this flush. Ah, wasted of freaking purchasing a new bit. I guess I have to do this oldfashioned way and just grind it off with sanding. This is the color that I found. Uh, color is…