I’ve had the pleasure of sitting on the sauna bench with well over a hundred guests for Sauna Talk. Whether you’re listening in your car, out for a walk, or sweating it out on your own bench, my goal as host is to help keep the conversation flowing. Like good löyly, Sauna Talk rises, rolls, and wraps around us—natural, unforced, and alive.
That same spirit was there last night with Chris Heck.
Chris grew up in Northern Minnesota, made his way into engineering school, and deep into his electrical engineering career. He spent a couple years living in Finland—where sauna isn’t a luxury, it’s an everyday way of life. He travels to Finland regularly working for Wärtsilä a global company with over 10,000 employees, a leader in innovative technologies for the marine and energy markets. Big equipment for ships and energy plants.
We met on a late fall afternoon under cool rain and heavy clouds. The last time I stood in his backyard was several months previous. His sauna was still just a shell—bare studs and roof. Seeing his completed sauna brought a different kind of warmth. Before round one, I snapped a few photos, smiling at the thought that my Sauna Build book helped Chris bring his own health and wellness backyard retreat to life.
Once we settled onto the bench, the talk found its rhythm—thermally aligned in good spirit. Just like a good sauna round, it built naturally, with heat, laughter, and a shared appreciation for how something so simple can feel so good.
As the rounds went on, so did the conversation—about work and life, Finland and Minnesota, and how sauna has a way of connecting it all. That’s what Sauna Talk is about: real people who recognize that good heat knows no borders. So grab your towel, pour a little water on the rocks, and join us for this session with Chris Heck.
Transcription
Glenn 0:00
Welcome to another episode, and we are in Minneapolis and not far from my own backyard sauna, in this backyard sauna, and I would like to introduce Chris to sauna talk. Welcome Chris and thank you for having me to your sauna.
Speaker 1 4:10
You bet, Glen, it’s as we were just talking about, long overdue. I’ve been in yours many times. So glad to finally repay the favor and have you over to mine.
Glenn 4:19
And your sauna is a new sauna. How many saunas have you taken in here? And when did you christen it actually for your first round?
Speaker 1 4:26
Yeah, so it was kind of a long time coming. Got it started around Christmas time of 24 slowly worked on it over the winter. Weather allowed. And I think the first christening sauna was sometime in May, maybe around Memorial Day, thereabouts, and since then, as no doubt you like to talk about, we’ve solved for heat, but in the summertime, it’s tough to solve for cold, especially with no lake or something nearby. So I didn’t use it too much over the summer, just when it’s. As hot outside as it is, just not as attractive to do. So,
Glenn 5:04
yeah, interesting. You know, when you think about the calendar and living where we are with, you know, we have hot summers and we have very cold winters, and for many, the summit building journey can begin in late summer, and there’s this sort of, like, you know, it’s, it’s in our DNA to see. Let’s, let’s get this buttoned up before the snow flies. But you kind of did a little little backwards. I did, you
Speaker 1 5:27
know, and I really don’t regret it. It was, it was a good wintertime project. Kind of a strange way to do it, to be framing and stuff and having to tarp the structure while it’s snowing, but it worked out really
Glenn 5:40
well. Yeah, and it does. I mean, I can’t wait. I’m going to take some more photos of this. And for those listening, I encourage you to go to some of the times and look at the announcement for this podcast, because here’s where I’ll put some some photos. And my first impression, since we’re talking about the bill clean like that’s one of the words that comes to mind. Mine is very rustic, and I don’t sweep it out often, but, but here, if you get a little bit of coals on the on your beautifully done tiles, it’s noticeable, yeah. But this also, I mean, that’d be one adjective, I suppose, clean. The other is, it’s reminiscent of many of the saunas that I’ve been to in Finland and also Sweden, it has this again, the clean lines, the lighter material, all clear. It strikes me as a real
Speaker 1 6:33
Nordic sauna. I agree with that. I wouldn’t say there was a singular focus or inspiration, but rather, the design came from a lot of things. I think that the recipe you’ve laid out in your book was probably the most instrumental to it. Part of it was blending in with the structures and the rest of the yard. The exterior cladding and colors mirror the house and the existing garage, but then also trying to keep the backyard esthetic, or bring the backyard esthetic into the sauna, so having windows into the yard from both the hot room and and the change room, while also still maintaining privacy from the neighbors and just being very strategic about the location of all great word
Glenn 7:20
for it cool for listeners, Let’s wind the clock back. Tell me about yourself. Chris, heck, Minnesota native, Minnesota native, and where did you grow up? And tell us about your childhood and growing up, and interweave sauna into
Speaker 1 7:37
that absolutely so I was born and raised in northern Minnesota, on the Iron Range, to a family that was basically half Finnish and half Croatian. And believe it or not, even even the Croatian side really like sauna. So we had an electric sauna in our house growing up. And in the wintertime, all four of us in the family would, would actually, I’ll say sauna with Cody fingers every day. It wasn’t really a full sauna, but we heated up every morning we had a shower in the sauna. And there’s really nothing better to heat up in the morning. Warm up before you’re going out in those frigid northern Minnesota winter temperatures, and wait at the bus stop, in my case. So we used it every day. Morning sauna. Morning sauna, weekday morning sound.
Glenn 8:25
Believe it or not, how many days of the week would you morning sauna?
