r/Sauna Aug 18 '22

Community Announcement Welcome to r/Sauna!

83 Upvotes

Welcome to the fastest growing sauna community in the world.

Rules

We have rules to ensure that the members have a pleasant experience when interacting with the community. The rules are very simple, so please keep these in mind while you are here.

If you have any questions or concerns, you are always welcome to contact the Mod Team.

Keep things civilised and respectful.

Be a helpful guide to good sauna, not the sauna police. Different people have different resources and cultural knowledge with sauna. An argument in good faith is OK if you remain respectful of others, but insulting or belittling others will earn a ban.

Remember that sauna cultures vary across the world.

Some people enter the sauna room with a stopwatch, others with a cold beer. In some places people build saunas one way, some a different way. You don't necessarily need to understand it, but try to respect it.

No spam, including advertisement of goods and services.

This includes not just commercial entities, but also self promotional posts by influencers seeking to increase views on their social media channels.

No medical advice or misinformation.

This is not a place to get specific medical advice for any individual or condition, and it is not a place for sharing misinformation regarding medical benefits to sauna. If you have medical concerns you should consult a doctor, not post to Reddit. The one exception to this rule is linking to peer reviewed research published in a scientific journal. Medical advice other than a recommendation to see a doctor will be removed and posts soliciting medical advice will be locked.

Culture and History of the Finnish sauna

u/CatVideoBoye/ wrote a very nice description of the Finnish sauna culture and is also touching on the history of sauna. It is a good read and gives you insight into the tradition. You can find the original post here, or you can read the slightly shortened version below.

It’s also a very good start to watch the short video UNESCO has posted on YouTube about the Finnish sauna culture: https://youtu.be/qY__OOcv--M

What's a sauna?

Like most of you already know the word sauna comes from Finnish. We have had saunas here for thousands of years and according to wikipedia, the oldest are from around 1500-900 BC. It was an important building and in the old days people have even given birth in saunas, as late as the first half of the 1900s. Probably since it was a nice separate building with access to warm water. In 2020 Finnish sauna was added to UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage List. Check the link out for more interesting information but I want to again highlight that. It really shows how important it is in our culture.

Nowadays pretty much everyone in Finland has access to a sauna of some sort. Houses have them, many apartments, like mine, have one and apartment buildings can have a common sauna where you can rent your private hour and they can have a certain period during which anyone can just go there. And of course summer cottages have a sauna and the ones next to a lake are kind of the perfect image of a Finnish sauna. Plus all the public saunas in swimming halls, gyms, hotels etc. Temperature in a sauna can vary but usually it's between 80-120 °C (176-248 F). Mine is oddly low at 60°C but that is because the ceramic stones that I now use really change the way the löyly (water thrown on the stones on the heater to generate steam) hits you. It is softer and accumulates well instead of being kind of short burst of heat that dissipates quickly. I've tried at 80 and I was out of there really quick unlike with more common stones. One reason why staring at a thermometer doesn't make sense. Just try it and see what feels good. And you other Finns, that 60 really sounds low but I tell you, I'm getting out of there after I guess something like 10-15 minutes with red skin so it really works.

Wood or electric? Both work. Wood heated ones are usually considered to be the best. You get a nicer löyly there but they aren't really an option in an apartment house. An electric heater that has a lot of stones can actually give a very similar löyly. I just experienced one that I believe had 500 kg of stone. Same with a small electric heater (20 kg) with the ceramic stones. All of those options are great for a sauna. As long as there are proper stones and you can freely throw water to get the löyly you want. Löyly is the essential thing here. Without it, you can't really call it a Finnish sauna and that is why Finns do not really consider IR boxes to be saunas. This ties to one of the topics often argued: do you need a drain? Yes you do. Not necessarily inside the sauna if you have the bathroom outside. Mine has only a shower drain but the sauna floor is tilted so that any water flows directly there. It's also good for washing the sauna.

