Friday, November 11, 2011

DIY water tub (Part 2)

A heated, insulated water tub for the girls continued...

We managed a foraging trip to town this afternoon and I think I have all of the necessary ingredients to complete my water project.  Since the box has so far been built with scraps left over from other projects, all I really needed was some of that magical, spray-foam insulation stuff and a couple of handles so I'll be able to move the thing.

Because it is miserably cold and windy today I brought everything into the house where I could be warm (and limit the number of "helpers" wanting to play with the insulation).

Step 5. Insulation.  I mainly used a piece of 2" thick foam-board insulation that I had left over from building my house.  I cut the pieces to fit and wedged everything in place.

Step 6.  I used a small piece of PVC pipe to create a tunnel for the electrical cord.  Be sure to wrap the water tub and the PVC pipe in plastic bags so the spray-foam insulation does not stick to them or fill in the "tunnel".
Step 7.  Wedge as many pieces of insulation around the tub as possible in order to take up space and create air pockets (this also cuts down on the amount of expensive spray-foam needed so several of them can be returned to Lowes).
Step 8.  Fill space with foam.  NOTE:  DO NOT overfill with this stuff, it expands so much over the course of several hours that it could crush the water tub if it has nowhere to go.
Step 9.  Attach the handles to the outside, vacuum up all the little bits of styrofoam dust before an errant breeze blows it onto every surface of your house, walk away and leave it alone until the next day while the spray-foam sets. 
Step 10.  Go throw the frisbee for your impatient dog, pat your horse and give the donkey a kiss on the nose and you are done for the day.   The finishing touches can be added tomorrow.

3 comments:

  1. Ingenious, really, and very well done. One thing that might help even further is if you can figure out something to use as an insulating "float" for the top, to at least partially cover the surface of the water. The trick would be to find something that fits well enough that your clever donkey can't pull out and use as a toy. Maybe the top of one of those big, round beverage coolers would work - you know, the kind construction workers haul around on the back of their trucks? Your equines would easily figure out how to tip it down to drink the water around it.

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  2. Very, very smart. You pretty much rock in the construction department!

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