Speaker 1 8:28
I would say, from December until probably March, it was easily five days a week, and then maybe an evening, kind of more leisurely sauna on the weekends
Glenn 8:38
as well. What’s your first memory of sauna? Chris,
Speaker 1 8:41
well, I’m gonna answer that in two different ways. My parents love to tell the story about how I would or I was brought into the sauna when I was not even six months old. The sound was my grandma, because she lived nearby, but did not have a sound at her house, so she would come over regularly to use ours. So certainly I don’t have a memory of that. But where I do have memories is maybe being 456, something like that, and actually sounding with my other set of grandparents. And this is, this was the Croatian side, and even they like to come over and use it.
Glenn 9:15
Which side is the finished side? Finished side is my mom’s mom’s side. So a lot of the dinner, a lot of the kitchen, lot of culture, a lot of Finnish culture, probably because my mother’s half 100% Italian. Okay, so I’m half Italian. You’re half finished, but yeah, the maternal side of our upbringing is a strong one, isn’t it?
Speaker 1 9:34
Absolutely, I think, like many children or grandchildren of immigrants, you grew up with many of the those cultural elements, be it the food, the language, music, dance, whatever have you. And so yes, we we ate a lot of traditional Finnish foods. My grandmother taught me Finnish things, or Finnish words, I should say, I attended solo lumpy, which is the. Ish language camp when I was a kid, and so really, the Finnish and Croatian side too were instrumental to my upbringing from an early age,
Glenn 10:10
wonderful. So fast forward a little bit. Where’d you go to school and tell us about your role, what your profession is, sure?
Speaker 1 10:17
So I came down to the Twin Cities when I was 18. I went to the University of St Thomas for undergrad. But actually, even while I was an undergrad at St Thomas, I really came to prefer the University of Minnesota. So I started taking classes more than half time at the U of M. While I was a student at St Thomas, I continued to grad school at the U so I have a bachelor’s in electrical engineering and a master’s in the same and I’ve worked in mostly the energy industry since I graduated from college, and I currently work for a Finnish company called varzila, which, again, is in the energy and marine industries, actually.
Glenn 10:58
And how did you get hooked up with the Finnish company, yeah.
Speaker 1 11:01
So for actually a previous US employer, I lived and worked in Finland for about two years, and got to know this company as sort of one of our customers of the My previous employer really liked their culture, like their people, and so when the opportunity came to join and work them directly. I jumped
Glenn 11:24
at it cool. And how long you’ve been with them. I’ve been on them
Unknown 11:27
for about five years in my current role. Cool,
Glenn 11:30
cool. But you’ve worked with them for many years, going back
Speaker 1 11:33
to 2010, so 15, 1516, years.
Glenn 11:37
And you notice how I danced around, not trying to pronounce the name of your employer. Say, but say it again. And how would a guy like me say it? Warzilla, maybe, W, A, R t, s, i, l, a, and you hear works all the time,
Speaker 1 11:50
or we, you know, do business all over the world, but you’ll take some pleasure in hearing the way our folks in this southern part of the US, maybe with a little bit of a little bit of a southern drawl, like to say warzilla, wartzilla, wardzilla.
Glenn 12:05
Oh, that’s terrible. Now, what would your one of your colleagues think? Would they cringe when they hear the bachelorization? You know,
Speaker 1 12:11
we have a lot of Finnish people in the US, and I think it’s just germane for them now to hear it, and no one, no one blinks an eye.
Glenn 12:18
It’s a little bit like sauna versus sauna. I mean, do you have an opinion on the pronunciation being fin yourself?
Speaker 1 12:25
I have never said the word sauna. I’ve always said sauna. I try to correct people, or at least, I think correct them, because sauna, the word and the concept originates in Finland, of course, and so I think it’s, it’s only fair to them to do that, that little effort that we can, to try to keep the tradition and the origin alive by saying, sauna, beautiful.
Glenn 12:51
So what’s a day in the life like for you, what you’re in? Electrical, a lot of electrical. Like, do you want to get nerdy for a moment and tell us about what projects you undertake.
Speaker 1 13:03
Sure, yeah, the company is over 190 years old, almost 200 years old. Believe it or not, they started building sawmills back in the day, back in the day when Finland was actually part of Russia. So they had to actually get, like, a license more or less from the Russian kingdom to do so they then moved into ship building. And then in the 50s, once more, ships were mechanized. What they did is they moved into building engines for ships. And now that is basically the core part of the business. So those engines are used on ships, large ships, like cruise ships, freighters, etc. And then also on land, and both applications they provide or they generate electricity. And on ships, they power the azipods that move the ships forward and power the lights and navigation and things like that. And then on land, they’re used by utilities and other customers to generate power into the grid. So
Glenn 14:14
So when’s the last time you’ve been to Finland, and give us over the last 10 years, or five years since you’ve been working with worse left. How much time do you spend in Finland? Sure,
Speaker 1 14:26
so I will start with the full history, I guess. So I first went to Finland just as a tourist in 2008 and then started a pretty frequent set of trips to there. I moved there in 2013 until 2015 again, living and working there full time in Helsinki, since I started working for the company, I made quite regular trips to Finland, I would say, anywhere from four to six times a year. Sometimes less, sometimes more, but that’s sort of been the average. So right now we’re in kind of the middle of October 2025 and I last visited there for about two weeks at the beginning of September 2025 so just a little bit more than a month ago.
Glenn 15:15
And when you go tell me, do you Salma, and I’m sure the answer is, I’m gonna put a lot of money that the answer be, tell me, where are you with sauna, and what sauna is like for is part of your travel and work?
