How to: Craft Your Personal Chest Freezer Ice Bath

In this blog post I’ll show you exactly how easy it is to craft your very own Chest Freezer Ice bath!

You too can enjoy massive floating bits of Ice!

We have all heard about the slew of benefits of regular cold exposure.

Untold numbers of health boosts. Some astonishing, others shockingly fascinating.

Be it

• Fat Loss
• Improved Insulin Resistance
• Enhanced Recovery
• Stronger Immune System
• Obstruction of Cancer Cells!
• Mood Regulation and Dopamine Response
• Mental Gainz through Mid-Cingulate Cortex
• and just maybe a Testosterone Boost….

Not to mention sperm adaptation; Mice consistently exposed to the cold saw improved cold adaption in their sperm!

This likely means if we consistently expose ourselves to the cold our children will be better adapted to dealing with the cold! How cool is evolution.

Click the link and all is revealed about the cool transformative benefits! of regular cold exposure.

All the benefits are within your grasp, if you craft your very own exclusive chest freezer Ice bath!

“Why make one when I can buy one?”

Yeah, nah

way too expensive

Ice baths are expensive. I know I’ve been tossing up the idea of creating my own and selling them.

Morozko Forge Tubs;

Ice bath $14,000 USD

Ice Bath Pro (timber lid) $21,100 USD, USD that’s 40000 NZD!

Or I found at Icebathtubs.co.nz where they sell the scam paddling pool (ill get to that shortly) or an actual ice bath for a respectable $11,000 NZD

The point is. Heavy costs. You can buy a decent car for those figures. A price most people just won’t want to entertain.

“but Patrick I found this pod on Instagram for $300”

Friend

This. Is. A. Scam.

These pods, and many companies do them. They are giving people the impression that they are buying an “Ice bath”

They happily give every indication that when you buy that pod you will be set. However, you’re not. It is a scam.

You’ll easily spend upwards of 200, 300 dollars for these insulated paddling pools.

Get through this blog post for an extensive breakdown of costs.

You can have your own personal ice bath for under $400 including; chest freezer, temp controller, filter, ozone, net, touch of chlorine, marine sealant, caulking gun.

Google “Ice bath tub” and this is what you get. Links to these scams.

It is at best, a tiny, insulated paddling pool.

The problem with these “Ice baths” tubs is they don’t create ice. Nor is there any mention of filtering the water.

They just pray on our goodwilled nature and let us assume we’re getting the full deal.

Now, you’ve got to buy at least 3 bags of ice per ice bath. You’ve got no idea what the temperature is without purchasing a thermometer.

At best the water may get down to 8.9 degrees. Nor will it stay at that temperature for any good amount of time. At almost $5 a bag of ice. It’ll quickly become a very expensive routine.

Sure, for the same experience you would be better off getting your big red rubbish bin, emptying it out. Chuck a big black rubbish bag in it and filling that with water and ice. FOR UNDER $20

The implied to be “Ice Baths” are just a paddling pool rebranded.

It’s morally wrong.

It is like selling an iPhone as an iPhone but there is no screen and no way to charge it. It’s the definition of a half job.

You need a way to make ice and you need a way to clean and filter the water.

If you want to gain just one of the benefits from your exclusive Ice Bath. For CHEAP

Then you want to craft your personal
DIY Chest Freezer Ice Bath

Get a deal on a chest freezer, buy a cheap aquarium filter and some cheap chlorine and even by 2023 level inflation you’ll be able to have your own ice bath for under $200

A chest freezer ice bath is Low Cost, Low Maintenance and Highly Durable.

I’ve sold two and I’ve been using this tub pictured above since October 2022

How the ice bath works?

The chest freezer once sealed will happily contains your water like the scam paddling pools, but it also freezes your water!

The second most important item is the digital temperature controller. Seen below

The chest freezer will cool the water until it hits the desired temperature. I would recommend 3-5* Celsius which is 35.7-41* Fahrenhiet. Though if you would like the icey challenge set it to 1.5* Celsius or 34.5* Fahrenheit.

Step 1.