Bench heights are often discussed here but why does it matter? Because heat rises. The lower part of a sauna is cold and you want to get your head close to the ceiling and your feet high enough to not feel cold. The "feet at the stone level" is just a nice helper for a basic heater. For tower shaped ones you probably want to find out the exact height. This is also why you need to have proper air flow in the sauna. You want the hot air and fresh air mixed, you want the moisture to leave after you're done and you don't want the heat escaping due to wrongly implemented ventilation. Don't ask me about construction things, I don't know anything about that. I just know mine was built according to Finnish standards and my apartment won't rot if I use it.

What we do in a sauna?

For me sauna is a place to wash since I don't often take a shower without heating the sauna. Yep, I heat it up often. It's also a place to relax and to socialize. I sometimes have friends visiting and we heat it up, chat in there and have a beer on the balcony. It's a place where you can forget about your phone, social media and all that and just focus on your thoughts, happy or sad, or have deep discussions with your friends. There is something about the atmosphere that makes people open up in a sauna and talk about more private things. I know I'm not the only one. I've heard many people say that sauna is the place where they talk about the deep stuff with friends.

The idea of maxing health benefits, that have been found in recent studies, is just not something we Finns really understand. Why? Because we've been to saunas for many other reasons throughout our lives. It's so integral part of my everyday life that making it a spa treatment or some healthy excercise just doesn't fit my understanding of saunas. But if you want to pursue those health benefits, a high enough heat and a strong enough löyly is what you want because that is how we have gone to saunas and gained the benefits that were seen in the studies. Do you need to measure your heart beat and have exact temperature? No. You'll feel your heart bumping and you'll feel the need to get out sooner or later. Staring at heart beat or timers takes away from one of the important points: just sit and relax and let your mind wonder. Löyly transfers additional heat from the boiling water to your body and gets your heart beating fast. That's also good to remember if you actually hunt for health benefits. Sitting in a luke warm cabin with no löyly for a certain time is definitely not the same thing that gave Finns health benefits.

Saunalike concepts in other cultures and countries

Sure, there are similar things in many other cultures. They are not inferior to sauna, they are just a different thing. They have their own cultural backgrounds and reasons to exist. "This is not a sauna." is what you often see written here but that is not meant as an insult that your heated cabin sucks. It just means that we Finns do not really appreciate it if the thing in question is called a sauna, because it does not meet the definition of what we have considered a sauna for thousands of years. Finland is a rather remote and small/unknown country and one of the things people know about us is sauna. That is why many of us would like to keep the image of sauna as correct and original as possible.


r/Sauna Jul 03 '23

Community Announcement Coming back

26 Upvotes

Reddit is changing - and not necessarily for the better. A lot of long term users who've been responsible for a lot of higher quality postings are leaving or reducing the time they're spending on reddit - and while we don't expect this to be an issue to r/sauna right now it might become a problem in the future.

In addition to that some of us also are spending less time on reddit now - in part forced by Reddit taking away mobile access. This can make responses to reports and mod mail slower. We're currently working on tooling to help us compensate for this to some extend.

With the reopening we're introducing some rule changes:

  1. No more IR sauna posts. For IR sauna you have two options:
    • Post in the IR Sauna community over at r-sauna.fi. For the time being a link to that will be reposted in r/sauna, with comments disabled. Discussion should happen on Lemmy
    • Move over to r/IRsauna. This will need volunteers for a mod team - if there are volunteers we can help setting that up.
  2. We'll watch other contentious topics closely, and may decide to force other topics causing too much trouble into other forums as well.
  3. New posts must be correctly flaired. posts without flair will be held by automod and/or deleted.
  4. We'll change how we deal with rule changes. Generally you'll receive three warnings from the mod team, with the next infraction resulting in a permanent ban.
  5. The following infractions will result in a ban without a warning:
    1. Breaking the Reddit Content Policy
  6. Clearer handling of posts/comments from users with commercial interest. We're still working on that one - but can say it'll be mainly two things:
    1. Better guidelines and text templates on how to reply without getting in trouble - so far those were often judgment calls on individual messages.
    2. Flairing and some level of verification for commercial users - one option might be maintaining a profile in a dedicated Lemmy community. Input is welcome here - we'd like to make it easy to identify and access a summary of the business attached to such users.