Speaker 1 15:31
Yeah, man, I would kind of lump it into a few different categories. So I have kind of a beat, beat jet lag tradition I use when I go there, I can’t get all the way from Minneapolis to my final destination in Finland one day. It’s just not possible due to flight and train schedule. So I usually end up overnighting in Helsinki on my way there. I have a few favorite saunas, like Urim, karui, Mahali, kulturi Sauna, sampa sauna. And I usually hit up one of those on the first night, because I find if I can stay up to sort of a normal bedtime, hit the sauna beforehand, etc. I sleep great. I beat the jet lag. Another category would be, once I actually get to the city in western Finland that I’m going to there’s some sort of standby saunas there. One is a public swimming pool, which I kind of like for the social aspect. Another one in the hotel I like to stay at. It’s about 12 stories tall, and there’s a sauna with a glass atrium and a swimming pool on the top floor, where you can see all across the city, brand new facility. So I tend to go there a lot. That can be just kind of
Glenn 16:40
and that’s right up the elevator from exactly and what’s the
Speaker 1 16:43
city? It’s called Vasa, yeah, on the west coast of Finland. And so this is the socos Royal Vasa Hotel. Has a really nice sound on the top floor there, and that, like I said, that’s kind of my weeknight sauna. There’s others that are closer to Vasa that maybe aren’t a weeknight sounder that I’ve been to many, many times, but like I said, just because they take a little while to get to, it’s usually a weekend affair. But I’m also very fortunate that my employer fairly regularly organizes sort of team building or other social things for our group to do. And so there’s other saunas that are more far flung, typically, that are on the sea. They might be someone’s personal cabin, they might be sort of a resort type facility, but those have been I was real fun. So almost every trip I go there’s some old sauna, there’s some new sauna. And I’d say, over time, I’ve sounded in easily, hundreds of different saunas in Finland.
Glenn 17:42
Love that. And just to summarize, I love how work. I love I love talking with engineers. You guys are always so organized with your answers. So to paraphrase, just kind of summarize this. I mean, I what I heard is that sauna for you, when you go to Finland, it kind of fall into three buckets, one being the jet lag antidote, the other being convenience of where you’re staying, you know, hotel and proximity kind of thing. And then the third is this, this, this work, work, life balance, combo, sauna. And I’d like to drill into that, did I paraphrase them? Okay, you did, yeah, the number three, this, this, how? How significant is it for you working for a finished company, loving sauna, growing up with sauna. But How significant is it to have this bonding time at one of the employees summer cottages or a public sauna where you’re making a social trip? Like, how? Tell us, like, how that helps with your team or with the employees and the bonding. And how significant is it?
Speaker 1 18:48
It’s I can’t overstate the significance, frankly, and I’ll give a couple anecdotes. We’ve had some new people join our team recently, so I basically explain this concept to them. So there’s a lot of us in the US, and a lot of people, particularly on my team, work remotely. So I don’t even see my US based co workers on a regular basis, much less some of my Finnish based co workers or Finland based co workers. And so when you go there, what I’ve told some of these new employees is you really have to make those personal connections, because when you know this new guy, Glenn in Minnesota, sends an email to some person in Finland asking for a favor. They don’t know who Glenn is. It’s Glenn is a name on paper. But if you have gone there and you have spent time in and out of the sauna, having a beer, having a long girl, whatever it is, showing your coworkers that, hey, you’re not too different from the fins over there. I have found, personally, time and time again, that that makes a way more unique connection and a way more beneficial relationship with your coworkers over there to know that. That email comes in from Chris in Minnesota. They think, oh yeah, I sounded with Chris out at such and such sound. I just last summer. He’s a buddy of mine. I need to do him a solid and, you know, answer this email, because it’s way too tempting otherwise for it to kind of fall off into the ether. And so, not only for meeting those people, but also, like I said, I don’t get to see all of my co workers in Finland every time, just because there’s so many and we have all such busy schedules. And so I it is really, really recharging, frankly, to go and to go to one of their mukhis, the summer cottages, and spend time, whether it’s one on one, or in a smaller group or whatever, just chatting it’s I often found it really interesting that, okay, I have these people that are five, 6000 miles away, sometimes the other side of the planet, and I can go there, and we jump in the sauna, and it’s like, you and me, Glen, like, you know, no time has gone by at all. We’re old friends and whatever. And it really is a truly special thing, beautiful.
Glenn 21:02
It’s like, I love that line of good, good heat knows no borders. And absolutely, in the spirit of that, have you had any of your colleagues in this sauna yet? And tell me about, tell listeners about the catalyst, actually, really, what pushed you over the edge to village. Right? Go ahead.
Speaker 1 21:19
I haven’t Yeah, believe it or not, Glenn, you’re the you’re the first outsider so to speak, to experience the sound of so what the catalyst was, was that my company, as I mentioned, works in the energy industry, and we have some ongoing projects in Minnesota right now, some that are very, very close, like within 20 to 30 minutes of where we’re sitting right now. And as part of the what we call commissioning process, basically bringing those facilities online, we really bring in the troops from Finland. I mean, we get, we can have 2030, people on site, all from Finland at a given point in time. So I knew that these projects were going to be coming up. And so I thought, well, what better way to repay that hospitality that I’ve experienced when going to Finland and being taken to someone’s sauna and being shown a good time than to be able to do the same for my co workers who are coming here? So that was really the impetus to kind of get this done and get this built. Unfortunately, the schedule for those projects has gotten pushed back, not due to anything on our side. It’s just very boring construction reasons on behalf of the customer. So the hordo fins is coming. They’re coming a little bit later than we thought, but they’re still coming, and I’ve really teased through just conversations, but also videos and pictures and things like that that. Hey, once you guys come here, there’ll be good sound waiting for you. Have you shared photos? I have shared. I FaceTime here. I’ve got them. I’ve got their sound of tongues wet, so to speak.
