Our Sauna

Introduction

The dream to build our own sauna was in our minds ever since we moved into our current home 25 years ago. We had built an electric heated sauna in our last home and enjoyed using it often. When we experienced cold weather or aching joints we often commented to each other "wouldn't taking a sauna feel great right now?" Unfortunately, our current home didn't seem to really have an adequate space to construct another sauna inside. We toyed with the idea of removing our existing large whirlpool bathtub and replace it with a small electric sauna, and while the concept may have worked, it would have made the bathroom feel extremely small.

We had enjoyed our electric sauna in our last home because of its convenience. However, an electrically heated sauna stove often produces a stinging bitter heat that does not seem to soothe your soul like the löyly which you experience by throwing water on a wood fired stove. While growing up I may have felt the whole process of heating the sauna was a "chore". I now realize that the process can also be a rewarding experience and there really is nothing like preparing and taking a wood fired sauna.

We are not carpenters, plumbers, electricians, or skilled craftsman so the final construction product may not be perfect in form, however we hope that it will be perfect in function. My rough carpentry skill are indeed very rough so I am hoping that my fine carpentry skills will be fine. Not everything is square, plum, or level but in the end it all came together. It took us four months to complete this project during the summer of 2022. It was a very hot and humid summer so I had many good sweats in this sauna before I even had a stove installed in it. Maybe that's what they mean by "sweat equity"?

Childhood Sauna

Growing up in a small Finnish community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the sauna was a part of the area's Finnish tradition. Being of 100% Finnish heritage, I took a sauna 1-2 times per week as we used it for bathing as we did not have a tub or shower in our very small and modest home.

The sauna we had as a child was very crude but functional. Unlike the saunas of today that are focused on form, our old sauna had no cedar walls, tiled floors, electric stove, LED strip lighting, or large windows.

The walls and ceiling were most likely uninsulated and were clad in unpainted drywall! The floors were pine boards which sloped to a drain in the corner. The sauna stove had a tank connected to it that heated the water for bathing. The stove pipe from the stove led to a brick "chimney on a shelf" and below the chimney shelf was a large galvanized garbage can which held our cold water. A single lightbulb hung in the window (the glass salvaged from the back window of a Model A sedan) between the changing room and the sauna and contributed its meager beam to those inside. A single pane window in the sauna which was often steam covered and in the changing room the window was often frosted with ice on a cold winter night. The top bench in the sauna room was made of pine and often had sap running from it.

The chore of heating the sauna back then required hauling water by bucket from the house or nearby open well in the winter, or having the luxury of using a hose to replenish the water in the summer. In the winter, we had to remember to empty the water so it wouldn't freeze. Summer or winter required bringing wood from the woodshed either via my wagon in the summer or our toboggan in the winter. A large wood box sat surprisingly close to the old wood fired sauna stove.

While growing up I looked at heating the sauna as a chore. However today, I enjoy hauling wood into the sauna, arranging the logs and kindling in the stove, lighting the fire, and tending to it as it warms.

Sauna Pronunciation

Before I go any further I must do my due diligence as a Finlander and inform you on how to correctly pronounce the word "sauna". It is correctly pronounced "SOW-nah" (with the first syllable accented and pronounced like the word for a female pig) and not "Saw-NAH".

While the Finnish language is one of the most difficult languages to learn it does have a couple of rules to always follow:

No matter how long and complex a Finnish word may be, every letter within the word is always pronounced. Always.
The first syllable of every Finnish word is always accented. Not the second, third, fourth, or fifth syllable. The first syllable. Always.

While some Finns may be polite and not correct you when you pronounce sauna incorrectly, inside they are cringing. So please, try to make us happy and learn to say sauna correctly.

What is a Finnish sauna?

In the Finnish language, the word "sauna" will have several meanings and is used as a noun, verb, or an adjective. A distinction can be made between the sauna building or the sauna room. The sauna room refers to the specific hot room located in a sauna building. When I refer to a sauna in this website I am typically referring to the hot room location. The total sauna area may also house the changing room and cooling off area.

To better understand the design requirements of a Finnish sauna, you must first understand how a Finnish sauna is used for bathing. If you ask a Finn, you may be surprised to hear that they "just go sauna". If you ask for a longer explanation, you may be surprised about the complexity that underlies this "just go" procedure that many Finns follow at least once per week.

To a Finn, the sauna is not thought of as a "health ritual" but more of an "event". They use a sauna for cleansing themselves and visiting with whoever may decide to join them.

There are typically three phases of a sauna ritual: planning, attending, and post-sauna.

The planning part is deciding when you are going to light the wood fired sauna stove, how long it will take to get hot, and who you may invite to share this sauna with. For us, we plan to use this sauna at least 1-3 times per week. The hot water tank adjacent to the stove is filled with water and the sauna stove started with kindling and stoked and fed wood. The sauna takes about an hour to heat with careful monitoring of the fire and temperature. Once the sauna is at the desired temperature it is ready for its occupants.

Our sauna top bench is big enough to sit 3 to 4 people. However, sauna bathers of both sexes probably will not sauna together unless they are married because taking a sauna with clothes on is like washing your feet with your socks on.

