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Building Your Own Sauna -- Part 1

Having your own sauna can be less complicated than you may have imagined. You can buy a pre-built sauna that can be installed in less than half an hour. If you have some woodworking skills you can buy a kit and assemble it yourself. The ultimate challenge, of course, is to build your own sauna from scratch. This is a project that could be undertaken by anyone with basic carpentry skills.


Some Preliminary Decisions

The most important consideration when building your own sauna is the location. Your sauna design will depend a lot on whether it will be in the city or the country, and whether it will be inside the house or built as an exterior building.

Once these basic decisions have been made, you'll need to decide what kind of stove to use. You have a choice of electric, wood burning, gas, or oil. If you're building your sauna in the countryside, a wood burning stove would be the obvious choice. A city sauna, on the other hand, would be better off with an electric, gas or oil heater. Electric is the most popular choice for saunas in the city. Finally, you need to decide how to integrate washing and changing facilities. There should be a shower just outside the sauna for people to wash before and after they use the hot room. The shower will need hot water, so your plumbing facilities will play a big part in deciding where to put the sauna.

Finding A Location

The best location for a sauna would be in the countryside close to a lake or river, so that you could jump into the water after a sauna. Next to a swimming pool would also be a good spot. If neither of these is possible, you should plan on having a shower installed next to the sauna.

Saunas that are built in the countryside are almost always a separate building from the house. If your sauna will be in the city, it is probably more practical to install it inside the house. It should be put close to a bathroom so that bathers can wash before the sauna and take a cold shower afterwards. If you plan to convert an existing room into a sauna, you'll need to take into consideration the moisture from the sauna. The room will have to be insulated and will need a vapor barrier to prevent moisture damage to the structure of the house.

Choosing A Sauna Heater

Most sauna enthusiasts agree that a wood-burning sauna heater provides the most satisfying sauna experience. This is the obvious choice for saunas in the countryside. In the city, a wood-burning stove may not practical, so the next best choice is an electric sauna heater. You could also use a gas or oil heater, but many people complain about the odor that these heaters give off when being used.

No matter which kind of heater you decide on, it has to have the proper connections. This might mean hiring an electrician or plumber. Installing the connections is 1 of the first jobs that should be done when building your own sauna. In our next article we will take a look at the actual construction methods.