Tub-thumping entrepreneurs aim to put world in hot water

Rotorua man Tim Calder is aiming high, he plans to conquer the world - in a hot tub.

But not just any old kind of tub, a Kiwi Tub.

The 24-year-old former Otamarakau Country School student in the Eastern Bay has just completed a Master of the Arts degree in entrepreneurship at Otago University.

Shoppers may well have been wondering why a hot tub was set up in Rotorua's City Focus recently. Well, it all comes down to a bit of Kiwi ingenuity and a couple of young men with a dream.

Mr Calder, who is now based in Dunedin, and his business partner, Frenchman Pierre-Em De la Bassieare, who has also just competed a similar degree at Otago University, are planning to take the Kiwi Tub to Australia and Canada later in the new year where they believe it will take off.

"We have patents pending in Australia and Canada and once we have set up there we will head to Europe and see how it goes. Pierre is confident it will do very well," Mr Calder said.

Not a spa pool, the Kiwi Tub is a device that requires no pumps or chemicals and is totally portable, weighing only 64kg.

Mr Calder is taking the Kiwi Tub on a New Zealand-wide tour this summer stopping to display it near beaches and in tourist centres such as Rotorua. "We started a few weeks ago in Dunedin and are slowly working our way around the country and will end up back in Dunedin at the end of the month."

The tub was a big hit on the beaches of Whangamata and Mount Maunganui, attracting plenty of interest.

"The beauty of the Kiwi Tub is that it does not need power, just a gas bottle or some firewood to get it going," Mr Calder said.

Invented by Central Otago physiotherapist Steve August about four years ago, the Kiwi Tub's heating device was designed along the same lines as Thermette (a water heating kettle from the 1940s with a fire through the middle). It uses convection to draw cold water from the tub and feed hot water back into it.

The tub can be filled with tap, lake or sea water and takes only about an hour to heat up to a comfortable 38deg and can hold about six adults.