A plasterer from Upton whose wedding had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic has surprised his fiancée with a truly imaginative engineering feat, after using household objects to construct their very own hot tub.
Oly, 35, and Tess, 34, recently had to postpone their wedding, which was originally set to take place in June, because of the government lockdown. On top of this, Tess has been working long hours as an NHS Operating Department practitioner, a job that leaves her exhausted at the end of each day. Wanting to do something special for her to help cheer her, Oly, who runs Swell Plastering, hit upon the perfect idea: “I really wanted to do something special for her.
“I knew she’d love a hot tub so I thought I’d make one out of things I had lying around.
“The only cost was the wood for £25 and the piping which was £50. So the whole thing’s cost me £75. All the other bits and pieces I had.”
It’s a seriously impressive feat, made even more so given that Oly was able to assemble most of his aquatic creation in just one day while Tess was at work, going so far as to include a solar pump to help the water heat up more quickly. He was surprised at how simple it was to put together: “I had to tweak it a bit to make it more efficient but the process is really simple and we’ve sat in it for a number of evenings now. It works better than I could have hoped for.”
For Tess, the romantic gesture was exactly what she needed: “I love it. After a hard shift there is no better way to relax than an evening in a hot tub.
“Oly is always building things and this was a wonderful surprise. It’s a big shame our wedding has been postponed but at least we can spend the summer evenings in our own hot tub.
“And when lockdown ends we can have our friends round and get the barbecue going.”
Now that the ‘hot tub hunk’ has set the bar for romantic gestures so high, other ambitious admirers will be pleased to know he’s accepting requests to recreate his electricity-free hot tubs through ‘Off Grid Tubs’ on Facebook. The new venture will see him designing and building hot tubs using reclaimed materials, “and each one will be unique”.