For those who are building their saunas in areas known for mice and other rodents, it’s important that we prep our build to keep these critters from nesting under our sauna buildings.
Further, there’s a tribe of sauna enthusiasts who are building their saunas with decking as their hot room floors, thin pencil width spacing between their 5/4″ round or 2x decking material. This method is certainly doable, but if one is building their hot room floors with an opening to the world below, AND their locale is home to mice and other rodents, we have to take care to isolate our buildings from any infultration.
Thanks to Bill, who is just now completing his sauna build. He has information for us and here it is:
Enter Bill:
Hope that you are well. I did my research and am confident that I have a solid multi pronged solution for keeping my deck floor sauna free of critters. I spoke with a number of people and was directed to a number of websites.  Below are the two that were the most practical and helpful.
https://icwdm.org/handbook/
Techniques and methods to prevent and exclude rodents from entering structures by Rex O. Baker, Gerald R. Bodman, and Robert M. Timm. |
The technique that I’ll use is found further down in the paper/article. It is the use of 1/4″ mesh that is attached to the building and buried into the ground below the depth that they will dig. Here is a drawing from the article:
The next article describes an inexpensive and easy to install metal flashing for the base of the walls and under the exterior door that I also plan to do. It can be purchased at Home Depot.  Here is a photo from the article:
Here is a drawing from the previous article for how to protect entry from under a door:
https://microship.com/rodents-
Editor’s note:
We build our saunas once. Securing the perimeter of our sauna buildings in this fashion is the best way to ensure that we keep rodents away. This ensures that when we toss water on the sauna rocks, we get only “ahhhhhh” and no “ewwwwww”.
4 thoughts on “Who keeps the rodents out? squeek, squeek, squeek squeek.”
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Good post, no rodents here in Southern California yet but big problems with ants. Once I see one in the hot room it’s impossible not to think every itch is one crawling on me, it completely ruins the ambiance and makes it impossible to relax. They don’t seem to mind the heat either judging by how many I’ve seen running around inside the hot room up at temp.
Keeping shrubs trimmed back so they don’t contact the sauna and sprinkling a band of ant bait around the base seemed to do the trick.
We built our slightly sauna elevated using concrete piers with posts and beams. I did this because the ground wasn’t level but I now realize it also has the added benefit of limiting the number of access points for ants. Also it’s easily accessible for ant bait.
Well done ! Great info and interesting about ants in so cal especially how you can’t bake them out with a hot hot room.
my outdoor unit rests on three 12′ 6″x6″ treated structural timbers, elevating the base a couple inches off the ground. it didn’t take long for rabbits, squirrels, etc. to find their way under there and setup camp. i got some 1/2″ galvanized hardware cloth and sealed up the ‘openings’ between the timbers, burying the cloth about 6″ into the ground. four years later and not a rodent in sight…
This past year we have had mice in the hot room of the sauna and it appears they have not returned there but now they are trying to set up camp in the changing room. Unfortunately I built things a tad loose(thinking better circulation would occur and due to construction inexperience) so cannot change that now. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!