How to Set Up Your Bathtub for the HomePlunge H3 (Step by Step)

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The HomePlunge is awesome, but traditional tubs, like my 60-inch alcove style, aren’t designed to be used for cold plunge. You need to make some minor adjustments to make it work. These are tried and true, took me weeks to figure out, and I can save you time and frustration by letting you know them.

If you haven’t read it yet, check out my full HomePlunge H3 review first for why I made the switch from a backyard tub setup. This post is the practical follow-up: exactly what I do, step by step, to get my bathtub plunge-ready every time.

What you’ll need:

First, you’ll need some tape, plus the following:

Tubo Bath Filter 2.0 (attaches to your tub faucet and removes about 99% of the chlorine and other contaminants from your water): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DTQ8H23D

BathShroom Bathtub Overflow Drain Cover (covers your tub’s overflow drain so it can fill deeper): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X85QCB3

Madam of Leisure Infinity Bath Universal Drain Cover (a cover that goes over your existing drain plug to prevent leakage while the HomePlunge chills the water, more on that below): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0923WV31X

Step 1: Find your water level (do this once)

Before your first plunge, you need to figure out exactly how full to fill the tub.

Cover the overflow drain with the BathShroom. Plug the regular drain. Run the water and get in. When the water is at the level you want, mark it with a piece of tape on the outside of the tub. That mark becomes your target line for every plunge going forward, so you don’t have to guess or overfill.

Step 2: Prep for a plunge

Once you know your line, here’s the routine I follow every time I’m getting ready to plunge:

Attach the Tubo Bath Filter to your faucet. This pulls a good amount of the chlorine out of the water before it hits the tub. Place the BathShroom over the overflow drain, same as before.

Step 3: Solve the slow drain problem

If your tub is like mine, it will slowly leak water even with the BathShroom in place. That’s where the Madam of Leisure Infinity Bath Universal Drain Cover comes in. It needs the weight of water sitting on top of it to really seal well, so simply setting it down at the start doesn’t work great. Here’s the technique that’s worked for me:

Turn the water on and place the Infinity cover over your tub drain. Set a timer for 4 minutes (I use my Apple Watch). When the timer goes off, reseat the cover, pressing it back into place now that there’s some water weight helping it hold. Set a second timer for 5 minutes. When that one goes off, your water level should be right around your tape mark.

Your tub and drain may behave a little differently than mine, so treat those numbers as a starting point. Experiment with your own timing until you find what works, once you do, write it down so you’re not re-testing every time.

Why this matters

Before I figured this out, there was nothing more frustrating than getting mentally ready for a cold plunge, walking in, and finding half the water had drained out while I wasn’t looking. Using this exact procedure, that hasn’t happened to me once. It takes a few extra minutes of setup, but it removes all the guesswork and lets you focus on the actual plunge instead of fighting your tub.

The bottom line

None of this is complicated, but nobody tells you upfront that a standard alcove tub needs a little help to work well with a cold plunge chiller. A bath filter, two overflow covers, a piece of tape, and a repeatable timing routine is really all it takes. Once you’ve got your system dialed in, it becomes second nature, and you’ll spend your time in the cold water instead of dealing with your tub.