With ice bathing getting more popular than ever, people are using all kinds of baths, barrels and other types of containers to take a plunge and embrace the cold. But with the weather heating up the need to cool the water in these containers arises.
While it is crucially important to have sufficient cooling power coming from either ice or an ice bath chiller, Cooling is not the only part of the equation that needs to be taken into account when planning for ice cold ice baths during warmer times of the year.
The insulating capability of the ice bath is of crucial importance as any chiller (or ice cubes) that are cooling your ice bath face force that is working against it. The ambient temperature of the space where your bath is located is adding BTU's of energy to your bath while an ice bath chiller or ice cubes are trying to subtract them. The insulating capacity of the bath or tub is the only way to mitigate this effect.
The widely seen Stock tanks, known by many ice bathing fanatics, have historically been used because they lack insulation, and therefore provide the coldest water when one depends on the surroundings (outside weather) to cool the water. There is no insulation so the water assumes the temperature of the outside environment. If you use external cooling sources like ice, or an Ice-bath chiller, this lack of insulation is exactly what you want to avoid. You want to keep the precious cold inside.
The difference of various tubs is significant and has a definite effect on the effectiveness of a chiller or ice. The image below shows how many BTU's/hour get added canceling out your cooling BTU's for various types of commonly used ice baths.
As you can see the difference can be staggering, especially when outside temperatures are on the rise or when low temperatures are required to be maintained for longer periods. Wooden barrels provide some natural insulation, but inflatable ice baths designed with insulation in mind can reduce the cooling energy lost by a factor of 10 in some cases. With a cooler powerful enough anything is possible, but with less capable coolers coming to the marketone really needs to take into consideration the insulating capability of their ice bath to ensure ice cold ice bathing this summer.
