When building a sauna, there are three ways to consider setting up your sauna stove:

1. Load wood from the outside
2. Load wood from the changing room
3. Load wood from inside the hot room

Options #1 and #2 involve using a ”throat” add on to a wood burning sauna stove.  Also, one needs to brick around the throat and sauna, usually a three foot border, for fire retardant.   In the old days, most saunas were built #1, loading wood from the outside.  The main reason for this is that old saunas were inefficient, basically home made iron boxes that burned hot and fast, requiring a pretty much constant supply of firewood.  Finnish ingenuity gave way to the idea that the door to the sauna stove could be steps away from an outdoor wood pile.

As stoves became a bit smaller and somewhat more efficient, people began building wood burning saunas to feed from the changing room.  The theory here is that a small amount of firewood could  be kept dry in the changing room and added to the stove from there.  The main advantage to #2 is that the sauna stove can provide some heat to the changing room.  It is estimated that between 10-15% of a sauna stove’s heat comes from the front of stove.

#3 is my choice.  Today’s sauna stoves are very efficient.  The Kuuma Stove is so efficient that I can take a sauna with 4 pieces of firewood.  By feeding from inside the hot room, I capture 100% of the heat in the hot room, and don’t have to mess around with extensive brick framing.  Also, I can monitor the fire from the sauna bench.

If I had a stick of firewood for every time i’ve been asked this question, I could keep my wood burning sauna stove on idle most of the winter:

1. Double doors. Why do grocery stores all have a double set of entry doors?  Imagine you are a check out clerk at a grocery store and it’s below freezing with 25 mph winds and some old lady is standing in the doorway adjusting her hat.  Now imagine that you build your own sauna without a changing room and some old lady is standing in the open doorway adjusting her hat.  Close the door!

2.  Equalize your body temp. A backyard sauna with a changing room is a wonderful hang out space between rounds.  After a well deserved cold outdoor shower, it’s nice to sit in the changing room and hang out, visit, indulge in a sauna music play list as your body equalizes.   This is not only fun, but important!

3.  Expand your space. A sauna changing room is critical for a sauna party.  Offering hang out zones gives your sauna party structure and expansion.  How come people hang out in the kitchen at parties?

I built my mobile sauna with a changing room for all the above reasons, oh, yea, and you

4.  have a place to hang your clothes.

Click here for the ultimate sauna plan.  It’s the perfect design for a Minnesota sauna or a Finnish sauna or a backyard sauna or even a mobile sauna.

My new virtual friend Jonathon and his dad applied some resourceful upper Midwest ingenuity, building a basement sauna using cheap doors for walls, ceiling.  They were purchased for $1 each at the bargain bin at Menards, our resourceful upper Midwest version of Home Depot.

The creative thing about using doors for walls (despite the obvious) is that being 6′8″ tall, they are a pretty ideal height for sauna walls.

Nice work Jonathon, and thanks for the kind words.  Check out his project here.

March 14, 2010.  Who would believe it?

Ah, outdoor shower: welcome back, and about a few weeks early to boot!  I laid out my garden hose in the spring sun, softening it up, then hooked it up to my backyard shower.  Happy to report that even in a cold climate like Minnesota, one can enjoy an outdoor shower 8 months of the year.  Here’s my post on the last outdoor shower of the year.

Everyone should have their own outdoor shower, and here’s a way to rig one up for $15.00.

My 8×12 sauna plan assumes a wood, not concrete floor.

• 2×6 green rim joists.
• 2×6 green studs at 16″ or 24″ on center.
• 3/4″ subfloor,  et voila.

Stephen, I know your sauna has a cement slab, and i’ve built a couple saunas with a cement slab base (which could be argued is the “A” job) yet I find with a wood base to your backyard sauna it can be:

1. built quicker.
2. leveled easily, even down the road.
3. moved if you move, of if your partner gets wiggy.
4. called a ‘temporary structure’ for frowning building code inspectors.
5. extended easily as a header for a deck (yet I prefer a slate patio with an outdoor sauna, so as to reintroduce the stone medium from sauna rocks to your feet whilst between sauna rounds).

My good (virtual so far) friend Stephen built his own sauna in North Carolina.  Watch through his video. It’s a great sauna, wonderful aesthetics and touches: slate patio walkway, nestled amongst foliage, and a great outdoor shower. Note Stephen’s OSHA approved sandals: