Mark Holden’s Definition: Spa
The ancient Greeks and Romans were among the first to use a bath or tub of fair size for immersion in hot water. Significantly later, this form of watershape broke through — definitionally speaking at least – as a result of the popularity during the 14th century of a Belgian town by the name of Spa that was much prized for the supposed curative powers of its many natural hot springs and public bathing environments.
This sort of pleasurable therapeutic experience has become infinitely more accessible in the years since Mr. Jacuzzi harnessed the Venturi phenomenon and brought a whole watershaping sub-industry to life, and relaxing or pursuing greater fitness in warm, agitated water moved out of locker rooms and training facilities and into resorts, hotels, fitness facilities and residences worldwide. There’s also something called a “day spa” that fits in here somehow, although it has just a tenuous tie to hot-water therapy.
But in strict terms, there’s more to consider under the “spa” umbrella. What, exactly, is a hot tub, and how does it fit in? Are inground and portable spas truly related? How about swim spas and other structures in which bathers are challenged to swim in place against a current generated either by jets or paddle wheels of some sort?
Speaking for myself, I consider swim spas of any sort to be a form of swimming pool, and I have the sense that “swim spa” originated as nothing more than a marketing term used to categorize the vessel by its relatively small size rather than its functionality.
That one’s easy, but I find myself stepping onto a slippery slope when it comes to classifying portable and inground spas together, simply because of the performance distinctions between them. As anyone who has sat in watershapes of both origins can attest, the engineered nature of portable spas by and large produces greater “jet action” that is more satisfying to many bathers relative to the performance of a concrete inground spa. (Of course, this runs us right into the issue of how to classify what have become known for some reason as manufactured spas – that is, portable spa systems without skirts that are set into a deck, often adjacent to an inground pool.)
It also goes almost without saying that some of these watershapes are freestanding while others are tied into combination with pools by one means or another, whether hydraulic or structural or both.
The regulators get involved here, too, often assigning the term spa pool to any body of water less than four feet deep with less than 250 square feet of surface area in which water is heated to not more than 104 degrees Fahrenheit. I also must mention those watershapes known as cold plunges, which often appear in conjunction with warm-water spas.
In an attempt to encompass all of this and much more, allow me to offer the following definition:
Spa — a warm-water pool equipped with air-induced jets and intended for relaxing immersion or for hydrotherapy.
Please offer your suggestions and comments.