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Writer's pictureThomas P Seager, PhD

Ice Bath Investment

Updated: Nov 11

Morozko XL & PRO are built for business & regulatory compliance

Summary

  • There has been an explosion of new wellness spa small businesses offering thermal contrast therapy. The typical business model offers inexpensive cold plunges that minimize capital investment, but create maintenance and brand-image problems soon after the novelty wears off.

  • Although Morozko started as a home-based brand, recent technological upgrades to the PRO and XL models have made them the best choice for high-end spa owners seeking to provide a premium, chemical-free ice bath experience:

    • Dual ozone injectors ensure sanitary water conditions for up to 200 plunge-minutes per day, making chlorine and other chemicals optional.

    • Increased, sidewall ice-making keeps the bottom free of ice while maintaining freezing temperatures under constant filtration.

    • Full, five-year commercial warranty for inside or outside installation, with 72-hr onsite service guarantee ensures continuous operation.

  • Regulatory requirements, such as Board of Health compliance, Underwriter's Lab (UL) and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) certifications are available.


Morozko Meets Business Needs for Ice Bath

Wellness businesses are among the fastest growing segments of the global economy, as consumers in developed countries learn to eschew hospitals and sickcare in favor of preventative measures and optimal health. For example, the Global Wellness Institute estimates that more than $6.3 trillion dollars was spent in the "wellness economy" during 2023 -- a figure that is expected to grow at more than 7%/yr for the foreseeable future (GWI 2024).


Small business investment in thermal contrast therapies constitutes one of the fastest growing subsegments of the overall wellness economy. One of the most popular business models offers sauna, red light, compression sleeves, and ice bath for recovery from stress or strenuous exercise. In that space, one of the most vexing business decisions facing new entrepreneurs is


Which ice bath should I buy?

In What to Look for in an Ice Bath I wrote about the three essential characteristics that were important to us when we invented the Morozko ice bath:


  1. Freezing temperatures. It's important to me that the ice bath makes ice.

  2. Chlorine-free sanitation with ozone. As I wrote in Ozone is Perfect for Ice Bath, ozone is the safest and most effective disinfectant for an ice bath. It also has the advantage of being generated on site, without having to buy additional chemicals or additives.

  3. Electrical grounding (earthing). In Grounding Therapy, I described how the water in a Morozko is electrically connected to the earth, you release dangerous electrical imbalances in your body instantaneously into the water.


Additional considerations, such as a trusted warranty policy, and compatibility with Epsom salt, may also be important for business owners when selecting an ice bath, but the overriding concerns are likely to be two:


  1. Will my ice bath comply with applicable regulations?


  2. What's the return on my ice bath investment?

Regulatory compliance in ice bath businesses

The bane of the small businessperson is government regulation. While the building codes, fire codes, and health codes are intended to protect consumers from irresponsible vendors, to the entrepreneur the regulations are a costly barrier to innovation.


Boards of Health

In addition to the usual building codes, including plumbing and electrical requirements imposed upon every commercial building, an ice bath business operated outside the supervision of a medical professional must typically comply with local Board of Health regulations. Because there are about 3,500 such boards throughout the United State alone, it is not possible to build an innovative product that automatically complies with every one. Moreover, none of these boards as yet have adopted standards for the design, manufacture, and operation of ice baths. As a consequence, they apply regulations written for hot tubs or pools, because that's the closest thing they can think of.


There are several problems with regulating ice baths as something they are not, ranging from the chemical (chlorine is less effective at colder temperatures, whereas ozone is more effective) to the ridiculous (some pool regulations require signs that say 'No Diving' be posted on the ice bath). However, a universally recognized standard guiding Board of Health decisions in the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) certification standards for plumbing and pool equipment. Wherever possible, the Morozko PRO and Morozko XL Ice Plunge incorporate these standards.


Chlorine-free Morozko Ice Bath plumbing schematic
This plumbing schematic shows the water cleansing equipment that maintains a healthy bath. Morozko is designed to maintain sanitary conditions using only ozone, without adding chlorine. Therefore, the chlorine feeder is optional, and included only when a local Board of Health insists.

