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.
6 thoughts on “Do I really need a changing room?”
Honestly it’s more of a cooling room than a changing room. Sure you change your clothes there too, but when you sauna, you also need a place to sit and hangout, rehydrate or snack before going back in. This was key when I was building. My sauna is 8×8, heated by the only sauna stove one should use, and an 8×8 cooling room with a nice high 14′ ceiling.
I LOVE my cooling room. Great place to chill, keep the clothes dry in the winter, and dry wood storage also. I put in a nice shower too!
No Sauna is complete without one! Mine extends the use of my sauna in a dozen ways. We keep it cook and use it as a resting room between rounds. It also doubles as a favorite guest room. We have a Sauna bench with a back that turns into a queen sized bed. During the day, it is a remote office. Don’t leave it out!
RE: ChangeRm. ‘Kids!! NO pizza or Pop in the HotRoom. Period. Grandpa means it.’ ps ..and a change Rm. also keeps dirty shoes where they belong…outside.
Hello from Southcentral Alaska. I’m mulling over a future sauna build. Just bought your book so that I will be better informed! In my sauna daydreams thus far I include a little vestibule/Arctic entry for re-robing, staging wood etc, but then having a much larger open-air hangout area (like a deck with chairs) partially under the overhang of the oversized sauna roof for lounging about while cooling off. The idea of putting the cool-down zone indoors into separate changing room takes me aback: part of the magic of the sauna-ing and banya-ing I’ve done to date (none with changing rooms) is how it makes freezing winter air feel glorious! I feel a part of myself mourning the loss of that euphoric, steamy communing with nature by building a bigger changing room. But I’m no expert on sauna culture and doing it the “right way.” Do you think I would be shortchanging my future self by dedicating more of the available real estate to outdoor lounging, and less space for the enclosed Arctic entry?
Hi Valentine:
I’m reminded of that wonderful line by Bob Marley: “Who feels it, knows it.”
You can build your hot room, and allow yourself to feel your space as it is, and think about it as phase one this way. Then you can be thinking of what it will be just as that – a kick ass hot room and open air hangout area. You could build your sauna as a hot room, and live like this for awhile, and then the sauna will tell you if it wants a cool down room, and how big it wants to be.
The caveat here is design to be “future proof” for this potential incremental add on. For this, you could be constructing a covered deck as phase 1. And your sauna could live like this forever, or you could capture some or all of this covered deck as incremental real estate (ie cool down room). Another way for future proof design is the reverse gable. (hot room door opening to gable end). Here we can easily add on from the rake and extend your roof line.
Damn, this could be its own post on here. Keep the riffing on it and lemme know!