The bath barrels or also bath tubs are probably known by now. Who does not want a private and absolutely natural pool at home that then is also a real eyecatcher? Well, I do in any case! Especially with the rising temperatures in summer, such a good bath in my personal wooden tub is a wellness dream and pure temptation.

That’s what one of our customers thought, too, and together with Markus and Jonas Eder he put together and fulfilled his dream of a wooden tub. But what effort is behind a wooden tub in your own garden?

Cutting and drying the Douglas fir wood is not a bit different from the wood used to build barrels. It is dried for a long time under the open sky and sees sun, rain and snow. So it requires long-term planning and estimation from our side so that we have enough wood available.

Before production, we talk to the customers:

As you can see, a lot of planning and consultation is required before production even starts! Apart from the drying of the wood, none of our craftsmen has yet laid hands on the frame.

After the frame is set, Jonas Eder calculates the amount of wood needed, how many litres the bathtub will have at the selected size or vice versa. Only then is the Douglas fir wood selected by the expert hands of our craftsmen and processed for the bath tub. This includes, among other things, cutting the wood and joining the staves. The accessories such as ladder, water drainage and other things are ordered at the same time, manufactured and the assembly on site is prepared in advance as far as possible. Some accessories, such as the access ladder from our last delivery, are finally assembled on site.

Before delivery, however, the most important step takes place! The bath tub is filled with water and checked for leaks. This can take up to 48 hours. Wood is a natural product and only with this test you can see if the tub and the wood are really tight. If something still leaks now, the stave will be replaced. Don’t worry: the water will not be wasted but used for the plants and flowers in the garden near our office.

After the watering, the hot tub goes onto the boss… sorry, for a final inspection. Markus, Nico or Jonas Eder take a last critical look at the new centerpiece for the customer’s garden. If the tub passes the inspection, the delivery is planned.

Planning the delivery is a chapter of its own! It It is organised alongside the the construction of the new barrel pool. The local conditions are important for the construction and delivery of the tub – if possible, we check the conditions in advance. The question is often whether it is possible to get into the garden with a normal lift truck or whether we have to use larger equipment due to the size and weight of the tub. Access to the garden also plays a role. Is the path wide enough, overgrown or not, would the customer be willing to “sacrifice” a few branches or do other paths have to be used? Sometimes a small transport scaffold is also built for the wooden pool. One of the small tricks so that the tub arrives intact.

I myself have already seen our craftsmen and women heave tubs, vats and large barrels around! Sometimes I really didn’t think they could do it. Our team has a few tricks up their sleeve to get the good stuff to its destination. In the case of the current delivery, that included a small rack, straps, lift trucks, a Japanese saw and a lot of muscle!

Once the basic plan is in place and the hot tub is ready, our office steps in again to plan the delivery date with the customer and the assembly team. If possible we use our own small truck or sprinter. If the tub is too bulky, we book a sufficiently large truck and plan a suitable delivery.

NOW it finally goes to the customer!

This time we are on our way to the customer with a small truck and a car. It was a short hop for us as the trip only took 20 minutes. So no early morning start at 5am!

Tomasz and Flori drive the truck in – Sascha, Sebastian and I are in the car behind. Already on the way we plan roughly what to do first and how it looks like on site. From the motorway we drove to a very nice, idyllic part of town.

Arriving at our customer’s place, we were happily greeeted by the customer in his work clothes. Not every customer wants to help, but this one did! Another helping hand can sometimes be worth its weight in gold.

First we check the foundations for the vat, which we have excavated and filled with stones, set up the bearings and aligned them with a spirit level. Then it’s back to the truck to unload the valuable cargo. Even that was no easy feat. The bath tub was large and thus quite unwieldy to unload. Since the road was also not particularly wide, we had to ask one or the other motorist to turn and take a different route. After unloading, however, the most difficult part begins…

Difficulty level 100/100 – The task: The transport of the bath barrel from the truck to the site in the garden where the tub should be placed. If the unloading was not easy, now comes the supreme discipline! If I am honest, I had some doubts whether the wooden tub would fit through the path in the garden as my colleagues had imagined and planned. But a good craftsman or -woman always knows how to cope and experience shows. With a lot of communication and “Next”, “Stop”, “Right”, “Push” and much more, my colleagues maneuvered the bathtub into place. After consultation with the customer, however, one or another branch still had to be removed or a stone had to be temporarily moved to the side.

I was sweating with my colleagues, even if I only took pictures, I was cheering along with every pull and push.

The adventure continues. Now the moment has come to set up the bath tub. Once again, the position of the tub and the bearing beams are checked. It is always better to double check and get it right once and for all. Once everything is in place, you understand even more why every helping hand is so important on these jobs! My colleagues had to use their brains and muscle power to lift and move the bath tub around to align it with the storage beam. Definitely an extremely exciting experience for me until the very last moment. It was the same for our customer that day.

The tub is in place; but anyone who thinks we’re done now is wrong. Our customer has asked for some accessories. A drain pipe with valve will be installed at the bottom of the tub, as well as a water circuit with pump and a small waterfall. To add to the enjoyment, a bench in the bath barrel is a must and steps to get in and out was also custom-made. My colleagues install all this on site and make minor adjustments so that the stairs are perfect fit for the tub and the customer’s terrace.

This all happened on one of the hottest days this year. So you can imagine how much a full day of installation can demand from my colleagues. Nevertheless, they enjoy doing it very much and with such great customers like ours, who provide the whole team with drinks and lend a hand, it is even more fun. At this point, I would also like to thank our nice customers.

I myself rarely have contact with customers, unlike my colleagues in sales and in the cooperage and joinery. Every time it is a highlight for me to go along, to get to know a customer and to see with my own eyes what my colleagues from the trade do on site. We in the office hear again and again that a large barrel had to be lifted into a cellar through a small opening in the floor, that a barrel was made to measure so that it would fit into the existing elevator, and many other stories about cellar installation and removal, as well as assembly work. However, it is something else to experience such a job live! In any case, my colleagues have my greatest respect for this work.

See you,
Saskia