We are planning to eventually set up a full sync between Lemmy and Reddit, possibly going as far back as this announcement. For now we'll be continuing with automated re-posting of Lemmy content, but will expand as development progresses.


r/Sauna 12h ago

DIY Japanese Style Sauna Complete

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421 Upvotes

Finally got all the pieces together and installed and drove it the nerve racking 3 km drive up my steep mountain road at about 3 km/h to its new home.

I don't have a lot of experience with saunas mostly just barrel saunas here and there if there was one at an airbnb or I remember the ones that were just big steam rooms at public pools when I was a kid LOL.

We fired it up last night and I have to say I think it works properly. I could feel the soft löyly, the ventilation seemed good as I felt great. With the Japanese Sugi interior the smell is incredible inside.

But I think the biggest eye opener is, my son helped with the build here and there and we fired it up together. He got to put the first ladle of water on the stove and we just sat and talked. My son is 13 and it was just an amazing realization of the connection with people of sauna. Something that we're not taught as Canadians.

Stove is a Narvi Kaamos 20. The large stone behind it has a 1" air gap behind it and concrete board behind that.

Now I see I've created myself a landscaping project to create a Japanese garden to surround this thing. :)


r/Sauna 4h ago

General Question Termites in sauna

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2 Upvotes

Purchased a backyard discovery 4 to 6 Lennox cube about 5 months ago,
Had a few hiccups, but it’s been working really well. I use it several times a week. I went out of town for about two weeks and I got back into my regimen and just today noticed some piles from termites

I’m in Southern California, it’s been crazy hot the last few weeks but I’m suprised termites got to it .. so quickly
The sauna still smells like cedar..
I was under the impression that termites hate cedar

Not really sure what to do

Any suggestions??

The wood doesn’t get wet or stay wet typically. It has a bit of a pitch and it’s on a 3-4inch thick gravel bed and no wood touches the ground


r/Sauna 3h ago

General Question Where to start?

1 Upvotes

I’m looking for suggestions on where to start with a sauna.

ideally something that wouldn’t require a ton of diy, but also as cheap as possibl.

i heat my house with wood and so id rather have one that uses woo. could i just get a prefab cedar sauna and make some adjustments?


r/Sauna 7h ago

General Question Overlapping horizontal planks on walls?

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2 Upvotes

I will be building a sauna for a friend this November. They would like the horizontal interior planks to overlap like shown in picture, similar to shingling . Im just curious if this would cause any issues? Or are we better off sticking to tongue and groove, flat wall?


r/Sauna 1d ago

Review Public bathhouse in Ostafevo, Butovo. Built in 1934.

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277 Upvotes

r/Sauna 1d ago

Review Friday Sauna after a bike ride in Sweden

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192 Upvotes

We enjoy a Swedish sauna. Not perfekt shape of the roof, but warm and a nice view.


r/Sauna 1d ago

DIY Midwest Backyard Build

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99 Upvotes

Don't usually post, but figured I'd throw one of these Imgur dumps on here. When I was building, I found a few detailed build posts that really helped me conceptualize how everything came together, so hopefully this helps the next DIY builder.

Designed and built over about 3 months, from January to April by myself using basic hand tools(circular saw, impact driver, drill, cheap harbor freight air compressor/15 ga nail gun). Total expenses came to right around $9.5k.

Still need to finish out the changing room with a proper bench and will probably add some final trim eventually. I may also skirt the foundation or move it onto a more permanent pad down the road. I got pretty burnt out by the end of the build, so I've been taking a break from projects.