Choosing the right Tub

1. Know what size you’re looking for.

Don’t over think it. My tub dimensions are;

Length X Width X Depth (Measurement taken over over)

1300mm Length x 700mm Width x 950mm Depth

It holds around 400-500 litres

2. Where to look?

• Use Facebook Marketplace, or Trademe (or your countries Equivalent site.)
• In 2022 I picked up a very suitable tub that had been used for storing hunted meat for $120 NZD

Pro Tips;

Pay Cash. Paying cash is the easiest way to make sure you’re not a scammer and also won’t get scammed.

Ask the owner to have the chest freezer turned on when you come to pick it up. This is a cool trick to make sure you pay for a chest freezer that actually works.

Make sure the tub is going to fit in your vehicle. Measure twice before making the effort to collect it. I drove 3 hours to realise the tub wouldn’t fit in my car. lol.

But the silver lining was I listened to two good podcasts and a decent portion of a great audiobook. My mate also pulled through and he was able to bring it to wellington the next day.

When moving a chest freezer keep it upright if you can, however this is not always possible. If you have to put the freezer on its side. Get it into position at your home and leave it turned OFF for 24 hours. This allows the gases within the chest freezer to settle.

Step 2.

Decision Time

If you want to optimise your health through Ice bathing, you need to Ice bath consistently. So you need your ice bath to make ice and be cleaned.

There are two viable ways to maintain and clean it. Chlorine, water hardeners, and ph levellers through acid lowers/higher OR Ozone.

The option is there to go ice bath without Ozone, simply don’t buy the ozone machine, and clean your ice bath with Chlorine, water Hardners and ph kits.

The list of chemicals needed quickly grows but with a little bit of power usage I have actually saved hundreds of dollars in Chemicals and reduced harm from Chemicals.

With possible aid in wound healing (Liu et al., 2022). and skin infections such as dermatitis, and eczema.

I personally recommend using an Ozone machine from the New Zealand Company Natural Ozone

For more information about Ozone read here

Step 3.

Acquire the items you need.

1. Chest Freezer – ($80 – $160 NZD)
2. Ozonator – (Today $160 NZD) – 16/1/24
3. Through Amazon Venturi Injector ($5.99 NZD)
4. Through Amazon Temp Controller ITC 308 ($55.52 NZD)
5. Through Amazon Aquarium Filter – ($35.12 NZD)

Running total; $333.63 > $413.63

(Affiliate links, help a brother out by purchasing through the links!)

Now for a trip to Bunnings and/or Mitre Ten

1. Poolstar Pool Spa Spa Chlorine Granules 1kg ($18.36)
2. Selleys White 410g Marine Flex Sil-X Adhesive Sealant ($30.43)
3. Caulking Gun ($5.16)
4. Masking tape ($3.75)
5. Wetta Flexi Hose 19mm (Size of hose will depend on the pump filter you get, mine) Grab 100mms. Cost <$3.00)
6. Pool Skimmer; $14

Total Cost; Between $391.33 $471.33

Step 4… Sealing your tub!

This is what transforms your chest freezer into your Ice bath.

For this step you need

• The Marine Sealant
• Caulking Gun
• Knife
• Spray and wipe / Salt and white Vinegar.
• Brush and Paper Towels (stay clean) will get messy
• Masking Tape
• Rubber Gloves (Optional)

The How

1. #1 Get your tub into position.
2. #2 CLEAN: Grab the spray and wipe, or white vinegar and give the tub a good scrub. Inside and out. Then wash it out, and pat it dry using paper towels.
3. #3 Once dry and for a 5-star seal, rip some strips of masking tape and join it along each edge within the tub. Leaving 3-5m either side of the join.
4. #4 Then remove your marine sealant funnel and cut off the Sealant nob. Put the funnel back on and place the tube into your caulking gun.
5. #5 Begin running a steady stream of sealant along every corner you want to seal. I did every join of the chest freezer.
6. #6 If you can get a steady stream, you can immediately pull masking tape off on an angle in the direction you’re going. This will leave a good, nice amount on the seal.
7. #7 If you haven’t got a steady stream. You may wet a finger and smooth the sealant around. or use rubber gloves to even the sealant out and then peel off the masking tape.
8. #8 Now some branded sealants will need to dry, others you can immediately begin filling your tub with water.
9. #9 Read the manufacturers specifications to know what to do.

The Final Step

With your tub is sealed. Put the hose in and close the lid and allow your new ice bath to fill.

Periodically check the tub every hour or so until about 3/4 fill.

By memory my tub takes around 2 hours to fill.

