Posted: 12/26/2015 11:50:42 AM EDT
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Considering building a sauna into a portion of 1 of my garage bays. Anyone have a sauna at home or have any experience with installation/construction? Looks like a well insulated, cedar lined box with an electric heater. Cannot be too difficult. I am wanting a traditonal versus infra red so steam can be created. |
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I built a sauna in my house about a year and a half ago. The venting/airflow is important in a proper sauna - it's not just a box with a heater in it, but other than that, it's pretty straightforward.
There are several very reputable companies that can help you design your sauna, and sell you all the materials you need to build it yourself. I used these guys: https://superiorsaunas.com. They also sell "prefab" kits that you just assemble, but I prefer framing/building a custom one yourself, and just buy the materials from them. I hired electricians to wire it for me, since it involved a dedicated 240v circuit I didn't want fuck with, and the wiring for the control box/panel and all the lights was a little complicated - but other than the electrics, I did everything myself. If you have the right tools, and you buy the proper materials, it a fun project. Here are some pictures of the build: 
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Quoted: I built a sauna in my house about a year and a half ago. The venting/airflow is important in a proper sauna - it's not just a box with a heater in it, but other than that, it's pretty straightforward. There are several very reputable companies that can help you design your sauna, and sell you all the materials you need to build it yourself. I used these guys: https://superiorsaunas.com. They also sell "prefab" kits that you just assemble, but I prefer framing/building a custom one yourself, and just buy the materials from them. I hired electricians to wire it for me, since it involved a dedicated 240v circuit I didn't want fuck with, and the wiring for the control box/panel and all the lights was a little complicated - but other than the electrics, I did everything myself. If you have the right tools, and you buy the proper materials, it a fun project. Here are some pictures of the build: http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=59270 http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=59271 http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=59272 http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=59273 http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=59274 http://www.ar15.com/media/viewFile.html?i=59275 looks real good. what is the inside dimensions? What wood did you use inside? Also what is the ~4" clean out that isnt in the first pic but them is in the later pics below the top bench? Looks like a garage or basement, any issues with moisture in the adjoining space? Total investment ballpark? Thanks |
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Quoted:
looks real good. what is the inside dimensions? What wood did you use inside? Also what is the ~4" clean out that isnt in the first pic but them is in the later pics below the top bench? Looks like a garage or basement, any issues with moisture in the adjoining space? Total investment ballpark? Thanks The inside dimension is 79" wide x 101" long. I needed the length because we have three levels of benches, and most smallish built-in saunas have only two. The interior height is 90" - I dropped the ceiling a bit, because if your ceiling is taller than your need, then you will be spending tons of money/power heating up unecessary volume. When you are planning it (and if you use a company like superior sauna, they can help you plan it and give design suggestions, and will then price the materials for your specific design) the interior volume of the sauna will determine the power/size of the heater you need - and so raising or lowering the ceiling a couple of inches can "save" or "cost" you quite a bit of money in terms of needing a larger or smaller heater. I used White Aspen wood. Lots of people in the US use cedar, but I really prefer a wood with no smell, and I really like the look and feel of Aspen. I think what you are seeing in the pictures is the vent. In a sauna your need an airflow, and there is one "low" vent under the heater, and then an opposite "high" vent on the wall right under the upper bench. If there's a gap at the bottom of the door, that can also serve as the low vent. The plumbing is just an unrelated drain pipe from upstairs, but for code reasons I needed to still have access to it, so there's an access door for it. The original part of our house, in which we built the sauna, is on the lower level of a "split foyer" 1970s house, so it's not quite a basement, but it is the lowest level of the house (i.e. the floor is concrete). We've never had any moisture issues down there. The sauna was built into a space that used to be a bedroom. The sauna is part of a larger remodel in which we gutted two bedrooms, a hallway and a full bath, and a bit of another room, in order to build a workout & spa area, which included a sauna on one side, and a steam shower on the other side. I built the sauna, because that was just barely within my abilities, and then we hired contractors to do the rest of the remodel. It ended up being quite complicated, with structural work, and needing to tear up a lot of the concrete and foundation to move plumbing/drains around, etc. I can tell you how much we spent in the sauna, but the cost will depend a LOT on many of the choices you make, and what you can do yourself. For example, I hired electricians to do the wiring - running the 240v line, wiring up the 8 lights inside the sauna (two circuits of two and three white lights, and a separate circuit of 3 colored lights), the control panel and the heater, as well a moving around some outlets on the exterior walls of the sauna - and contractors are VERY expensive here in NoVA where I live.  We put quite a large number of lights inside, and got a pretty fancy/complicated control panel set-up, which made it more expansive as well.
Furthermore, as home built-in saunas go, ours is quite large, it can easily accommodate 4 adults who are almost completely spread out, and can quite easily fit 6 adults, and could realistically fit 8 adults if they were really good friends, or Finnish.  . Most people, especially of it's just a couple, will not want or need a sauna of this size. Also, I believe that white aspen is the most expensive of the wood choices, and we ended up putting some stained glass in the window (not shown in the picture I showed). Another thing that made our sauna a little more expensive is that the three benches all slide - meaning the can be pushed up against the wall to make a large open space on the floor (for my wife's hot yoga) - that not only increase the cost because of the support rails and design of benches needed, and the additional floor covering - for the entire floor - that would obviously not be needed under the benches otherwise.
So our total cost for all of the materials (not counting the electrical work/contractor) was about $7500 - but that also included me buying a very nice circular/mitre saw, a new hammer drill and an electric nail gun, as well as some other tools (sledgehammers and a new reciprocating saw for the demo), as well as all the insulation and drywall for finishing the outside, etc. So if you already have all of the tools, you can probably knock at least $1000 off that price. But, like I said above, that price can vary enormously depending on materials and dimensions. Because of the size of ours, we needed a mor expansive/ powerful heater, for example - which would be much less for a smaller sauna. Sorry for a long and rambling reply - I hope this is useful. 
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