For example, we've compiled an engineering technical report that lists all the parts, flow diagrams, and basis for the Morozko filtering and disinfection system that will support a small business applying for approval to a local Board of Health. It shows the essential components and how they work together. Morozko employs a proprietary dual ozone injection system designed to maintain sanitary water conditions without the use of chlorine or other added chemicals. However, where required by the local Board of Health, an automatic chlorine feeder can be engaged.


Electrical Grounding (Earthing) is for Health and Safety

When I first wrote How Grounded Is Your Ice Bath? it was to call attention to both the health benefits and the safety standards to which the Morozko ice baths are constructed. In the early days of do-it-yourself (DIY) cold plunges and chest freezers, influencers like Wim Hof recommended unplugging the power cord prior to plunging, to prevent accidental electrocution. That advice caused some confusion for the first Morozko customers, because they didn't realize that Morozko was built with inline ground fault circuit interrupt (GFCI) protection to ensure that power would be cut in the event of any short circuit.


The became super important to one home customer on the East Coast who said he could feel an electric charge coming through his Morozko tub. Although we sent Sr. Operations Engineer Michael Kasner to his site to investigate our wiring, no defect could be found. Stumped, Kasner called a licensed electrician to investigate.


The electrician reported that he couldn't fix the Morozko.


"It's not broken," the electrician told Kasner. "We have to call the power company, because there's a broken transformer on the street pole that is pushing stray voltage into the house ground wire."


The power company arrived that afternoon, replaced the transformer, and the Morozko tested out fine. In this case, the ice bath not only protected the customer, but helped him identify a serious electrical risk in his home.


The standard of electrical safety in the United States is an Underwriters Lab (UL) and there two ways to obtain it. The first is a long process of certifying all the products at the factory, by paying a UL certified inspector to test both the manufacturing processes and the final products. The second is a shorter process of certifying one ice bath at a time, on site at the customer's installation in what is called a field certification.


Morozko employs the second method -- the field certification. For example, when the San Fransisco 49'ers installed six new Morozko in their Levi Stadium locker room, the field inspector came out the day after they were delivered and tested each unit. He had some questions, and certified them for UL and NFPA listing in just a few hours. The team bore the expense.


Building (Plumbing) Codes

In addition to the Board of Health, the Building Department might also have expectations of the business owner providing cold plunge services to the public. There are two ways that the Building Department might choose to view the ice bath:

  1. As a bath tub, which must be hard-plumbed into the building drains & eventually to city sewage pipes.

  2. As an appliance, like a commercial kitchen sink or an ice machine that requires and air gap between the appliance drain outlet and the building drains.


The hard-plumbing approach isn't the best, because the Morozko is not meant to be drained after each use like a bathtub. However, it's workable.


Our preferred approach is to treat the Morozko like an ice maker, with the Morozko outlet positioned above a floor drain with an air gap between them. The advantage of building it this way allows the floor drain to catch splash and drip water coming off the body of the plunger when they step out of the bath.


But either way is fine.


Profits from Cold Plunge

There are three types of costs related to providing cold therapy as a service:

  1. The capital cost of the equipment & space,

  2. The labor & materials costs of operating the service & maintaining the equipment,

  3. The selling, general & administrative costs of marketing the business and acquiring customers.


These costs must be funded by revenues, of which there is typically only one source: fees paid by customers to use the equipment.


The capital costs amount to the cost of the ice bath or cold plunge equipment (plus financing), plus the overhead expenses related to housing and supporting the equipment. All business owners understand that a lower purchase price for the equipment is better than higher, even though the monthly payments on financing the equipment can make the differences seem small. However, only the most sophisticated business owners are also calculating the maintenance and labor expenses of the equipment they buy.


For example, when the plunge equipment requires additional chemicals to maintain sanitary conditions, the business owner must pay the ongoing costs of the chemicals and the training and labor required to monitor and manage them. At the point of purchase, these costs are too often under estimated, because they have not (yet) been experienced. The less complicated the ice bath is to maintain and service, the easier it is for the business owner to hire, train, and retain employees at lower cost.