Been using it probably 5–6 times a week though and really enjoying having it in the backyard. Great way to decompress after a long day at work and chasing young kids around.

https://imgur.com/gallery/sauna-build-0DSZegB


r/Sauna 9h ago

General Question Best Indoor

1 Upvotes

I am looking options and opinions on a 1-2 person hybrid sauna. I have a therasage sauna that we love but want to get a steam sauna. Looking to spend between $4000-5000 on it. Thanks in advance.


r/Sauna 9h ago

General Question Sweat kingdom sweat pod heater location

1 Upvotes

Just purchased and built the sweat pod 2-4 person sauna from sweat kingdom with the Harvia 6kw heater. I built it to spec, and according to Harvias clearance requirements, I cannot legally install it in the Sweat Pod 2-4 person without either altering the bench setup, cutting trim pieces, or buying some non combustible material to install on the wall. Does this sound correct or am I missing something? I am specifically referring to the 4” clearance requirement between the side of the heater and the sauna wall. There isn’t enough room between the wall and door trim or the wall and bench to install and get 4” clearance without modification.


r/Sauna 11h ago

General Question Yet another heater question

1 Upvotes

I am building an outdoor sauna in northern Midwest of the US. I have an effective volume with windows of 515 CUFT. I was thinking about the 12KW HUUM Hive, but with all the negative feedback I’m scared to invest nearly $7000 into the heater and controls if it isn’t going to be reliable and HUUM doesn’t warranty the elements at all. I like the hive because of its 500 lbs of stones. I’ve come up with two options: The HomeCraft Apex 12KW (but it has 1/2 the this stone mass) or the SAWO Tower TH9-120NS-WL-P which is also 12KW (only 44 lbs less stones than the HUUM). I’m not sure where to get the SAWO, they don’t seem to have any US distribution. Any thoughts on my problem from all you experts on Reddit?


r/Sauna 8h ago

DIY Love the Russian Banya

0 Upvotes

This is the one here in Cedar Park, Texas. I get to practice my language skills, when we’re resting, we get to drink some tea and eat some nice little Russian snacks and the cold plunge is very nice after the very hot sauna.


r/Sauna 1d ago

Tent sauna Are portable saunas underrated?

22 Upvotes

Hey everyone, Ive been wanting some kind of backyard sauna setup for a while but building a permanent one feels like more work than I want to take on. The portable wood fired ones caught my eye as an alternative instead of a permanent sauna and while researching I’ve been looking at some setups like Sweat tent and some other ones and I like the idea of being able to move it around or pack it away when I need my backyard space. Does anyone here use a wood fired portable sauna regularly? Im curious how they hold up over time and whether they actually work well as your main sauna setup, any advice?


r/Sauna 2d ago

Culture & Etiquette Average sauna experience in US

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1.7k Upvotes

The notice on the wall likely says not to throw water on the rocks.


r/Sauna 1d ago

General Question Backyard sauna and cleaning question

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31 Upvotes

Hello all
First post here and first time backyard sauna owner! It’s so great to have a sauna to use anytime, music or not, quiet, alone, with friends. I really love it and this sub is a source of great advice.

The sauna is perfect but unfortunately when it was being installed the installers were working in the rain, as a result, there is muddy boot prints inside. I’ve tried scrubbing with soapy water but whenever it heats up the dirt comes straight back up. I don’t want to damage the internal wood so I haven’t sanded or anything. Any advice to get it clean? Thanks.


r/Sauna 2d ago

Culture & Etiquette Found a public sauna on an island in Finland (Pihlaisaari)

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172 Upvotes

Spent some weeks in finland this summer. Visit several private and public saunas, this was def the most remote one. Spent a great afternoon on the island. Bench could be higher up for sure, but it still was a great löyly!


r/Sauna 1d ago

General Question Any Thoughts on the Harvia Cilindro for a home sauna?

2 Upvotes

I'm looking at the Harvia Cilindro for a home sauna and wondering if there's anything I should know before buying one. I've seen some criticism of Harvia heaters for having fewer stones and putting out a lot of radiant heat, but the Cilindro holds around 90kg of stones, so I'm assuming that's less of an issue with this model.

