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.

5 Simple Sauna Rules

NOT a spitoon. Photo by fooishbar on Flickr

The Chicago Tribune’s hip social news outfit, Red Eye Royalty has a post, 5 simple sauna rules. They are rules we can all live by:

1. Don’t SPIT on the sauna rocks!
2. Get permission before you turn up the heat!
3. Hurry up and close the door!
4. Don’t wear street shoes!
5. Never sit bare bottom! (“What makes you think someone wants to sit in a puddle of your booty juice?”) – General, that means you!

His metaphor on change and revolution is exactly the right metaphor for when folks discover the authentic Finnish sauna experience:

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.

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:

1. Drink a big glass of water before going into sauna.  Stay hydrated throughout.  This encourages sweat and wards off dehydration.
2. Wear as little as possible.  Whatever you are comfy getting wet.
3. Have a towel handy for drying off when you’re all done.
4. Enter the hot room.  Most people stick around for 10-15 minutes.  Toss a bit of water on the sauna rocks, if desired.
5. Getting too hot?  Try sitting on the lower bench and work up to:
6. Go outside and dump water over your body or jump in the lake.
7. Stay outside and cool off, let your body equalize for a few minutes.
8. 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.

“The perfect sauna temperature is one that gives you 10-15 minutes of comfortable relaxation.”

That about sums it up.  I find that a 10-15 minute round is ideal.  It gets your body temperature up, you start sweating, can feel the release of toxins, your muscles relaxing, and your pours opening up.

There is this machoness to sauna temperatures, where some try to drive others out with overwhelming heat.  But a sauna is all about what makes you comfy, not Sven with a silly grin tossing water on the rocks to try to drive you out.  However, sometimes Sven gets it right, a nice blast of water on the rocks and riding it out is as exhilarating as that jump into a cold lake.

Above is my favorite sauna thermometer.

• It looks nice and is easy to read in the dim light of a sauna.
• It has a hydrometer: fun sometimes to know where you’re at humidity wise.
• It shows temperature in both Fahrenheit and Celsius, good for both you and Sven.

1. Pretzels – little sodium replenishment and no oily fats.
2. Cheese – dairy protein jives much better at night than meat protein.
3. Fruit – natural vitamins and fiber via Granny Smith apples or any fresh fruit.

These three foods work well together, without any red dye #5 or poly-splenda-msg-benzoate.

I sleep great after this light snack… Any other suggestions?

Three major attributes of saunas.

1. Health and Wellness
2. Escape
3. Green

Three sauna rounds make for a complete sauna.

1. Round 1: heat up and cold rinse
2. Round 2: induce loyly (steam), sweat heavy, and cold rinse
3. Round 3: sweat heavy, muscle stretch, skin cleanse and clean rinse

When you build your own sauna,  consider the three zones for optimal sauna enjoyment

1. sauna room: 7′ high ceiling max.  optimize your cubic footage, consider bench height.
2. changing room: lots of hooks, music and small fridge for cold water and beverages, good flow.
3. outdoor patio: outdoor shower, nice sitting area to chill out and look at the stars, privacy, buffer.

Three beers make for a good sauna party.

Three guests make for a fun sauna party.

Three hours is about how long a good sauna party lasts.

Ever heard the one about fish and guests both start to stink after three days?   3 saunas a week can minimize this.

1.  As soon as you check in: Go to the hotel sauna and turn it on full blast. Make note if there’s a shower in the area, or if this girl needs a drink.

2. Check into your room. Unpack, check email etc. After 20 minutes or so, grab the ice bucket or small plastic garbage can  from your room (leave the poly bag) and return to the hotel sauna.

3. Flush the hotel sauna. Generously douse with fresh water:

• the bench area where you’ll be sitting.
• the hotel sauna rocks with water (they should bark back, if not, the sauna is lame, call housekeeping if you’re especially irritated).
• anywhere else you feel the urge.

Why?  underused hotel saunas can build up dust and stagnation, this ‘cleansing’ will get your hotel sauna fresh and ready to rock.

4. Crank the hotel sauna timer again and go work out for half an hour or go for a walk.

When you return to the hotel sauna a third time, it should be 150 degrees plus, clean and fresh, and recovered from the shower you gave it.

5. Take a first round: keep it dry. Try sitting in the hotel sauna 15 minutes or so, relaxing, and just chill out from your road trip.  No water on the rocks, but drink plenty of water.  When you feel the urge, douse some water on the rocks and try riding out that storm.  Don’t throw too much water on the sauna rocks, and don’t rush out of the hotel sauna from the blast of steam.  Take the lower bench if necessary.  Be gentle when tossing water on sauna rocks, not a bull in a china shop.  It’s better to toss some water on the rocks two times than it is throwing too much water on the rocks the first time.  Enjoy the Loyly (steam from water on the rocks).  Loyly is your friend.  When you’ve had enough:

6. Cold shower plunge. Hit the shower and have it as cold as you can stand it.  Don’t bother drying off, let the water steam up on your skin.  Find a cool place to sit, do NOT return to the hotel sauna immediately after showering.  Let your body cool.  I’ve been known to march through a hotel lobby, through the front doors and sit outside on a cold Wisconsin night.  Most hotel saunas have pools and most pools have a door to the outside.  This is an excellent place to chill out for a hotel sauna experience.  TIP: Here’s a good spot to stash an ice bucket with a couple of Wisconsin beers.

7. Return to the hotel sauna. Now you can toss water on the rocks, right away.  All that water you were drinking during your first round starts escaping through your pores, cleaning your skin naturally.  Ride this round out in similar fashion, shower again, and return to your outdoor chill area.

It’s like the instructions on a box of laundry detergent: sauna, rinse, chill, repeat.

8. Dry off after your final round (I always take at least 3 sauna rounds) and your ready to hit the town or your pillow back in the hotel room.

• A Friday afternoon sauna party is a great time to wind down, getting your work week over and some closure to the ‘to do list’ of the week.  A great precursor to a sauna party is finishing all your work stuff!
• A Friday afternoon sauna party is a great primer for your evening plans: whether it’s heading out to dinner or over to friends or even to another sauna party!  It’s great to get clean and refreshed for your Friday night’s activities, or just wear a bathrobe over to your next sauna party.
• A Friday afternoon sauna party may just be a party on it’s own.  I’ve had Friday afternoon sauna parties that bleed nicely into the evening.  Order a pizza, or fire up the grill and invite more friends.  This sauna party AS a party is a traditional thing in Scandinavia.  Look for more information on sauna parties, and traditional Finnish style on a later post.

I love Friday nights.  Knocking off work and hitting the sauna by 4 pm on Friday is a ritual for me.  It’s a party on it’s own.