Sauna build

[Jlivingstone]

So I've got a friend with a sauna built into his house, and a few months ago my wife and I got permission to use it for a date.  When we went home that night  the first thing she did was start scoping out our house for spots where we could build one.  Sigh.  After a few ideas we settled on a storage room.  Not really sure where the stuff in the storage room ended up, but we live in Canada, and apparantly being warm is more important than having storage.   Here is a pic of it framed up.

There are some shut off valves for the garage that needed to be moved, and we blocked access to the storage under the stairs, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.  After it was insulated with Roxul, it was vapor barriered with some fancy metallic stuff.  If we ever get invaded by alens I won't need a tinfoil hat, I'll just need to hang out in the sauna.


I clad it all with some 3/4" stock to give the cedar some breathing room, lined it all with tongue and groove cedar planks, and then built some benches and the door.  The benches are all removable so it's easy to clean if I ever felt like it.  
      


The last thing was to add some lights.  I just used some 12 V strings with the power cord going through the wall and plugged in on the other side so there's no power inside at all except for the heater.
 


It's been fantastic, and usually heats up to 80 C (176 F) after a half hour or so.  Besides being great for your heart (there's studies out there showing that there's less heart disease in people who sauna), it's great family time.  I've got 5 kids, they all like it, so we all end up in close proximity in a 6x6 room for an evening several times a week. A typical sauna session means going in the sauna for 15 minutes, going outside until you're cool, and repeating for two or three sessions.

[MikeBob]

Nicely done.

[jteneyck]

Oh, you did a fantastic job on that.  Nice isn't it?  I built one in what we called the "bomb shelter" in our basement about 25 years ago, and use it about once a week in the Winter months.  Way nicer than a hot tub as it costs nothing when you aren't using it and there's no cleaning required other than vacuuming once a year or so. 

Enjoy.  

John

[Herb G]

I helped a friend of mine install a sauna kit a couple of years ago.
He built a new home & had it plumbed already.
The kit came from Sweden, IIRC.

It's cool you built your own.

[carwashguy]

I've been thinking about building one in my basement too. I did some research a few years ago but never got around to doing it. Originally I wanted a separate building (a small shed) and a wood fired sauna but building one in the basement seems like a better idea.
Is there a website or other resource that you could point me to for the build? I don't recall seeing foil lined walls in my previous research.
What kind of stove did you choose?

[Jlivingstone]

I really liked the idea of building an outdoor one as well, with a wood burning stove, but my wife vetoed the idea.  She wanted the "spa" experience, and in her mind that doesn't involve going outside in the cold and dealing with starting a fire.  She's probably right, it's convenient to go downstairs and flip a switch to turn it on.  

I got really lucky with my build, because my friend with the sauna used to build custom saunas.  Almost all of my info came right from him. Plastic vapour barrier will apparently break down over time in the heat of a sauna, and will outgas along the way.  The aluminum stuff doesn't.   I did check out several sites along the way, and one that I liked was bouldersauna.com.  I copied his benches and he's got lots of other good info on there too. 

The stove I got was a Harvia.  The dealer gets them directly from Finland.  I'm loving it!

[fredhargis]

Really did turn out nice, I've always wanted one but I'm dead sure my wife wouldn't use it. What size is the footprint?

[MichaelMouse]

Local Finns favor true poplar species for the seating.  Soft wood with interlocked grain which cannot raise a splinter, and actually feels cooler than the other species used in the sauna.  If you slide and splinter on the white cedar, get some "popple".

[Billding]

Try this site, great how-to video's:   http://superiorsaunas.com    I'm Finnish, we say, Sow'na

[Jlivingstone]

The inside footprint is 6x6. It's big enough to hold 4 people comfortably, or 6 people if you're already good friends.