Locked down, hot and desperate for a dip? If you live in Indianapolis and fancy putting a pool in your back yard there's a three-week wait - but that's just for an appointment to order one for next year.

Across the US and Europe, manufacturers and distributors of swimming pools and hot tubs are scrambling to meet a wave of demand as consumers cocoon at home to escape the coronavirus pandemic.

Frustrated by the long lead times and worried about a second wave of infections, some US consumers have even resorted to fashioning home-made pools out of metal livestock tanks despite the health and safety concerns.

"I've been in this industry for 35 years and I've never seen anything like this," said Thomas Epple, chief executive of Only Alpha Pool Products in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Mr Epple said orders for its steel and composite pool walls surged 200 per cent in 60 days after a lacklustre March and April and he has now doubled output by taking on more workers, adding shifts and paying lots of overtime.

It's a similar story in Spain, a country known for its sizzling summer temperatures which imposed one of Europe's toughest lockdowns to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Spain's Fluidra, the world's largest swimming pool equipment maker, initially furloughed employees in anticipation of a slump in demand but it soon put them all back to work, and hired more people.

In May, Fluidra ran out of stock and production capacity for the year for its above-ground pools, despite the extra staff. Sales of those models, which cost about 1,300 euros ($1,531), jumped over 50 per centin early July from the same period of 2019.

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