Sauna Bath

Okay get out the tools and get your friends over to give you a hand. You are going to do a weekend sauna installation. And it won't be as bad as you might be thinking. Putting together a panel built (pre-built) sauna can take even as little as two hours for sauna installation. Start in the morning, and with luck and good management, be done by mid-afternoon.

With a pre-built kit you get everything you need - ceilings, walls, panels, etc. and they are finished on both sides and insulated inside. Along with the kits comes a "put together by the numbers" set of instructions for sauna installation. So it's really pretty straight forward, and a simple matter of putting the sauna together at your chosen building site. It's not like there is any actual construction involved.

Let's talk a bit about prices. Depending on what size and features you want, your sauna can range from under $2,000 to up to $6,000. The more bells and whistles you want, the higher the price of the package. Some kits come with glass doors (a new feature that makes the design more contemporary) and that usually will run about $500. So if you don't want glass, you can save some money. If you can build one on your own, you would be paying about 40 percent less.

Your sauna installation can be done on just about any kind of floor, because the heat rises and your flooring will stay cool. Your wall panels will slide on top of the baseboards, with the resulting frame showing you the wall lay out for your sauna installation. In the corners, install a corner post to keep them tight.

Just continue to put the walls up with temporary wood fasteners to hold them together until the ceiling panel is put in. Now, if you do have glass doors, you will find they are pre-hung and made of insulated and tempered glass that won't lose much heat. Because it is built into a panel, all you have to do is slide it into place, just like the wall panels.

Okay now, the ceiling for your sauna installation. It goes together with two pre-built panels. They're set on top of the wall panels and folded down to meet at a joint in the center. Nice touch - the ceiling doesn't need to be nailed. The pieces rest on the wall panels. Finish this off with molding.

Benches would be next, and the lower one is normally designed to slide out. The upper bench usually has a backrest. Interesting fact: these pieces are made from a different type of wood called abachi. It's free of any knots and stays cooler in higher temperatures.

Wooden supports are screwed into the walls and the benches placed on top of them and fastened with stainless steel fasteners to prevent rusting. Don't worry about having any exposed metal to burn your skin. The fasteners are hidden. Last but not least for your sauna installation is your choice of heater. It will require its own 240-volt circuit, so call an electrician. Stack the supplied rocks properly (layered) and heat them up. Do not use field rocks as they can decompose or explode. Interesting fact: rocks for saunas are black granite rocks called peridotite and come from Finland. Of course your sauna installation bee isn't over until you crack open a cool one. So once you have it up and running, relax and think about all those home saunas to come.

Sauna Bath |