If you need a sign to tell you or your sauna party guests where to go, this is available on Esty. We wonder if the artist can also make one that says “dog house”.
Bubble wrap: sauna building secret #5
April 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Building a sauna without using foil bubble wrap is like building a shower and tiling right on sheet rock. It may work for awhile, but at some point it may very well get yucky. When you are offered such a wonderful product, it’d be a shame not to use it.
Foil bubble wrap
- is easy to apply: just use a staple gun and staple it to your studs.
- is easy to work with: foil tape your seems and around light switches, etc.
- performs fantastically: heat gets radiated back into your sauna and it creates a superior vapor barrier, protecting your structure and isolating moisture and loyly.
Foil bubble wrap is finding applications well beyond sauna. It is an emerging building material that you’ll be seeing more of, in more practical applications and uses. Foil bubble wrap automobile?
Home building centers sell foil bubble wrap in the insulation department. Here’s Ace Hardware’s offer.
Sauna pants: a dumb product for a dumber consumer
April 13, 2011 By 1 Comment
I am embarrassed for having to take our time to even mention such a stupid product. But since it has the word “sauna” in its name, we feel compelled to comment. Is the consumer this desperate, this unsure of themselves, that they think wearing a poly blend pair of shorts with a plug in heat coil system can actually offer any real benefit?
Film: Stream of Life
March 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Finnish Film from a sauna perspective
This Finnish documentary is only 60 minutes long, about as along as a couple sauna rounds and a beer. But with Scandinavian efficiency, it is enough time to touch the viewer with in depth revelations of the characters in the film.
I am overjoyed with the concept of Stream of Life. The film addresses the notion that sauna is an atmosphere for reflection, a bare all environment to connect with the soul. Note to loyal readers: the guy on the left, in this photo, has an uncanny resemblance to a close sauna friend of mine. He even holds his beer the same way.
This film airs on PBS August 2, 2011.
“In Finland, with its long, dark winters, the sauna is a national obsession whose benefits are as much emotional as physical. For the men in Steam of Life, the sauna is a place to come together and sweat out not only the grime of contemporary life, but also their grief, hopes, joys and memories. Beautifully and hauntingly shot, this acclaimed film provides an extraordinary glimpse into the lives of Finnish men and into the depths of the human experience. (60 minutes)”
Road testing your sauna in the cold
January 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Sauna: test it in cold weather
It’s been really cold here in Minnesota. Just like with car batteries, this is the kind of weather to really get to know your wood burning sauna stove in your outdoor sauna. In normal weather, any old stove with any old type of wood can get any old sauna up to 140 f (60c). With time and determination, a combination of decaying pine branches smoking along in some home made metal box stove in shoddy insulated sauna room will eventually provide enough BTU’s to offer a sweat and some form of sauna.
A more serious sauna environment
Here in Minnesota, we don’t mess around with heat. We can’t afford to. It’s been below zero (-20c). It’s great sauna weather. And no matter where you live, you shouldn’t mess around with a lame sauna stove, or bad wood, or a poorly designed sauna. Doing it right doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money, either. This is the type of weather where you can tell how good your sauna stove is working, or where there’s a crack in your sauna door and the difference between burning pine and oak.
First things first, your outdoor sauna
I’m a big fan of good basic insulation, and a bigger fan of foil vapor wrap. Batting is cheap. You can frame with 2×4. Keep your ceiling at 7′ and if you go with 8′ ceiling, that’s fine, go with 3 benches but keep you cube small. It is a lot easier to heat a small room than a big room. This isn’t a suburban game of sheet rock palace, square foot fever. This is an example of less being more.
Second, know your wood
If you’re heating with an electric sauna stove, you can move on. However, us wood burning purists like to know where our BTU’s come from. We are like microbrewers and gardeners. Some of us have beards. We stutter when we say ‘sustainable’, and some of us mumble words like ‘renewable’ in our sleep. Up north, I burn birch almost exclusively in my cabin sauna but here in Minneapolis, it’s all across the board. When I hear a chainsaw, i’m like a dog who hears another dark barking. I chase after the sound and newly felled wood. Many are more than happy to part with their tree cuttings. Stay well clear of Elm (ash bore) but here are my favorites:
- Maple: dense hardwood. Harder to light, but burns long and hot and slow. Great to add to a hot fire.
- Pine: Burns fast, produces more ash. Great starting wood.
- Oak: My favorite all around burn. Megga BTU’s, especially well aged red oak.
- Birch: Fantastic for saunas, burns hot and bright. BONUS: birch bark is nature’s gasoline.
Third, get a real sauna stove
I’m biased. I own three Kuuma wood burning sauna stoves. They are the best sauna stove made. I can bring my backyard or cabin or mobile sauna from 0 degrees f. (-18c) to 130f (54c) in about half an hour with 3-4 good pieces of wood. Then, after pulling the hot coals forward, I’ll add another stick or two, and bring the sauna to 150 degrees f. (65c) a few minutes after that. I can manage the fire, manage the burn rate, and take a 2-3 hour three round sauna at around 170 degress f. (77c). All that with an armful of well season firewood. sussusstainable.
How do you road test your sauna?
Infrared is not a sauna
August 6, 2010 By 11 Comments
This is my blog. These are my opinions. I am not some yahoo. I lived in Scandinavia. I have been taking saunas for over 25 years. I know saunas. I am not Finnish, I am half Italian and a 1/4 German, so I talk half the time and analyze 1/4 of the time.
If you own an infrared, perhaps you could recycle the cedar for a real sauna. If you are thinking of buying an infrared, don’t. Do your research. You are smarter than that.