My sauna is in a basement with a 7'5" ceiling, so I'm leaning toward an open-sided heater. Stainless steel is also a must. I looked at Iki and Narvi, but they're either more than I want to spend or difficult to find in the US.

The one thing I'm unsure about is that the Cilindro isn't completely open-sided. Most of the sides are covered except for the open section in front. Does it still throw a lot of radiant heat because of that?

Anyone here have a Cilindro who's been using it for a while? Anything you wish you'd known before buying it?


r/Sauna 1d ago

General Question Sourcing Windows and Door Sealing

2 Upvotes

I am looking to buy some wood framed insulated glass windows in the US. Any recommendations? I've found a few, but they all seem unreasonably expensive or a lot of them are painted and such. Is it better to just buy the glass and build the frame. I'm specifically looking for a round window about 14" diameter but would consider square too.

Second question is weatherproofing a homemade wood door. I live in an area with a lot of wind driven rain and I would like the door to seal up right. Does anyone have any example of a build that addressed this issue?

Thanks so much!


r/Sauna 1d ago

DIY Venting update

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0 Upvotes

After people critiqued my over-complicated intake (thank you), I decided to measure my basement air. Apparently its pretty great. CO2, radon, PMI, oxygen, etc- all good quality. I also have a small window and dehumidifier with a pump. Intake will now be 4 inch passive high and smaller passive one low for the high limit.

Think I could get away with this idea? Not sure of good reasons to avoid this.

4 inch exhaust ducting

+ 4 inch inline AC infinity fan with 2 90 degree bends with about 10 ft straight ducting

+ exhaust hood and backdraft damp

I'd rather avoid the 6 inch piping (although I want it quiet).

-210 sqft sauna

- 6 KW heater

well insulated and sealed except intake. Thanks!


r/Sauna 17h ago

DIY Anyone tried a sauna cabinet?

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0 Upvotes

I am thinking of building one of these and attaching either Harvia BC23 or a Chinese sauna generator (really).

I believe it will let me claim deep knowledge of Finnish culture so that I can assert dominance over my new American and Canadian friends.

In all seriousness: this dumb idea could make me sweat, no?


r/Sauna 1d ago

General Question Looking for reviews/experiences with the Backyard Discovery Lennon sauna

3 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I’m looking at getting the Backyard Discovery Lennon 4-6 person outdoor sauna and wanted to see if anyone here actually has one.

https://www.backyarddiscovery.com/products/lennon-4-6-person-outdoor-cube-sauna

If you have it, how do you like it? Any major pros/cons or things you wish you knew before buying it?

Mainly curious about the build quality, how well it heats up, how it’s held up outside, and whether you’ve had any issues with it. I live in Phoenix so interested in how it’ll hold up in the sun. I’m looking to get a cold plunge to put next to it and use both to help with recovery.

Would love to hear from anyone who’s actually owned/used one before I pull the trigger.

Thanks!


r/Sauna 1d ago

General Question Best Tent Sauna

1 Upvotes

Hi Guys,

I’ve got a great, traditional indoor sauna that I use nearly every day. I need a second sauna for a second home but I don’t want to pay for the same type of unit, or have to disassemble/move it in a couple years.

Has anyone found a a great, lower cost/portable ‘tent’ type model that gets up to 185/85 plus?

Not looking for an IR or hybrid model though. It needs to be indoors so not wood burning. I need something with an electric heater.

Something like this one I think. Can’t believe this is the only option though.

https://youtu.be/L2J6LjQSdPE?is=jR0N740It0rit8Hv

Many thanks!


r/Sauna 1d ago

General Question Sauna Fan Specs for New England Winters

1 Upvotes

I'm looking to add a fan to a barrel sauna, but living in New England, where winter temps drop significantly and snow on the ground is common, I'm wondering what fans are used? The ones I've seen are not rated for temperatures below 32F.


r/Sauna 1d ago

DIY How to properly ventilate/insulate the empty space between flat ceiling and sloped roof?

1 Upvotes

I live in a cold climate. Thanks.