Additionally, the costs of the building and utility systems are an overlooked consideration. For example, most small businesses pay monthly rent for their space on a per square foot basis. That means that every piece of equipment they install will increase their rent expenses in proportion to the footprint required of the equipment. Those cold plunges that have small tubs, and large footprints will take up more room and more rental expense. In this respect, Morozko's compact design saves floor space and saves rent.


Finally, the most important measure might be the selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs required to acquire customers for the business. Before 2023, when cold plunges were still novel, it was simple enough to offer a bath at a temperature in the low 40's and allow customers to experience to surprise of the gasp reflex and the ecstasy of a three-fold dopamine rush that comes with it. However, as customers gained experience and sophistication, it dawned on them that they could purchase the same equipment at home and save themselves as much as $200/month in membership fees while plunging in a more convenient setting.


Along the way of course those customers had to manage and maintain the equipment themselves, but like the business owners before them, the customers probably didn't understand what those costs might be like. So they stopped telling their friends about the incredible and unique experience they had at the local wellness spa, and starting bragging instead about the cold plunge they installed at home.


Failing to retain those early customers who were at first motivated by the curiosity of the cold plunge experience requires the small business owner to spend more on marketing or ads to acquire new customers to replace them. Moreover, those new customers are likely to be more price-sensitive, given that they're the ones that don't have a budget for purchasing the equipment for home use. That traps the small business owner (who got off to a great start) in a cycle of spending more and more money to acquire less and less valuable customers.


The way to interrupt that cycle is for the small business owner to return to what worked in the first place -- provide a novel experience that attracts high-end customers who enjoy talking about it.


That is, if you're offering a low-end cold plunge that any customer can find on Alibaba for $500, then your customers are not going to feel smart and special for paying your membership fee -- they're going to feel like they're getting ripped off. Only by providing something they can't buy from a Chinese factory will the customers feel like they're having an experience at your business that is worth bragging about.


That's partly why the small business owner who provides a true ice bath like Morozko will grow profits faster than one who saves money on upfront costs. Although it's counter-intuitive, the way for the small business owner to make more money to by purchasing the more expensive equipment with unique product features.


How many ice baths does a business need?

Every small business owner puts together a model of how their finances are expected to work. They think about the number of customers they will have, how long those customers are expected to be on site, and what those customers will pay.


The big question with regard to ice baths is "How many customers can one ice bath handle?"


There are two considerations that limit the total number of customers that one Morozko can handle in any given day: 1) thermal load, which is the heat extracted from warm bodies, and 2) filtration and disinfection, which is the contaminant in dirt, skin cells, hair, oils, and sweat from each customer that must be filtered out after each plunge.


Recent technological advancements in the PRO and the XL Ice Plunge models have expanded capacity relative to both considerations. For example, we've doubled the cooling coil area of the newest PRO models, and moved ice formation to the sides (rather than the bottom) to improve heat extraction from the water and increase ice production without creating a slip hazard on the bottom. Also, we've doubled the filter pump and ozone injection system to include two ozone injection points instead of just one, increasing the rate at which the water is filtered.


We now estimate that the PRO and XL can handle up to 270 plunge-minutes/day, depending on environmental conditions. That could mean 135 people/day each plunging for two minutes, or it could mean 45 people/day plunging for six minutes each.


That is, the more people and the longer they stay in the ice bath, the greater the number of plunge-minutes of loading. When the Morozko is paired in a warm, humid room with a sauna, both the thermal capacity and the filtration capacity of the ice bath will be less. Nonetheless, our recent improvements make the current PRO and XL technology the most robust, reliable, and high capacity true ice bath available anywhere in the world.


References

 

About the Author

Thomas P Seager, PhD is an Associate Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University. Seager co-founded the Morozko Forge ice bath company and is an expert in the use of ice baths for building metabolic and psychological resilience.




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