Glenn 22:50
Well, let’s dive into that. And I want you to be as bold as you’re comfortable in being about where we’re sitting right now, my book specifically, and the heat source specifically, as you may know, there’s some chatter, some online chatter about what is a Finnish sauna? What isn’t a finished sauna? American stove, sock finished stoves are the only way to go. I really would like you to just be very direct with listeners right here, and preface it by saying how many different saunas in Finland you’ve been in, and give it to me straight your feeling about this,
Chris Heck 23:24
sure, sure. So maybe we’ll talk in generalities first, and then go into the stove a little bit. So, you know, I think, like, the analogy I would give is that the sauna is kind of like a person, right? Like, I’m not 100% Finnish, and neither is this soundness. There’s aspects of it that are finished, but there’s also aspects of it that are different in the way we do things here, in the US. So I did what I thought was right, not only from an esthetic perspective, but also from kind of a design and engineering perspective. So your book really was the template, or the guide for all of this, I would say I followed it almost exactly, maybe a few deviations here and there for various reasons, but really from from the ground up, it follows your your prescription, so to speak,
Chris Heck 24:20
In terms of the heat source, I certainly have heard and experienced what you’re talking about. In my somewhat engineering, somewhat layman’s perspective, it seems that a lot of the Finnish stoves burn hot and fast, which is fine, obviously we want heat, but when you’re feeding the sauna stove every other minute, I think that detracts from the experience. And obviously it’s just it’s not, not not efficient, right, to have to burn that much wood. I also have a tiny little camp sauna stove for my sauna tent that I take camping in northern Minnesota in the summer. And that definitely experiences the hot and fast mentality. It gets really nice and hot, but I more or less in feeding it would constantly. So why did I decide on the Kumma low profile that I did?
Well, first of all, I decided on Kumma as a brand because I experienced it. There are actually several different models in your sauna, and really fell in love with the feel, but also the efficiency, I think, to not have to be dumping a ton of wood into the sauna to keep it hot for hours at a time, it is attractive from a convenience perspective. But then there’s also the pride of being a Minnesotan perspective, and, yeah, I think there are some, maybe some other sauna manufacturers in Minnesota, but no one doing it as well or as close to where I grew up. So thanks to you, I was introduced to Garrett Lamppa at Lamppa Manufacturing and met him and talked this through with him, talked this through with you, got it ordered, and have really, been really, really happy with the heat that I’ve gotten out of it so far. But also just the build of it. You can look at a lot of other sauna stoves that are out there that are maybe made of thinner metal, or don’t have as big a firebox, or don’t have as much fire brick, or what have you. Point is, they’re just not as well made. And so I have yet to see a better made sauna stove on the market, whether that’s a finished stove or an American made stove,
Glenn 26:37
Where to start. What about the heat? Can you’ve been to how many different saunas in Finland?
Chris Heck: 26:45
Easily, in the hundreds.
Glenn 26:47
Would you describe the heat in this sauna, the sauna you built, the Kumma heat compared to heat in Finland? Is there a difference?
Chris Heck: 26:55
Difference? There is a difference. And here, I think if we have some friends who are English majors or poets. This is where they can do us justice by coming up with better words than you and I can think of to describe it. But let’s, let’s take a stab at it. I would say the heat and the löyly or the steam you get from a Kumma stove, you truly feel it all over. It is almost like, again, poor choice of words here, but like a hot or warm fog that envelops you, a mist, almost that covers you from head to toe. Whereas I think other stoves that I’ve experienced, they’re very harsh, sort of snappy heat that maybe hit you in the head or down to the ears or down to the chin, but you don’t feel it down in your abdomen, much less your legs or your toes. And that’s just not the case with the Kumma, you really feel it all over, and I think thanks to the excellent ventilation advice in your book, you feel it all over, but then in time, it dissipates and you can experience it again. So it’s not, it’s not a hot and stuffy room where you hit it once and, Oh no, it’s too hot. Now I just sit here for 20 minutes uncomfortable.
Glenn 28:08
Moving forward. So you, you’re having a gathering with your fellow employees, and maybe you got what, four to six Finns over here. Knowing these guys like you do. You’ve sauna ed with them in the mother country and all that. What do you think they’re gonna say about sitting on the same sauna bench? What do you project?
Chris Heck: 28:27
I think they’re gonna like it honestly. Because I was, like I said, in Finland in September, and we went to a sauna that even my co workers thought was bad. They sort of foreshadowed it, because we went to a sauna in Sweden, actually, and they have a very dim view of Swedish. Made some notes, yes, and so we went there, and I was sort of very happy to hear them complain about it, oddly enough, because it resonated with me, because I knew that it could be done a lot better, and I was grateful that they had sort of that same level of standards, and that they just didn’t want to go in a hot, clammy, stuffy room and sit so I think they’re going to like it, and I’m honestly fairly excited for them to feel it, and whether they sort of have that aha moment that I had the first time I came to your sauna.
