I'm looking to build a 4- 6 person wood fired sauna to enjoy up at the cottage north of Winnipeg. Can anyone help steer me in the proper direction re: building plans, wood fired sauna stove etc... Any advice /suggestions would be much appreciated. I'm in the early stages of research/planning and want to avoid any pitfalls.
It's Bastu.
Saunas are actually pretty simple to build, but I guess most of those ready made solutions like barrel saunas should do it.
Common pitfalls that may apply to ready made saunas as well:
- Stove is too high / feets are too low. Your feet should be above stone level on stove. Everything under that level will be pretty cold, comparatively.
- Related to above: on single-room saunas without separate shower room you should probably have pretty high stove and also really high benches so that you can wash yourself without being too sweaty / hot. Most (really) old saunas are single-room ones.
- Bad / restricted airflow. The more fresh air the better. You can get best "löyly" on those tent saunas or old cottage saunas with a lot of fresh air coming from under walls.
- Too much room over your heads / roof on too high. There is no need to have a lots of room above your heads, as the steam will go there and you have to throw lots of water to get warm.
There should be plenty of books about the subject, also some Finnish made that are in English. For example following looks promising, but I really don't get that joke with $500 or more prising on Amazon:
I'm looking to build a 4- 6 person wood fired sauna to enjoy up at the cottage north of Winnipeg. Can anyone help steer me in the proper direction re: building plans, wood fired sauna stove etc... Any advice /suggestions would be much appreciated. I'm in the early stages of research/planning and want to avoid any pitfalls.
Where are closest Hot Springs to Winnipeg?
We are blessed in Vancouver with several within a few hours.
Thanks for the help. I am going to start exploring the tent saunas or cottage style and see if I can find some books with ideas and plans. I like the barrel saunas but the price is pretty steep for the prefab. Perhaps I'll come across plans to build a barrel sauna without prefab. I am pretty comfortable building it myself without going pre fab. It will be a single room sauna. I have built an outdoor shower already but it will only function from April - October due to freezing issues.
Thanks for the help. I am going to start exploring the tent saunas or cottage style and see if I can find some books with ideas and plans. I like the barrel saunas but the price is pretty steep for the prefab. Perhaps I'll come across plans to build a barrel sauna without prefab. I am pretty comfortable building it myself without going pre fab. It will be a single room sauna. I have built an outdoor shower already but it will only function from April - October due to freezing issues.
Build a proper legit man-size one if you build one, not any of that novelty barrel stuff.
For freezing issues, there is of course the option that you put the shower inside the sauna (if planning to keep it well above zero when it's cold), in the classic "cottage" model sauna/bathroom fashion. 3x3 metres, door in the corner, stove (and cauldron) on the wall with door, the benches on the wall opposite to the door, shower on the side wall next to the door about the middle way of it.
It's somewhat hot to shower at least above the stove top/footbench level, but perfectly doable; you just can't stay there sweating afterwards but have to go outside for toweling (or towel-posing and imbibing as it may be).
I'm looking to build a 4- 6 person wood fired sauna to enjoy up at the cottage north of Winnipeg. Can anyone help steer me in the proper direction re: building plans, wood fired sauna stove etc... Any advice /suggestions would be much appreciated. I'm in the early stages of research/planning and want to avoid any pitfalls.
Thanks, lots of choice on the cedar saunas site. I'm hoping to keep the budget smaller if I can do most of the building myself versus prefab. Prefab does look nice and straight forward without any problems.
Thanks for the help. I am going to start exploring the tent saunas or cottage style and see if I can find some books with ideas and plans. I like the barrel saunas but the price is pretty steep for the prefab. Perhaps I'll come across plans to build a barrel sauna without prefab. I am pretty comfortable building it myself without going pre fab. It will be a single room sauna. I have built an outdoor shower already but it will only function from April - October due to freezing issues.
pre-fab is fine. you can buy the boiler and read up on how to build one. the secret is to NOT make it air tight.Thanks, lots of choice on the cedar saunas site. I'm hoping to keep the budget smaller if I can do most of the building myself versus prefab. Prefab does look nice and straight forward without any problems.
I have seen people insulating the saunas and using foil as vapour barrier. Is this common?
Only German name I approve re: sauna is the schadenfreude that we experienced when a buddy told us that his mom made him claw off with his nails the beer bottle labels that we accidentally had managed to glue on the benches in their sauna while having a early-party sauna at their place when we were about 18.I try to tell myself to take it as a sort of campy fun thing, but seriously, I feel exploited. They market it on Finnish culture and then go have 5 week "training" in Germany to have some "ancient Finnish ritual" with a German name?? WTF. If they really wanted to understand Finnish sauna, other than exploit the name for marketing their what-ever, they probably should've come to Finland...