An inflatable ice bath that stands in an hour: cold water before you build the pool

What it is, and what it is not

An inflatable ice bath is a tub of drop-stitch fabric, the material of rigid paddle boards, that holds its shape at a few psi and its water at 300 to 450 litres. It is the first cold tub most households buy, because it asks nothing of the building: no civil works, no society consent, no drawing. It is also the least permanent object we sell: no seat, no steps, no ledge, and after a year or two of daily use in the sun it is replaced, where a free-standing tub or a built-in pool is still on its first liner. We sell it as the way to find out, with a chiller that moves on to the next tub when you do.

Ice or chiller: the arithmetic of 250 litres

Taking 250 litres from 30 °C to 4 °C removes about 7.6 kWh of heat. Done with ice, that is roughly 80 kg per fill, because each kilogram that melts absorbs 334 kJ and the meltwater then warms to 4 °C: two large sacks from the market, carried up to the balcony, every time. Done with the 1 HP chiller, the same heat leaves through a condenser on the balcony over a few hours and the water then stays at the set point, filtered, for as long as the tub is in use. The chiller turns an occasional cold bath into a daily one, and it is the component that is kept when the tub is outgrown.

Inflatable, free-standing, built-in: honest trade-offs

Apartments, societies and balconies

• Weight. 400 litres is 400 kg on about half a square metre. A balcony slab in a Gurugram or Powai tower carries it; ask the society's engineer if the balcony is cantilevered and old.
• Consent. There are no civil works and nothing is fixed to the building, so the RWA has nothing to approve; the chiller's sound at 1 m is on its datasheet for the neighbour who asks.
• Drain and shade. The tub empties by its own outlet into the balcony drain; a covered balcony or a room is the place, because direct sun ages the fabric, warms the water and feeds algae.

Monsoon, sun and the fabric

Drop-stitch fabric is PVC, and PVC dislikes two Indian things: May sun and monsoon mould. Indoors or under a roof it lasts; on an open terrace it fades, stiffens and eventually leaks at a seam. During the rains the lid stays closed, the tub is wiped dry outside and the water is changed more often, because warm wet air grows film on any surface it reaches. A tub stored for the season is emptied, dried, folded loosely and kept out of the sun.

Water and power

Tap water is the right fill; borewell water with high hardness scales the chiller's heat exchanger and is tested first. The chiller's pump passes the water through its filter and a UV stage, so the change schedule is set by use: a household bathing daily changes the water every week or two, a studio more often. A 1 HP chiller runs on a single-phase socket and draws about a kilowatt; a household inverter rated for its starting current can carry it, and where it cannot, the insulated lid holds the cold through a cut of a few hours.

Athletes and small studios

A physiotherapy practice, a padel club's corner or a running coach's studio in Koramangala or Bandra often starts here: one tub, one chiller, one bather at a time, a shower first, a water schedule that is written down. It is honest for a dozen baths a day. When a queue forms, the inflatable has done its job and the brief moves to a built-in pool with its own plant and a 16-hour duty.

What arrives, and what we do

1. The tub, its lid, a pump and the outlet fitting, with a written set-up sheet.
2. The 1 HP chiller when ordered, with its hoses and filter; the tub carries a port for it.
3. Set-up with you, on site or over a video call: placement, fill, first pull-down, the set point and the lid routine.
4. A water schedule for your use, and the same 2-year warranty on the chiller as on every unit we sell. After a season, the days of use and the number of bathers are the brief for a wooden plunge tub or a pool, and the chiller you own is the first line of its equipment list where the litres allow.