Glenn 29:22
beautiful stove specifically. And you can use some of these brands by name if you want. Again, as someone who has sat on the bench with hundreds of saunas. And let’s just say, I got another hypothetical for you, because I really want to drill into this. What if you were German and not Minnesotan? Okay, and you work for your Finnish company, and you experience these 200 plus saunas in Finland, and then, then you were part of this team coming to America, and as a German coming into the sauna, we’re sitting right here. So I’m trying to lay out a hypothetical of neutrality, sure, and taking the subjectivity, or the, you know, the. Personality away. Do you want to care to try to attack that hypothetical
Speaker 1 30:06
I can, and I think I can do a pretty decent job, because I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Germany as well, in German saunas. And they’re different. Not not, I don’t want to say better or worse, but they’re different. And so I think German saunas, at least, in my opinion, tend to fall into one of three camps. The first being most similar to Finnish saunas, right? Relatively same temperature, the same idea of throwing water and getting steam, etc. The second would be this, like idea of bio sauna, where it’s a little bit cooler, typically, scent is a big portion of it. And again, not to, not to say that that’s better or worse, but it’s not my thing. Personally, you know, I’ve been in a lot of them, and I like the hotter sauna. I don’t necessarily care about the scent. And so in that regard, maybe they’ll fall a little short. And then, of course, the third and most famous part would be this, this aufgass Right? The sauna ritual with the sound of Meister, etc. Okay, I think if we had some German here, he could probably do his own alfgas If he wanted. But again, not, not to speak negatively of it, but just not my thing.
Glenn 31:14
Okay, so what if he was from Portugal and never experienced sauna? So when I’m when I’m trying to the great that was not the intention. I was asking a question for but it was a brilliant answer in its own way. But I’m talking about somebody like who didn’t grow up and has no Minnesota bias. Say he’s a he’s a Portuguese and he’s a colleague of yours, sure. And he sounded into 300 saunas in Finland, and now he’s on this work team. He’s just sitting on this sauna bench. Do you think, and he’s a sauna convert, kind of a deal? How do you think this would shake out, like the Minnesota sauna, relative to the Finland sauna?
Speaker 1 31:50
I think he’s going to put it up there with as good a sauna he’s ever been in in Finland, honestly, because I think it’s pretty easy to hold Finnish saunas on a pedestal, but the reality is that life is not black and white, it’s 50 Shades of Gray. So there’s not bad saunas in the US, and good sauna is in Finland. There’s good and bad saunas in both places, and I’ve been in my fair share of good and bad in both places, so I really can’t think of too many things I would want to change about the sauna specifically, as you and I talked about, we I still have sort of a ongoing challenge to sell for cold but the sauna itself, I don’t think there’s really too many things I would I would change. So I think someone coming into it with a fairly neutral view would be pretty darn impressed, especially as it relates to some of the hot and fast Tin Can saunas, whether they’re us or Finnish made.
Glenn 32:55
Well, I want to throw water on that moment and just kind of let that sink in. I I think it’s easy to sort of put on a pedestal the quote, unquote saunas in Finland. And you and I both have a lot of great affinity and respect for those saunas. But, yeah, I mean good heat knows no borders. And I think we really have an opportunity here to stand up and say that we’re making great sauna in North America, and I think you’re right on the cusp of helping break down this bias Absolutely. And so I want to thank you for that, man. That’s my pleasure. It’s great. It’s some of the dynamics of good heat for you. What about this radiant talk,
Unknown 33:43
like infrared saunas? Well,
Glenn 33:45
like, like, oh, this, you know, so the slander of, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1 33:48
I see what you’re saying. And so would it be fair to say that that is mostly relegated to the sphere of electric stoves compared to
Glenn 33:56
so what would you say to somebody, if they say, oh, Kuma produces way too much radiant, not enough convective. Kuma is not really a sauna stove. Interesting. What would you say to that?
Speaker 1 34:08
I would say that I have not personally experienced that. I have definitely experienced that more with other stoves, be it my little wood camping sauna stove, be it electric stoves, be it finish made, say, Harvia, Ethan, whatever wood burning stoves. You didn’t mention it, but, you know, we came in here and the sauna had been burning for about an hour. Decently. We didn’t throw any water on it right away, and we sat in here for a good 10 or 15 minutes without really breaking a sweat. And so I think that is a scientific method for saying, Well, no, there really isn’t that much radiant heat coming off. It
Glenn 34:46
Right on. Thanks. Wow. I don’t want to leave the hot room, but I want to pause this topic, because to me, it’s, it’s very important. I’m just a huge fan of what we’ve created in North America. I’m a huge fan of sauna everywhere, like the Norwegians, by example, are making great sauna, and they’re not hung up as much on some of these pedantic rules of what is sauna, what isn’t sauna. And I think if I could just offer an opinion, is that what you’re bringing forward is a spirit of positivity, instead of trying to pull apart and put labels on where we’re sitting right now and what we’re feeling so, yeah, I mean, I like, Okay, so let’s talk about this heater itself. Do you have any idea how many pounds of rocks are sitting on this Kuma low profile? It’s it’s a shit ton,
Speaker 1 35:36
isn’t it? I don’t know a number. I’m afraid I should, because I went and picked them all up myself and hand carried them in here, etc, yeah, where did you get the rocks? I actually just went to a local landscapes,
Unknown 35:46
and they are, they are great
Glenn 35:47
rocks. Sorry to interrupt, but you know the heat capacity, the emissivity of this, I mean, wow. My friend calls this like. You can throw water in different spots and get different steam. Have you been experimenting with that?
Speaker 1 36:09
Absolutely. So what our what our guests on audio can’t see is, of course, we have the normal rock surround on the sauna stove, but we also have the surround on the chimney pipe, as well as the Kuma Zen wave system, which is more or less a pipe system that goes down under the rocks and distributes the water in smaller doses right onto the stove surface. So with those three things alone, not not even to mention where you’re throwing it, you can get three different, totally, yes, total different types of steam that that feel different, that, I don’t want to use the word harsh, but they have different levels of intensity, and you feel it in different ways, and you feel it for different amounts of time. And this is sort of the ultimate, choose your own adventure. Soundness, yeah,
Glenn 36:55
yeah, great. Well said. And the steam isn’t driving us to the, you know, to the exit here. I’m getting ready to cool down. Thanks for sharing that insight. And you use this neutrally, I would say you’re not, you don’t have a dog in the hunt here.
