An autumn hot tub hire was among the most reliable bookings on our calendar. The clocks went back, the evenings closed in by teatime, and the phone held up anyway - the weekends either side of Halloween and Bonfire night sat among the busiest of the whole year on the tub diary. There is a particular pleasure in sitting in hot water while the garden around you is anywhere near single figures, and enough people agreed with that to make the dark-nights season as busy as midsummer. This post covers why the cold months suited the tubs, and what the alternatives are for an autumn garden.
Why the cold months suited a tub
Steam coming off the water on a cold evening does half the selling on its own, and once it is dark by mid-afternoon the LED lighting under the surface does the rest. Halloween weekends went out with the tub as the centrepiece and the rest of the garden doing the fancy dress, and Bonfire night bookings liked having something warm to come back to afterwards. The dark nights also meant the tub got used earlier in the evening, which suited families with young children better than a summer hire where the water competes with beds and baths.
How the tub held its heat
The Rio 6/8 seater was built for exactly this weather. It had all-season heating, so the temperature held whatever the sky was doing, and an insulated cover that went on whenever nobody was in the water. Left uncovered overnight a tub sheds heat into the cold air, and the first hour of the morning goes on dragging the temperature back, so the cover did more for the running cost than anything else on the kit. It all ran off a standard 13-amp outdoor socket, with moulded seating for six to eight adults and hydro jets underneath, which is why a solid-sided tub reads very differently from the inflatables you see advertised at lower prices in the autumn.
Amy Snow, who had one for a week, put it better than we could on Facebook: "We have thoroughly enjoyed our week of tubbin and we'll definitely be using the service again. Highly recommend, much nicer than the inflatable versions."
Marquees, wind and the dark
Autumn hires nearly always took a gazebo as well. A 3x3m gazebo over the tub took the worst of the wind off, kept the rain out of the water and gave the bathers a bit of privacy from the upstairs windows, all for a smaller cost on top of the tub. The 3x4.5m version suited anyone who wanted the tub and a couple of chairs under the same roof. A gazebo heater clamped to the frame took the chill off the walk between the tub and the house, and party marquee lighting made the whole corner of the garden usable once it went dark. Everything came on the same delivery, which mattered more in autumn when the light goes early.
Delivery days and hire lengths
The tub round ran on Mondays and Thursdays, which made two shapes of booking the natural ones: a 4-day hire covering a long weekend, or a full week for anyone who had decided the garden was where October was happening this year. Longer terms were possible by arrangement, and a fair few of the week-long hires started as weekends and got extended by phone partway through. Weekend hires started at £225 for the Thursday-to-Monday booking, and the tub side carried a five-star average over 209 Google reviews across the years it ran.
Where hire stands, and what to do instead
The hot tub hire page carries a standing notice: hire is paused for the foreseeable future while the fleet changes, and some of the ex-hire Rios may be for sale. If owning one appeals, the office number for that is 0114 345 0135. The autumn garden does not have to go back to being ornamental in the meantime. A marquee with sides, lighting and a heater over a long table turns a raw October Saturday into a do people stay at, and the rest of the range hires as normal. Our delivery round covers Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster, Barnsley, Worksop, Chesterfield and the rest of the UK, so the date matters more than the postcode. Add what suits to a quote on the site and we will come back with availability and a price.
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