this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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Nice. Yeah, you're golden if you can actually build one. It doesn't take much and a wooden stove is arguably much better. (Electric is just for convenience as burning wood in apartment buildings every Fri and Sat drunk as hell would not be as... convenient.)
Basically just build a small hut with a stove in it, I'm sure you're up for it.
I've been in a sauna we set up on a small island on Midsummer's eve once. Or which my friends had set up a few hours before we got there. You just build a large stack of stones so that it can fit a fire underneath it, set up the tent over it, while keeping the flaps open, then once the fire has been on for a long time and the stones are hot, you douse there fire, ventilate a bit, then close the flaps and that's it. Take a bucket of water and go in and splash the stones.
I'm sure sauna stovetops are available in the US. What isn't? Haha. Kiuas is what it is called in Finnish. That's a specific word for the stove of a sauna — like how spaghetti is a word for a specific type of noodle.
And even if you don't use firewood anywhere else, shouldn't be much of an issue to have a lapful or two somewhere in the garage.
So you know, only your imagination is the limit.
And depending on how far you're gonna put the building, you might want to consider a stove top with a small water reserve on it, so you'll have hot water in the sauna and can mix that with cold water to make something decent temperature bathing water you can wash yourself with. It's so relaxing washing yourself in the gentle heat of a sauna as opposed to standing under a shower — or even worse, under a shower (in a cool bathroom) that's not on because you don't want to waste water.
Like either in a bathroom adjacent to a sauna or in the sauna itself once it's not peak hot. Like if you had a wood heated stove, you stop putting in wood like an hour before you wash yourself, depending on the stove. So you still get nice jälkilöyly (after-löyly), like the heat that's left in the sauna after a hard löyly. Some of these terms aren't as easy to translate as I might have thought. Some connotations are lost. Oh wait no they're not: jälkilöyly, residual heat; tepid heat obtained from the sauna stove (see: kiuas) after the actual bathing.
Just to remind you with a sauna as youre designing it, somewhere to sit outside the sauna is also pretty important, so you can cool off in between löylys. Hot, cool, hot, cool, hot, cool.
If you had like a pond in your yard that'd be perfect. A come plunge from a sauna is very traditional. Rolling around in snow is also traditional, if you're in a state that ever gets snow.
Amazon even sells mobile sauna stove tops in the Ststes, I see. (I put in Idaho as my post code to see what's available in the US.)
So flimsy looking mobile sauna stove tops from like a $100 to gorgeous looking huge ones costing $3000 and more.
Just get searching, I guess. Can't decide for you lol.
Yup, getting firewood isn't an issue. We have a spot for campfires, so I keep a stash of wood already, I would just need to keep a bit more on hand instead.
Yup, we're in Utah, which is right smack in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. We don't get a ton of snow, but the ground is usually covered from November through March or so. We don't have a pool or anything, but I could totally rig up a shower or something for a cold rinse.
I guess my main reservation is that it's for my SO, and my natural inclination is to go cheap because I don't really know what to look for (don't want to get ripped off).
You've given me some great ideas! Some takeaways:
I can probably go relatively cheap on the structure, but put extra money in everything around it to make sure the whole experience is good.
Utah sounds good in terms of sauna. Rolling around in a lot of snow can be fun, but it can also be quite painful if it's a bad type of snow for rolling around in. Like icy daggers. It's a bit of a children's thing (or drunken thing) anyway, just chilling outside in a robe (or naked) is also good. Having a drink while naked and you're immune to the cold, just steaming there? It's a nice feeling.
A shower is a good idea, but I don't know if you'll even need a shower, per se. Just a water connection to the sauna shoulder suffice. And is needed as well, you'll want to be able to get more water for löyly without having to walk all over with a bucket.
Then just have several buckets in the sauna that you can mix bathing water into. Usually there's a larger bucket, a barrel or a tub, really, like 10+ gallons. Then have some of these. As I said some of these terms lose connotations when translating. Translating that site to English, the category goes from "ämpärit, vesisaavit ja muovikauhat" to "buckets, buckets, and plastic buckets" haha. More like "buckets, waterbarrels (the type I was talking about) and plastic (bathing) scoops."
It's good in general, because you'll have this reserve of somewhat warmish water in there which will warm up more while you warm the sauna (although not by much, if its winter and you heat the sauna for a few hours the water is still gonna be cool-ish probably). Having buckets and wash tubs (like a 2 gallon low but wide "bucket", a basin, you know) is good because people can mix their preferred temp bath water from the cool-ish barrel and by adding a scoop or two from the hot-water reserve that the stove could have. This is why I suggested it, as hot water is kind of necessary. Not really, but as washing yourself is pretty much necessary, if you don't get one with a reserve, you're gonna end up either warming the sauna up a lot longer so your waters willing also heat up or taking very cold showers.
And when there's a really tight bit of löyly that's a bit much for someone, but not so much that they go out instantly, they can use the scoops to pour water on their heads.
Oh god there's a lot of sauna culture I didn't even realise we have. Like those littlest plastic scoops have been everywhere since I was a kid but can't imagine them in America for some reason and just never thought of it.
So you don't really even need a connection of water to the sauna, just a garden hose is fine, then fill up the buckets and tubs in there and it's plenty.
So really all you needed is something sort of a hut or whatever and a stove top, some buckets and tubs, and you're off.
Thank you so much! I now have a bit of reading to do, but I can probably get started preparing the land for it. I'll definitely be revisiting this thread as I put together the plans, so thanks for breaking down the important bits.
My pleasure.
I came here just to say remember the water needs somewhere to drain. I don't know how one goes about that sort of thing when building things. No idea whats involved in building a drain.
Anyway, was just smoking weed in my sauna and realised that you probably realise it yourself ofc but if you didn't and I didn't say it and you were having your first sauna and it just flooded and shit, you'd probably not think highly of me.
So just to be sure I came back
You truly are a treasure, thank you. 😀