Speaker 1 37:11
No, like I was saying earlier, you know, there, there is no black and white in the world, whether it’s sauna or anything else. And I think in this case, I did what felt right to me, whether that was following your instructions from sort of a buddy perspective, whether that was using my engineering education to say, well, this doesn’t really make sense. Whether it’s using my job and knowing what modern building techniques are like, or, as you said, using my life experiences of growing up in a Finnish American household and traveling to Finland often to know, what do people do that I like, and what don’t they like? And this is, this is my sauna. So, yeah,
Glenn 37:50
so we’re on the cooldown. And, you know, I was gonna get you a long drink. What do you like to have between rounds and in Finland and here in Minnesota? Well,
Speaker 1 37:57
you know, in Finland, the long drink is, like, just the most popular thing. You know, quite literally, there’s been times in Finland where we’re at a outing with my co workers, and we drink it from morning till midnight, basically. So I can’t do it forever. I like, you know, 123, but eventually all the sugar kind of adds up and overwhelms me. So I like to mix it up. You know, sometimes it’s a long drink. Sometimes I may have a cocktail. Sometimes some of these kind of hydration multiplier things, the liquid IV type stuff. Sometimes I’ll go for one of those. I mix it up. Yes, is my
Glenn 38:33
answer. Sounds good. So let’s talk for listeners a little bit about your build specifically. And we’re going to touch upon maybe three points, and we’ll see how we last. We can go in the hot room here, and anytime you’re ready. So which one do you want to talk What would you like to visit?
Speaker 1 38:50
Let’s talk about this, the size first, and maybe kind of the base, quite literally, the base. So I think I have somewhat of a unique thing there, or something that I haven’t seen too many other places, and it came from you, which was this aluminum base. So I think, as your book talks about, you know, maybe building out of six by sixes or something like that, and built, building a wooden base, and just with the slope in my yard, and the potential for not super compacted soil, having this super beefy aluminum base that, you know, maybe could have the possibility to be moved at some point, if we really wanted to, was really attractive. And so more or less what I did is I flatten the ground pretty darn well. We brought this aluminum base over. It’s on blocks which leveled it a little bit more. And then it was easy. It was it was easy, an 812 an 812 Yeah, I think that’s another good point. It’s, it really is kind of the golden ratio, you know, to borrow some engineering or math terms there. It really is the golden ratio, or the perfect size for a backyard sound, because it’s not too big. It’s. Not too small. You’ve got a decent sized hot room, a nice size change room, and it doesn’t its mass doesn’t or its volume, I should say, doesn’t overwhelm the size of a typical city backyard,
Glenn 40:12
beautiful. Did you put the common wall pretty much center? Or how did you balance hot room to cool down room?
Speaker 1 40:18
I’m a little bit off center. So the it really is just a matter of inches, though, you know, I’m a tall guy, and at one point I had dreams of perhaps laying down flat, but that’s just not, not realistic for a sauna of this size. So it’s, it’s, I’ll say something like about 5545
Glenn 40:40
there about little more hot room, little bit little bit bigger in the hot room. Yep, let’s talk about the ceiling and the roof. Yeah. What was your thought processes through that, and what did you settle upon and why?
Speaker 1 40:52
Yeah, so it was part esthetic and part engineering. So from an esthetic perspective, when we talked about the roof line and whether to have kind of a gable roof or a shed roof, ended up going with the kind of shed roof design, mostly from an esthetic perspective, but then that’s really where the engineering piece of it comes in. And I’m sure, as readers can read or listen to on your website, obviously you want to have the sound laid out such that the benches are over the higher side of the roof, so that the steam collects and cycles through that side, whereas if you were to have in the reverse, the steam would just sit over the stove and never get Yeah,
Glenn 41:35
we call that the triangle trap, exactly. And that’s where we have seen and I’ve actually helped on a couple where you have a shed roof, meaning one slope, not a gable. So a shed roof with a flat ceiling, and it’s perfectly easy to do, but very efficient the way you did.
Speaker 1 41:54
Yes, yes. And I, to be honest, Glenn, I was tempted to perhaps do as you say, and still have the shed roof with a flat ceiling on the inside. But, you know, humans are ultimately lazy, and unfortunately laziness one out a little bit there, because it is pretty easy to just insulate that roof and continue with that same stove, versus having to put in kind of a sleeper ceiling and then have that kind of void, and
Glenn 42:17
you’re always messing around with that. What do you do with that cavity, exactly and that, but it is really efficient and and, yeah, again, those listening. I’ll put a couple of photos so you get a real flavor of this slope, ceiling. How about the cladding? Horizontal, Vertical? Tell us the thought process for you on that
Speaker 1 42:37
right? So I went back and forth on this a lot, mostly from an esthetics perspective. I’m personally not really aware of any functional or scientific reason to go one way or the other. If there are, I’d be interested to hear them. But, you know, this was one that I went back and forth on a lot, and ultimately decided to go with vertical orientation of the tongue and groove inside somewhat as just a contrast to the horizontal siding that I have on the outside. Just to mix it up a little bit, and you look at it through the window, I think it is a nice a nice
Unknown 43:16
contrast. It is. I’ll try
Glenn 43:18
to get a photo of that exactly, but just great detail, attention to detail with your build and how the colors match your house. It looks like it’s been here a long time, the landscaping, I think I almost want to hit pause and take some photos right now. I mean, the light is just so perfect, and it feels very Nordic, if I if I have to say so. But it also feels in, you know, like it’s speaking to the house itself. How old is your house?