The fill level will depend on your physical size and weight. Because as you get into the tub your weight forces the water level to rise. So, feel free to play around with the water level. You can always mark the fill level with a vivid.

Once the tub is full or near fill plug the cord for the chest freezer into the cooling side of the Ink Bird digital temperature controller. Play with the desired temperature but around the 4-5* C or around 39 – 41* F is good.

(You will get chunky blocks of Ice at around 1.5* C or 34.7* F)

Then plug the Inkbird Tempt controller into perhaps an extension lead. Then set up your desired temperature by holding the set button for three seconds, finding desired temperature by using the up and down arrows.

You have a few other settings to go through. I currently have my ice bath set to 1.5* C and the difference of temperature to .5*

Which means when the temperature reaches 2* the chest freezer will turn back on and freeze until its back to 1.5* C.

I leave my filter in the water even while I ice bath and only plug it in once or twice a week when I use the filter and the ozone to clean the tank.

Last year I changed the water 3 times. Without ozone you will need to change more frequently but is up to you and how often you and your friends use the ice bath. How sweaty you are when you jump in and how well you maintain it.

For safety purposed please plug in an RCD into your circuit. Preferably at the beginning or to be safe, do as I do and flick off the chest freezer at the source every time I use the ice bath.

The last thing anyone wants is to be electrocuted while trying to enjoy an ice bath. So be smart.

Get your friends involved!

Set up a leader board.

This is a great way to get involvement from friends and competition through yourself and others to stay in longer.

As of 20/1/24 47 different people have been in my ice bath! Thats crazy. So cool.

15mins at around 1.5* is too long. Your body’s skin burns with tap temperature water. So set a limit. This is about health gains, not health losses. Everyone who passes 10 minutes joins a select section on my board called “10 Minute Beasts”.

This time in there can vary dependent on the temperature, but its better to be safe than sorry. We had one person who went too long, had a mild case of hypothermia and really struggled to heat back up. And then over heated.

The other dangers are; Electrocution and Fainting’s. Simple way to reduce electrocution is to get a RCD for your temp controller to be plugged into. Though I feel more comfortable switching the whole circuit off when I or others get in.

Fainting and death is unfortunately too common within relation to breathing techniques and water.

People practising Wim Hoff breathing can eliminate all of their Co2 which can cause fainting.

So just take care and if you can Ice bath with a friend.

Reap all the benefits!

So many benefits to mention and others I didn’t even get to on my blog; “Optimize your health through reuglar cold exposure!”

My brother and others roll their eyes when I say Ice bath daily for health benefits.

So I went out of my way and spent many hours citing articles, books and studies and I still have friends who poo poo cold exposure, but it is simply their personal loss. I’d say they’re in denial and don’t want to do this hard thing everyday.

Now that’s fine, they might be doing many other things. They might be happier or healthier than me, but they are in denial about Ice Bathing. The evidence is clear.

Once we have the knowledge that something is beneficial for us. It is onto our discipline to maintain that action regularly. Otherwise, I find that I personally feel shit for not doing all that I know I could do. In order to live up to all I could be.

And that is what this is whole post is about and that is what I am about.

Therefore, I will continue to do it and encourage anyone on their own person health and fitness journey. We motivate each other in turn, and it compounds success for us both. So, let’s get the gains on “The path” to health together.

Ozone, what is it and why?

What is Ozone;

Ozone is a triatomic form of oxygen. Typically, referred to as O3 it speedily dissociates within water (Sciorsci et al., 2020) killing bacteria’s, pathogens, fungi, yeasts, and viruses without the use of chemicals!

The majority of us cook, clean and drink chlorinated water and for the most part most people seem to have few adverse effects, but once you begin down the health rabbit hole.

Your life changes.

Typically, after suffering a major health factor impacting your life. For me it was a cardiac arrest at age 15 and a connective tissue disorder.

I don’t want to live my life medicated so I look into alternatives. I ask myself how can I live my best life doing what I want to do without my issues negatively affecting me?

As I headed down this pathway I examined perhaps the most important thing, which is what I am consuming. What is my body using as fuel?

What am I putting in my body?

Does it make sense for me to rub chemicals onto my skin? Probably if it’s that or getting blistered sunburnt, but if I could slowly tan myself instead? What about aluminium (Moussaron et al., 2023) in my deodorant? BPA (Santoro et al., 2019) in my tupperware containers? yeah no thanks.

