Ice bath tub or cold plunge tub?
They are the same object. "Ice bath tub" usually means any tub you cool with ice, and "cold plunge tub" has come to mean the rigid, insulated version that holds its temperature and can take a chiller. On this page we use both for the tub alone. If you want the overview of cold immersion at home, start on our ice baths hub. If you already know you want a permanent, chiller-paired setup, our cold plunge page covers that end of the market.
The five types of ice bath tub
Inflatable, folding and framed tubs (about £45 to £130; up to £400 for premium drop-stitch). Reinforced PVC or TPU walls with layered fabric insulation, an inflatable or foam top ring, sometimes an aluminium frame. Lightest, cheapest and they pack away, but seated depth and durability are the weak points. We cover them in full on the portable ice bath page.
Rigid insulated barrel or pod tubs (about £299 to £499). The tub most people picture when they say cold plunge tub: 90 to 95cm across, around 82cm tall, 450 to 520 litres, fibreglass-reinforced PVC walls with a 5cm air-gap core, an insulated lid and floor, and chiller ports. You sit shoulder-deep, the water stays cold far longer than in a fabric tub, and it is still movable when empty. For most buyers this is the sweet spot.
Galvanised steel stock tanks (about £460 to £800 as a kit). Four to six foot ovals and rounds made for livestock watering, sold in the UK as ice bath kits with a drain plug and a cover. Roomy (463 to 885 litres), robust and easy to climb into, with a farmhouse look. The catch is physics: bare steel has no insulation, so the water warms fast outdoors in summer and you use more ice, and at 60cm deep a taller user lies back rather than sits upright.
Wooden barrel tubs with a liner (about £1,500 to £3,000 without a chiller). Cedar or thermowood barrels with a polypropylene or stainless liner. Heavy, handsome and usually sold chiller-ready, so they sit at the start of the permanent setups we cover on the cold plunge page.
Hard-shell permanent tubs (from about £1,900 for a shell; £2,500 to £6,000 with a chiller built in). Acrylic, fibreglass or stainless shells, often with the chiller integrated and filtration built in. Also the territory of the cold plunge page.
A clean DIY container is the free option, and it works if it is stable, rust-free and easy to climb out of. Wheelie bins fail on all three counts, so leave them out.
Size: capacity is not the same as depth
Tubs are sold by litres, but what you feel is seated depth. A 300 to 450 litre tub is a one-person tub; 500 to 900 litres is two people or a long oval you lie back in. Check the stated maximum user height: a good 90cm barrel is rated to about 2m (6ft 9in), while a 370 litre folding tub at 70cm tall is rated to roughly 6ft 7in. Taller than that and you will be sitting knees-up or lying in a stock tank. Measure where it will go too: a round pod needs about a metre square, a 6ft oval about 1.8 by 0.6m plus room to get in.
Insulation, lids and drainage
Insulation slows the water warming; it never cools it. Budget folding tubs use three to five fabric layers and a wall about 1.25cm thick. Rigid pods use a 5cm air-gap core with an insulated lid and floor, which is why they hold a chill overnight when a fabric tub would be lukewarm by morning. Bare steel tanks have none, and a wooden barrel relies on the timber and its liner.
A lid matters more than people expect. It keeps heat, rain, leaves and insects out, and it stops a filled tub being an open hazard for children and pets. Most rigid pods include a fitted thermo lid; stock tank kits ship with a canvas cover, and a cedar lid is a paid upgrade.
Drainage decides where the tub can live. Stock tanks have a threaded bottom plug; rigid pods have a drain valve and, on chiller-ready models, in and out ports for the hoses. Either way you are emptying 450 to 900 litres, so you need a gully, a drain or a lawn within hose reach, or a submersible pump.
Weight and where to put it
Water weighs a kilogram a litre. A filled 450 litre pod is roughly half a tonne including you; a 6ft stock tank is 700 to 900kg. The tub itself weighs 20 to 30kg, so the water dictates the siting. A patio slab, concrete, compacted gravel or ground-level reinforced decking is fine; a raised deck, balcony or suspended timber floor indoors is not, without checking the structure. A bare tub needs no electrics. If you add a chiller later it will need a weatherproof, RCD-protected outdoor socket, and any fixed outdoor wiring is notifiable work for a qualified electrician; our ice bath chiller guide covers that.
What an ice bath tub costs in the UK
As a guide: inflatable and folding tubs run about £45 to £130, premium framed or drop-stitch tubs £200 to £400, rigid insulated pods £299 to £499, galvanised stock tank kits £460 to £800 (round tanks with a cedar lid up to about £1,350), wooden barrels with a liner from about £1,500 to around £3,000 (sale prices occasionally dip to about £1,050), and hard-shell tubs from about £1,900 for a shell or £2,500 to £6,000 with a chiller built in. A tub on its own costs nothing to run: your ongoing spend is ice, water and sanitiser. The chiller is the component that draws power, and its running cost is worked out on the chiller page.
Guide prices, correct as of October 2026, typical UK costs rather than live prices. Several retailers were running sale prices at the time of research, so check before you budget.