Speaker 1 43:48
A house is 105 years old. Was built in 1920
Glenn 43:51
and what style architecture is your house? Yeah, I would call it kind
Speaker 1 43:57
of craftsman Ethan. It’s not, not, not a bungalow, but craftsman Ethan. I don’t think you like the sound. It doesn’t adhere to a specific style, really.
Glenn 44:05
Speaker 1 44:36
Sure. So again, I kind of followed your your recipe on this, but at the same time, learn a little bit more. You and I had some sort of conversations that were outside the scope of the book about this, but more or less it follows the typical pattern of having a. An intake low on the wall behind the stove, and then having two outtakes, not outtake, but outgoing vents on in the corner furthest away from the stove, one that’s directly below the upper bench, and then one that’s just a few inches away from the ceiling. So the idea being that the fresh air is drawn in from behind the stove. You have the vent that’s underneath the top bench cracked open to allow just for some some gradual air movement through the sauna while you’re using it, and that the high vent is really only used at the end of the day for the kind of baking and airing out of the sauna to clear all the excess moisture and allow the stove and the room to dry.
Glenn 45:47
Yeah. So Chris, anything else for I got a few rapid fire questions, but anything else that you’d like? Listeners of sono talk know whether it be the mother country, you know the word, you know the origin, the ubiquity of sauna in Finland. Your upbringing in northern Minnesota, how that culture may differ from Finland? And I’m just kind of throwing some chum in the water, but share with us any thoughts that you have that we haven’t touched upon.
Speaker 1 46:18
Yeah, I mean, there’s there’s a lot there, there. There’s commonalities and there’s differences between each but I think, as we’ve talked about, Glenn, there is no, there’s no right and wrong. Okay, maybe that, that’s not, that not, not totally true. There’s, there’s ideas that fall into the camp of being better ideas than others. But I would say there there’s good sauna and there’s bad sauna in both places. But ultimately, the sauna that feels right and feels at home to you is the best one to have,
Glenn 46:51
beautiful. So it’s sauna day like you today, you woke up and you knew that we were going to sauna and stuff. As you think about a sauna day, if you had to distill it. What’s, you know, what’s the your most favorite moment? Like? What comes to mind? First, the anticipation and the starting the fire, the first low Lu, you know, going to bed at night. You know what moment sticks out to you as the best if you had to, if you had to pick one right now, if I have to
Speaker 1 47:22
pick one, it’s it’s the post sauna feeling. And I have some really, really powerful memories in my head of living in Finland in the winter time. And of course, Finland being so north, so far north, the sun sets relatively early in the day. So I have these visions or these memories in my head of it being pitch black out, and it was, but it was maybe only five or six o’clock at night. Yeah. But anyway, I have these really powerful memories in my head of going to really nice sound in Finland, having just a great few sessions, and then walking home with just that, that that blissful feeling. I mean, it’s better than any, any drug or any, any other feeling you can have in the world to be super nice and warm and happy and clean and walking back through the dark and the cold and the snow in your face and nothing like in the world beautiful.
Glenn 48:18
You’ve traveled all over the world. You’re a big traveler. You shared a bunch of stuff, bunch of travel information for me about Iceland, which I appreciate, and I have it kept you were very kind to do that for me, like five pages worth of insights on Iceland itself and all over Europe. You’ve been you just got back from France. Just got back from
Speaker 1 48:39
France. Yeah. Well, welcome. I, you know, Glenn talking about Iceland. You and I had identified that as a country perhaps in need of some education with regard to how to build good sound. Well, I, you know, that may have been the mediocre student, but I think I’ve just found the failing student for you, which is France. And I really like France for a variety of reasons, but let me tell you, they have some of the worst saunas.
Glenn 49:07
It’s funny how it doesn’t translate across the English Channel. You know, the Brits are totally into it. And it’s in Germany, the French are like me,
Unknown 49:16
yeah,
Speaker 1 49:17
they’re just not. They’re not feeling it. I don’t know why.
Glenn 49:21
So if you could have a mobile sauna and bring it anywhere in the world, what’s a as a guy who’s traveled as much as you have, what’s the first place that comes to mind where you would love to bring a sauna?
Speaker 1 49:32
I I think any place close to water. So for example, one of the places I was not too long ago with st malo in France, up in in Brittany, and stayed on the coast there, overlooking the water, beautiful, beautiful coastline. And my hotel had what they called a hammam, really. It was kind of a temperate steam room. And I thought, man, wouldn’t this be great? Eight to be able to sit in a great sauna and then jump in the ocean for a swim. I didn’t go swimming. I just didn’t have a sauna before. Unfortunately, cool.