New research in the National Library of Medicine over the growing concern around consuming diet soda containing artificial sweetened beverages during pregnancy (Fowler et al., 2023) and its harmful effect to the newborn child.

It all leads down a pathway towards living as our ancestors did. We evolved alongside certain foods, certain lifestyles and certain toxins. Which means we are better set up to deal with certain foods, certain lifestyles and certain toxins.

Ozone is natural. We’ve all been underneath a waterfall, feeling the power and beauty of nature. Walking out feeling refreshed and energised. That is a cold-immersion ozone experience.

Ozone is naturally occurring and by using it in the ice bath it will not only give you health benefits but save you hundreds of dollars on Chlorine, and other cleaning products.

If we are to be healthy in 2024, we have to control what we consume.

If I am to ice bath almost every day for the rest of my life. I have and I will continue to spend many hours within that icey hell and knowing our skin is an organ.

Why would I want to be absorbing chemicals designed to kill things. Why would I want to irritate my lungs with chemical fumes. These unnecessary chemicals will be absorbing into my body through my skin or airways.

Anyone who’s attempted to run a spa, knows there’s a lot required to run a clean and healthy spa. You need balancing chemicals to balance; alkalinity, pH and water hardness.

You need water sanitizers to kill off unwanted microorganisms. You need to apply “SPA SHOCK” to your spa weekly to rid it of the waste materials.

For me it is tedious. I thought I’d need chlorine but now I know that I’ve got to buy 2,3 other products as well. This is when for most people OZONE becomes a must have.

It is still recommended to use a splash of chlorine every fortnight or so to remove unharmful but unappealing algae.

I find that if I run my OZONE machine through the filter for 20-30 minutes per week. The water quality maintains itself very well.

In 2023 I changed the water three times. How often you will need to will depend on how frequently you use it. Friends, and how dirty people are and the temperature of the water. Bacteria thrive in warm temperatures such as spas.

An additional benefit is because I can leave the water for so long in between changing it is I reduces the running costs associated with cooling tap water to 1.5-3* because once the Ice bath is at the desirable temperature it doesn’t take much power to keep it at that temperature.

Typically, these New Owned Ozone machines are usually $350 but today for you they are only $160 so get in now, save your skin, and lungs from nasty chlorine and keep your ice bath clean!

Below is the review I left the company Natural Ozone.

“I brought my ozone from these guys 15 months ago for my chest freezer ice bath. Its work fantastically and these guys (Kim) respond so warmly and promptly whenever I’ve had questions. (Not a chatbot!)

I also read they fix broken ozone machines if they can rather than throwing them away. Thats eco friendly. Thats cool.”

If you want to continue on with step 3, click here

and if you would like to contact me directly for any questions you have, please don’t hesitate and contact me on Instagram

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References

Fowler, S. P., Gimeno Ruiz de Porras, D., Swartz, M. D., Stigler Granados, P., Heilbrun, L. P., & Palmer, R. F. (2023). Daily early-life exposures to diet soda and aspartame are associated with autism in males: A case-control study. Nutrients, 15(17), 3772. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15173772

Liu, L., Zeng, L., Gao, L., Zeng, J., & Lu, J. (2023). Ozone therapy for skin diseases: Cellular and molecular mechanisms. International wound journal, 20(6), 2376–2385. https://doi.org/10.1111/iwj.14060

Moussaron, A., Alexandre, J., Chenard, M. P., Mathelin, C., & Reix, N. (2023). Correlation between daily life aluminium exposure and breast cancer risk: A systematic review. Journal of trace elements in medicine and biology : organ of the Society for Minerals and Trace Elements (GMS), 79, 127247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtemb.2023.127247

Santoro, A., Chianese, R., Troisi, J., Richards, S., Nori, S. L., Fasano, S., Guida, M., Plunk, E., Viggiano, A., Pierantoni, R., & Meccariello, R. (2019). Neuro-toxic and Reproductive Effects of BPA. Current neuropharmacology, 17(12), 1109–1132. https://doi.org/10.2174/1570159X17666190726112101

Sciorsci, R. L., Lillo, E., Occhiogrosso, L., & Rizzo, A. (2020). Ozone therapy in veterinary medicine: A Review. Research in Veterinary Science, 130, 240–246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rvsc.2020.03.026