The original hot tub for the entire family

I have taken 12 months to write this review (Aug 22). I hope it answers some of the questions I wanted to know before I bought. We spent an age looking at hot tubs for the garden and a friend told us about a "Swedish" hot tub they had.. one look at it and we said "yes, that's what we want"... it was a Skargards hot tub. Off to the website we went. We ordered the Regal 190 DualBurn with steps, lid, cowl cover, flue guard, shelves, hearth plate and of course... lights and bubbles (not purist Swedish I know.. but its a hot tub!). Yes it was relatively costly but its "best in class" and we were doing this once. n.b Do note the "ready to ship" time when ordering.. this is the time your tub will leave the factory in Sweden and "starts" its shipping to you which is longer, involves customs clearance and its definitely not a "next day". From memory it was about 5 weeks to actual delivery so allow for this when planning. Skarguards kept me informed of progress and the delivery day arrived. These are a big lump to handle and arrive on a euro pallet on the back of a curtain side HGV.. make sure you have good access!!! The initial positioning takes a bit of brute force and a good grip is hard to get. It would be good if Skarguards provided some lifting straps as it would have made life easier. Don't underestimate this first positioning it took 4 of us to lift it to position. Once in position the actual final assembly is quite easy as the majority is pre assembled and the instructions are good. I did break a shelf bracket when installing however the Skarguards customer service (Mark) were fantastic and sorted me out straight away. Really first class. Having seen the friends hot tub, they had not varnished the wood, and the sun and time had aged it... but still looked good. I put on two coats of Ronseal satin varnish soon after it was delivered and it really makes the wood colour "pop out". I recommend doing this to the tub, steps and shelves. One winter and summer later it still looks perfect. The wood burning stove is easy.. The key is to build a small kindling fire stack and let this burn up leaving the fire door open, then add larger split logs once its heated up the flue system and close the door.. if you fill the firebox with wood and just light it.. hide from neighbours until the smoke stops!! If you use the small fire start.. it smokes a little for a few minutes and then is more or less smokeless. It does smell good though, especially when in the tub! n.b. The flue gets very hot, I think the flue guard is a must regardless if children are present or not. Heating from cold takes about 2 hours to "hot" and maybe half a dozen logs or so. There is no thermostat!!! in Sweden they "just add more snow" which can be tricky, even in Yorkshire! I have found filling it 10cm above the hot outlet heats the water quicker and then top up with the hose to a good temp. Keeping it hot is easy, just add wood.. if we feel it's getting a little too warm.. "bubbles on" which helps cool or simply add more cold from the hose. After just a few trials you get a feel of what to do, its not an issue. Seating? It states it will seat 5 to 7 people.. and it will. Its lavishly spacious for two people and would be comfortable for 4 adults. For seven.. you would need to be good friends! The white finish tub interior and chrome are designed to take sea water.. tricky in the middle of the UK but Radox, bath salts, bath bombs, spa salts have all gone in ours over the last year and zero marking (one glitter bath bomb was a pain to rinse as I let it dry!) Draining? We sited the tub 30m from a drain.. if we are using just water we can drain out on the garden however with sea salts in the water we installed a flexible pipe to the drain and added a small pond pump to the line. Drains in about 10 mins. The installed drain hose only extends about 1m or so from the tub so plan for this. Electricity?... you don't need it however we wanted lights and bubbles. There is a pre installed RCB plug installed and we extended this into the summer house. This needs planning for. The actual controls in the tub are touch control.. two buttons.. bubbles on/off and lights "on", "dim" or "off". Cleaning? Easy.. get a mop and hose pipe and open the drain tap! As its a wood burning stove small flecks of charcoal from the flue inevitably end up in the water and you need the hose and mop to chase the last stragglers out of the tub. Bizarrely you don't notice these until you drain it. What's it like to actually use? Build the fire as above, heat it up with the lid on.. take the lid off (have somewhere near to store it), add spa salts or not, add people, add G&T or preferred beverage, sit back, watch the stars and enjoy the little bit of everyday luxury you bought yourself... it's awesome. I can and do fully recommend the Skargards Regal 190 DualBurn hot tub.. "a one off investment in a lifetime of enjoyment!"

Well after many months of reviewing the perfect hot tub for our garden we found the perfect match, the Skargards Classic wooden hot tub. Following many enquires and questions we had, Mark from Skargards replied and answered all our questions and concerns. From point of ordering to the moment it arrived on our driveway, we were informed of the journey from point of production to dispatch, The hot tub was carried into position and by early afternoon we had stoked up the stove with the recomemneded kiln dried Birch logs, within the hour or so the water was getting warmer and the smell of the Birch Logs enhanced the whole experience. The Perfect addition to our garden Its been a real pleasure to write this review Thankyou Skargards for making our dreams come true! Regards Andy & Michelle from Cornwall

Absolutely love it! What a beautiful piece of engineering. Arrived as quoted, delivery service brilliant and we had it set up and in use the same day. Customer service / contact also faultless. Wish we’d ordered the filtration system at the same time, to make better use of the water but we’re new to the hot tub thing and will retrofit. Suspect it will be one of our favourite luxury purchases and will thoroughly enjoy relaxing in it!