Glenn 50:09
So, Brittany, Brittany, that would be awesome. You could be the French ambassador. You have the credentials. I think you touched on this. Another Rapid Fire question, and I ask is, what do you think about what do you think is most misunderstood about sauna? And, you know, I have to put this in context, because I’ve been asking this question since I started this podcast in 2016 and in eight years, we’ve really come a long way to understanding, you know, but I think this question has has a little bit deeper complexity now that song has become more popular, but, and I asked a lot of the guests who are researchers, you know, doctors, and I get really great answers to this question about what’s misunderstood. And you know, like a good answer has been that you need a sand timer, and you need to be in for X amount of time for the health benefits to happen. And so I get a lot of good answers like that, but I think I’d love to hear your take. What do you think is most misunderstood about sauna that you would like others to know? I think I’ll give
Speaker 1 51:17
two answers. The first is that the sauna has to be somehow uncomfortable or unpleasant. I’ve certainly encountered my fair share of co workers who come not from the US or from Finland, but from other countries, and for reasons I don’t totally understand, they’re almost scared of the sauna. I think perhaps part of it is the nudity that is prevalent in Finnish saunas, but I think more of it is honestly around the heat and the steam and they think they’re going to get burned or that it’s going to be somehow just uncomfortable or not pleasant. And I don’t, I don’t truly understand where that comes from. But as you and I know, we don’t sit in here because we’re masochists. We sit in here because we enjoy it. So I think that’s one but I think the other answer I would give is that there is no ultimate right or wrong with sauna. Okay, I do reject the idea of, for example, infrared being considered a sauna. That’s not a sauna. But with regard to what you were just saying, There is no right or wrong that you have to sit in the sauna for 15 minutes and then jump in a snowbank or whatever you do what feels right to you. And I, you know, I was actually in a sauna business here in the Twin Cities and the last year or so, and the person who the attendant there, kept talking about the sauna ritual, and you have to do this step, and that’s it. Man, I really was just massively rolling my eyes at this because she made it so formulaic that you had to do this, you had to do that. And, I mean, it was almost like we had to have an agenda set out for our sauna session. Of you must do this for four minutes and 38 seconds and then do this. And that’s just so totally false and so totally wrong. I mean, sauna is meant to enjoy, and you can define what that means to you.
Glenn 53:15
Lovely. Thank you. Yeah, it’s a great time to end, but I want to take this time also to dive back into sauna stoves and get something else on record. From an engineering perspective, from a experiential perspective, you know, couple 100 saunas in Finland. Would you say you’ve experienced sauna with every major sauna heater brand, every, pretty much everyone,
Speaker 1 53:43
I would say I absolutely have to. I mean, I honestly can’t think of a brand out there that’s mainstream. Let’s say that I haven’t personally been in and
Glenn 53:53
what would you say if someone said that heavy steel stoves are not good sauna and that thin metal stoves make better heat and convection and all that. How would you respond to a claim like that?
Speaker 1 54:07
Well, I think we can. We can do it in two ways. We can look at the engineering perspective and just say, well, is something that’s super thin and light, likely to last for the long term, likely to withhold thermal shocks, likely to be able to hold hundreds of pounds of rock. No. I mean, you can say that from a very objective sense. But I would also challenge that by saying, let’s look back at the history of sauna in Finland. And the history of sauna in Finland is with the Sabu sauna, the smoke sauna, where what they would do is they would basically build a fire and let it burn for hours and hours and hours surrounded by a ton of rock. And basically they would build up a huge thermal mass, they put the fire out, they go in the room, and they would enjoy the sauna. So I would challenge anyone who argues that a lot of. Thermal mass, whether it’s steel or rock or whatever, is bad when the very origin of sauna mandates a lot of thermal mass. Beautiful.
Speaker 2 55:09
Lampo masa. Lampo masa. Do you know this way? Yes, yes. Is
Glenn 55:14
this a word you use in your in your job, or is it strictly sauna related?
Speaker 1 55:18
I think this is strictly a sauna related thing, I don’t use it my job.
Speaker 1 55:28
Do you think you’d get any raised guarantee? I would get a few raised eyebrows, probably a call back after some meetings and What?
Glenn 55:36
What? That’s great. Chris, thanks for being a part. I want to throw some lolu and virtual lolu For you folks listening to sauna talk. Yeah, Matt, this is like, it’s great to be on the bench and have conversations like this. And I want to kind of revisit a little bit about these company trips, the culture, your corporate culture, being able to gather like that. This is top down management culture, right?
Speaker 1 56:05
Absolutely, yeah, it’s a stark, it’s a stark cultural difference between US companies and foreign companies. And I’ll say, you know, you really can’t even blame capitalism, because at least my company, it’s a publicly traded company. I’m the Helsinki NASDAQ, and yet there is room for this sort of thing within the corporate culture and the corporate budget. And I’m very glad and humbled and happy that our management realizes that. And really, this does happen at all levels of the company. There’s management type level outings, there’s team type level like with my manager and the people on our team, but also, say, with my manager’s manager and everyone under his umbrella, we all still do get together, and so I’m very again, glad that they recognize how worthwhile that is to keeping up team spirit and camaraderie and just overall team building, that we can spend time together and not have to talk about work and KPIs and all the corporate bs of just they will come out and say, Guys, we’re here today to have fun. Go out, have fun, have a good time, and you know, we’ll come back to the work stuff a different day. Cool, cool.
Glenn 57:27
Does work ever find its way into conversation on the bench or outside? Or is this kind of an unwritten rule that it’s not shop talk?
Speaker 1 57:36
Well, it’s an interesting question, because I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this story of the former Finnish President ur rokekonen negotiating with his Russian counterpart Stalin on the bench. And so there is a certain allowable element of business in the sauna when that’s the goal, but when we’re having our team outings or whatever, the only work talk is incidental. And I think if you start really getting into some corporate topic, someone’s going to give you the sly high or better off hit this over a couple of
Glenn 58:14
rounds. So Chris, final words. Take us out. Thanks again for the sono talk podcast. I’ve really
Speaker 1 58:21
enjoyed. It My pleasure. Glenn, you know, happy to have this kind of debrief with you, even if it is for a podcast. But just over this, this whole event of building the sound of, you know, getting the yard ready for for the year, and talking about all these topics that we’ve kind of had informally over time, now in a more serious sense, so it’s been, been my pleasure. Thank you.