- You avoid tanning salons, they give you cancer and turn your skin a weird color.
- You don’t smoke tobacco cigarettes, same thing.
- You don’t sweat by stuffing yourself in a microwave oven.
Imagine for a moment you are a sauna enthusiast from Finland, a country with more saunas than cars. You have grown up with sauna, a centuries old cultural tradition. Now, you read and hear about $499 microwave boxes you can assemble in your living room called “infrared saunas.” Imagine how pissed you would be. I am waving this flag for all the polite Scandinavians who may only speak up on this topic after 3 sauna rounds and a few beers. Infrared is not a sauna.
Wood sauna is preferred. Electric sauna is ok, but Infrared is NOT a sauna. Infrared is a marketing scam. Infrared makes unrealistic claims to lure consumers. Infrared is fueled by light bulbs and sold by guys that used to sell mops and knives at state fairs. Infrared hucksters hitch their wagons to weight loss, pain relief, homeo whatever therapy, detoxify, and it’s all horse shit. They have taken real benefits of a Finnish sauna and packaged them up to try to sell their high margin light bulb closets. But you know this already, you are smarter than this.
Infrared is not a sauna.
Backyard sauna: first outdoor shower of the season
March 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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.
The Sauna Is… by Bernard Hillila – book review
February 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment
A few excerpts from his 1979 book:
- Time: “The sauna was not built for saving time, but for spending it well.”
- Honesty: “Perhaps the setting is conducive to honesty and getting at the bare facts of an issue: rank and status disappear with the clothing, and one must communicate simply as one imperfect individual who must accept another individual.”
- Sleep: “After a sauna one does not worry about insomnia. And one doesn’t need a prescription for a tranquilizer.”
- Scalp: “Bathing… in sauna is, in fact, and excellent first step for good scalp care, which contributes to healthy hair.”
- Skin: “The sauna does give the skin an aura, and it is said that a woman looks her most beautiful an hour after sauna. In the sauna… dead skin is removed, and live skin is rejuvenated.”
- “In this age of slick promotion, the concept of the sauna has at times been misunderstood and misrepresented.”
- “The acme of the sauna experience is achieved when the shower is replaced by a dip into a lake and when one can sit outside in the altogether, dried by unpolluted breezes. Some brave souls enjoy a roll in the snow or a dip into a hole in an ice covered lake. While contemplating such an experience can be a shock, the sensation itself is delightful.”
- “Many persons find it particularly enjoyable to combine exercise and sauna bathing. A good workout in tennis, swimming, bowling, or jogging, followed by relaxing and cleansing heat, is a most satisfying experience.”
- “In Finland it is very natural to ask friends or neighbors to come for sauna. As more Americans build saunas, this custom will develop naturally.”
- “In the sauna a very unusual combination of processes develops: a person sits peacefully at rest while his blood vessels, nerves, and glands work hard. After such an experience, the person may well feel that he has had a strenuous workout, even though he has been quite relaxed and at ease. It is difficult to gain a greater senses of physical renewal than that which is provided by this unique combination of exertion and rest.”
- “There is no rigidly prescribed procedure – one should use the style he enjoys most.”
Build you own sauna in 3:48
February 2, 2010 By 6 Comments
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:
How do you take a sauna?
January 6, 2010 By 1 Comment
What is this?
This is an authentic wood burning Finnish sauna. Northern Europeans have been taking part in this ritual for centuries.
How is this sauna different?
Experience the wood burning sauna stove. It was hand welded and crafted by a third generation Finnish stove maker, Lamppa Manufacturing, Tower, MN. The stove weighs over 300 lbs. and has about 80 lbs. of special rocks that hold thermal mass. This creates a different sort of heat, one that naturally radiates through the body and produces negative ions for a natural, therapeutic experience, offering many unparalleled benefits.
What are the benefits of an authentic Finnish sauna?
1. Health and wellness: Sauna therapy is perhaps the best way to detoxify, ridding one’s body of slow metabolizing bad stuff. Saunas rejuvenate, clear and promote healthy skin. Alternating between the sauna room and outside, saunas help with respiration Saunas are great for muscle relaxation, whether stiff from a cold winter day or exercise.
2. Escape: beyond the physical benefits, sauna therapy is great for stress relief. Imagine having your own cabin escape right in your backyard. No driving, no big mortgage, just a “staycation” where you can turn a corner of your backyard into an enjoyable working asset, a place for social interaction with family and friends.
3. Green: with a small solar panel, this entire unit can be ‘off the grid’. It is efficiently wood heated with minimal smoke output. Today I am heating using Minnesota red oak, harvested from private land.
How do I take a sauna?
The cool thing is that there are few rules to a sauna. A few basic suggestions:
- Drink a big glass of water before going into sauna. Stay hydrated throughout. This encourages sweat and wards off dehydration.
- Wear as little as possible. Whatever you are comfy getting wet.
- Have a towel handy for drying off when you’re all done.
- Enter the hot room. Most people stick around for 10-15 minutes. Toss a bit of water on the sauna rocks, if desired.
- Getting too hot? Try sitting on the lower bench and work up to:
- Go outside and dump water over your body or jump in the lake.
- Stay outside and cool off, let your body equalize for a few minutes.
- Repeat 1-7.
Oh, and keep the sauna door closed!
Disclosure
By reading this, you are using this sauna at your own risk, if you feel faint leave the sauna immediately. The sauna stove is very hot and if you touch it you will get burned. Please look at but do NOT touch.
