SaunaScape

I’ve been a Lifehacker fan since its beginning. While some of their topics are obscure geekdom, the occasional tip about a new piece of software or website that ends up saving me hours makes it a daily stop on my morning review of the news. I was really interested this morning when I saw their new post “How to Hack Your Bathroom into a Home Sauna.”

I had to check the calendar to make sure today isn’t April 1. It isn’t.

Holy sh*t Lifehacker. What will you stoop to for linkbait?

The post is chock full of lots of crazy ideas and very few concrete details, like:

If you plan to install a wood-burning stove, you’ll need to fire-proof the walls and roof around the stove. Particle board isn’t cheap, but this is one area you don’t want to skimp on.

If you don’t have an air vent in the bathroom, don’t make one: the gap under the bathroom door will work just fine.

Um, NO NO NO NO NO!

If you’re putting a wood burning stove anywhere enclosed, you need to make sure you have proper ventilation. If you don’t you’ll end up at best poisoning yourself and at worst asphyxiating yourself and your whole family in your project. Especially if you follow their instructions to build a sauna stove:

A wood burning stove can easily be made from a junk yard gas canister. Use a cheap angle grinder to lop off the top, then just find a metal bucket, cut a hatch and fit the flue.

Those are the instructions. All of them. Now go forth and build one of these and put it in your house!

Please don’t follow these instructions. We value you as a reader too much to have you kill yourself in a home-made deathtrap.

If you’re really set on building your own sauna in your home, buy a good book like How to Build Your Own Sauna & Sweat by Mikkel Aaland, The Sauna: A Complete Guide to the Construction, Use, and Benefits of the Finnish Bath by Rob Roy, or Hot Tubs, Saunas & Steam Baths: A Guide to Planning and Designing your Home Health Spa by Alan Sanderfoot.

If you don’t want to shell out the dollars for a book, then visit Sauna Times or Kalle Hoffman’s Sauna Pages. Both offer plenty of free advice and detailed plans for building your own saunas and sauna stoves.

And unless you really, really know what you’re doing, build your first DIY wood stove sauna in a shed, far away from your home and anything else flammable.

Meanwhile, watch for these exciting posts coming soon to Lifehacker: “Improve your mood: Hack your bathtub and a toaster into your own electro-convulsive therapy system” and “Hack your own Botox from cans you fish out of your grocer’s dumpster!”

I've been a Lifehacker fan since its beginning. While some of their topics are obscure geekdom, the occasional tip about a new piece of software or website that ends up saving me hours makes it a daily stop on my morning review of the news. I was really interested this morning when I saw their new post "How to Hack Your Bathroom into a Home Sauna." I had to check the calendar to make sure today isn't April 1. It isn't. Holy sh*t Lifehacker. What will you stoop to for linkbait? The post is chock full of lots of crazy ideas and very few concrete details, like: If you plan to install a wood-burning stove, you'll need to fire-proof the walls and roof around the stove. Particle board isn't cheap, but this is one area you don't want to skimp on. If you don't have an air vent in the bathroom, don't make one: the gap under the bathroom door will work just fine. Um, NO NO NO NO NO! If you're putting a wood burning stove anywhere enclosed, you need to make sure you have proper ventilation. If you don't you'll end up at best poisoning yourself and at worst asphyxiating yourself and your whole family in your project. Especially if you follow their instructions to build a sauna stove: A wood burning stove can easily be made from a junk yard gas canister. Use a cheap angle grinder to lop off the top, then just find a metal bucket, cut a hatch and fit the flue. Those are the instructions. All of them. Now go forth and build one of these and put it in your house! Please don't follow these instructions. We value you as a reader too much to have you kill yourself in a home-made deathtrap. If you're really set on building your own sauna in your home, buy a good book like How to Build Your Own Sauna & Sweat by Mikkel Aaland, The Sauna: A Complete Guide to the Construction, Use, and Benefits of the Finnish Bath by Rob Roy, or Hot Tubs, Saunas & Steam Baths: A Guide to Planning and Designing your Home Health Spa by Alan Sanderfoot. If you don't want to shell out the dollars for a book, then visit Sauna Times or Kalle Hoffman's Sauna Pages. Both offer plenty of free advice and detailed plans for building your own saunas and sauna stoves. And unless you really, really know what you're doing, build your first DIY wood stove sauna in a shed, far away from your home and anything else flammable. Meanwhile, watch for these exciting posts coming soon to Lifehacker: "Improve your mood: Hack your bathtub and a toaster into your own electro-convulsive therapy system" and "Hack your own Botox from cans you fish out of your grocer's dumpster!"

Glenn over at Sauna Times posted on this topic yesterday and said there are two ways to throw water on the rocks: Soft and softer. I’m a person who thrives on hard numbers, so this got me thinking.

The photo with this post is of the interior of a pretty typical sauna and heater you will find at most US hotels, clubs and gyms. It shows a Scandia heater made by Am-Finn Sauna and Steam in Eagle, Idaho. According to their website, they are the preferred vendor for the YMCA, Bally, Gold’s Gym and LA Fitness, most universities and the US Government. In my experience, they are right. Most public saunas in the USA use their brand of heater.

This heater has a shallow pan at the top to hold the rocks which prevents water from getting on the elements. Their website validates what Clint says: users can “pour water on the rocks without risk to the heater elements and control wiring.”

These heaters have an internal thermostat that limits their temperature to 190°F (88°C) in the wiring box. Looking at the way these are made, my guess is that the rock pan gets to somewhere around 250-300ºF (120-150°C). (I’ll have to figure out a way to look natural bringing my IR thermometer into the sauna with me the next time I go to the gym).

My guess is there are between 25 and 35 pounds of rock in these heaters. Mikkel Aaland says that hornblende is one of the preferred sauna rocks. A few trips to the engineering toolbox, and we find that we’ve got between 200 and 650 BTU to dissipate. A few more trips there and we find that means we can vaporize between 3 and 9 ounces of water before the rocks get too cold to do their job anymore.

In my experience, 4 ounces or 1/2 cup, seems to be the practical limit. That wood sauna ladle in the photo holds about 7 ounces of water.

So when you are in that hotel sauna, about 1/2 a ladle or 1/2 a small foam coffee cup is all you can put on the rocks at a time. Any more than that, and you’ll just cool off the stove.

With the power in those sauna stoves and their element designs, you can probably splash water on the rocks about once every 5-10 minutes, giving you a reason to use that sauna timer.

Compare that to a similar size heater made by Harvia in Finland. These hold about 130 lb of rocks and do not limit the temperature of the stove. They control only by the temperature of the sauna room, and the rocks touch the heating elements so they can get hotter.

Or look at the stove in a Russian banya. These stoves hold 10 or more tons of rock and heat them to more than 800°F! Russian banya enthusiasts say that this high temperature gives the best steam.

Stay tuned for a future post where we look at what happens when you throw water on those sauna rocks.

Glenn over at Sauna Times posted on this topic yesterday and said there are two ways to throw water on the rocks: Soft and softer. I'm a person who thrives on hard numbers, so this got me thinking. The photo with this post is of the interior of a pretty typical sauna and heater you will find at most US hotels, clubs and gyms. It shows a Scandia heater made by Am-Finn Sauna and Steam in Eagle, Idaho. According to their website, they are the preferred vendor for the YMCA, Bally, Gold's Gym and LA Fitness, most universities and the US Government. In my experience, they are right. Most public saunas in the USA use their brand of heater. This heater has a shallow pan at the top to hold the rocks which prevents water from getting on the elements. Their website validates what Clint says: users can "pour water on the rocks without risk to the heater elements and control wiring." These heaters have an internal thermostat that limits their temperature to 190°F (88°C) in the wiring box. Looking at the way these are made, my guess is that the rock pan gets to somewhere around 250-300ºF (120-150°C). (I'll have to figure out a way to look natural bringing my IR thermometer into the sauna with me the next time I go to the gym). My guess is there are between 25 and 35 pounds of rock in these heaters. Mikkel Aaland says that hornblende is one of the preferred sauna rocks. A few trips to the engineering toolbox, and we find that we've got between 200 and 650 BTU to dissipate. A few more trips there and we find that means we can vaporize between 3 and 9 ounces of water before the rocks get too cold to do their job anymore. In my experience, 4 ounces or 1/2 cup, seems to be the practical limit. That wood sauna ladle in the photo holds about 7 ounces of water. So when you are in that hotel sauna, about 1/2 a ladle or 1/2 a small foam coffee cup is all you can put on the rocks at a time. Any more than that, and you'll just cool off the stove. With the power in those sauna stoves and their element designs, you can probably splash water on the rocks about once every 5-10 minutes, giving you a reason to use that sauna timer. Compare that to a similar size heater made by Harvia in Finland. These hold about 130 lb of rocks and do not limit the temperature of the stove. They control only by the temperature of the sauna room, and the rocks touch the heating elements so they can get hotter. Or look at the stove in a Russian banya. These stoves hold 10 or more tons of rock and heat them to more than 800°F! Russian banya enthusiasts say that this high temperature gives the best steam. Stay tuned for a future post where we look at what happens when you throw water on those sauna rocks.

2011 has brought us two new sauna books from two established experts in the sauna field.

Sweat Therapy: A Guide to Greater Well-Being, was just published by friend of SaunaScape, Dr. Stephen Colmant. Dr. Colmant has built a psychology practice around sweat therapy based on hard evidence he has gleaned from scholarly publications and through his experiences with the Navajo nation. This isn’t new-age charlatanism or a get-rich quick infrared sauna or “sauna suit” scheme, but the real deal.

You can preview some of Sweat Therapy’s content in our earlier posts here and here. You can also check in with the PsychSymposium website, or follow the Sweat Therapy Facebook page for more information.

Mikkel Aaland, author of the long out-of-print, but soon-to-be film Sweat, also has a new book of his own: How to Build Your Own Sauna & Sweat, a 100-page booklet detailing much of the information about building your own sauna that he had previously published in “Sweat”.  He promises much of the information will also be posted on his new website: The Perfect Sweat.

2011 has brought us two new sauna books from two established experts in the sauna field. Sweat Therapy: A Guide to Greater Well-Being, was just published by friend of SaunaScape, Dr. Stephen Colmant. Dr. Colmant has built a psychology practice around sweat therapy based on hard evidence he has gleaned from scholarly publications and through his experiences with the Navajo nation. This isn't new-age charlatanism or a get-rich quick infrared sauna or "sauna suit" scheme, but the real deal. You can preview some of Sweat Therapy's content in our earlier posts here and here. You can also check in with the PsychSymposium website, or follow the Sweat Therapy Facebook page for more information. Mikkel Aaland, author of the long out-of-print, but soon-to-be film Sweat, also has a new book of his own: How to Build Your Own Sauna & Sweat, a 100-page booklet detailing much of the information about building your own sauna that he had previously published in "Sweat".  He promises much of the information will also be posted on his new website: The Perfect Sweat.