The changing room allows you space to undress before entering the sauna. The practice of nude sauna bathing is, and always has been, a Finnish standard. The Finnish culture finds nothing strange in nakedness. They have gone to sauna naked all of their life, and in their opinion, it is simply impossible for anything immoral to happen in a sauna. It is said you should act in a sauna as you would in church. It is for practical reasons that one goes to sauna in the nude. Sitting and sweating heavily in a bathing suit (especially one made from polyester material that absorbs heat radiation) can have a very negative impact on sweating. If you feel uncomfortable you may want to wear a towel, but to feel the total liberating effects of a sauna experience you may want to discard it once you feel comfortable.

The second phase of going sauna is the actual ritual itself by entering the sauna hot room. This is were the magic happens. In the spirt of Finnish sauna democracy, everyone is free to sit where they like but it should be noted that the person sitting closest to the sauna stove will typically throw the water on the rocks and the person farthest away from the sauna stove may actually feel more of the heat from the löyly!

What is Löyly?

The steam, or löyly (pronouced LUR-lou) is the essence of a Finnish sauna. The throwing of water upon the hot rocks of the sauna stove keeps the sauna air constantly changing, affecting the feeling of heat as well as the scent of the air. Typically, löyly produces an intricate change in the sauna dew point, replacing cooling perspiration of skin with hot condensation.

If your only exposure to a sauna has been in a hotel or gym sauna that forbids throwing water on the rocks then you have not experienced a sauna. And please, don't even consider that an infrared sauna should bare the title of being a sauna.

Only löyly will reveal the true nature of a sauna. The creation of löyly creates a wonderful sensation of warming (some may say burning) of the skin, until the feeling dissipates as suddenly as it arrived. The physical explanation is that the rising air humidity temporarily raises the dew point of the sauna above your skin temperature (99° F) allowing the steam to condensate on the your skin in tiny hot droplets of water. Condensation releases thermal energy, which creates the warming or burning sensation.

Löyly is a vital part of the sauna experience and is something that an infrared sauna cannot produce. While many people place so much value on how hot a sauna they have, we feel that when the temperature (in °F) plus the relative humidity in the sauna equals a value of 200 or more that perfect "sauna nirvana" is found. Too many people put such value on how hot a sauna they have. A Finnish person will not ask you how hot your sauna was, but rather they ask, "how was the löyly?"

A cruel joke to play on someone taking their first sauna is to tell them that if they want the sauna hotter they are to throw hot water on the rocks, and if they want it colder, they should throw cold water on the rocks.

If you have never taken a Finnish sauna before, I suggest you start slowly. Sit on the bench for 5-10 minutes until you begin to sweat and then try throwing some water on the rocks to produce some löyly. Take as much steam as you can but feel free to exit the sauna hot room and cool off in the changing room or outdoors if you need to.

A true sauna experience isn't just one hot session, but rather a series of innings of heating yourself up and cooling yourself down so you can re-enter the sauna hot room for another session. There should be no clocks or timers in your sauna. Enjoy the experience for as long or short a time as you desire. How long you spend in the sauna or changing room will vary depending upon how much heat and steam you can take. Don't try to go beyond your limits as this may just make your sauna experience less desirable and dangerous.

One mistake I see in many modern outdoor saunas is not providing a changing room. Sure you can walk back to your house in a towel or a robe to change but the changing room can also be a place to cool off a bit before heading back into the sauna for another inning. The one in and done inning, in my humble opinion, is not sufficient time to enjoy a sauna to its fullest. If you live in a very private area you may get away with sitting outside to cool off. However, the mosquitos or very cold weather may prevent that from happening in many areas. The changing room can also act as a airlock of sorts. It prevents cold outside air from directly entering the sauna room when the sauna room door is opened.

Aside from making steam and enjoying the löyly, not much else happens in the Finnish sauna. While talking to others is permitted, it is usually done in a more hushed and gentle tones and often the only sound is the crackling of the fire and steam hissing from the hot sauna rocks. True bliss is found by relaxing in near darkness and viewing the flickering of the fire through the glass door of the sauna stove. Loud music or strong lighting is discouraged. While many modern saunas boast huge windows, we find that a darker sauna sets the mood for more relaxation. Sure you can look out a big window at a view, but others may also be looking in for a view.

The heat and steam relax your body. And your soul. Sit back or lay down and let the trouble and cares of your world melt away with the heat and löyly that surrounds you. The toxins within your body are brought to the surface of your skin as you sweat and your mind too can be cleared of its worries.

If you have a private outdoor cooling off area like we have, it is nice to go outside to cool off between sauna sessions. Sit back or do a quick cool off with a cold shower, dump shower, or in a cold plunge tub if available. In the winter roll in the snow! The best saunas I have experienced have included jumping into a nearby lake or river.

When you feel you are ready to end the sauna experience I suggest going back into the sauna again to work up a good sweat and then prepare a lukewarm bucket of water using water from the sauna stove hot water tank and adding some cold water from the faucet to it. Also prepare another bucket with cooler water for rinsing. Soap up your body using the first prepared bucket of water and then rinse your body off with the cooler bucket of water. This can be done by pouring the rinse water over you with a ladle or dumping the bucket over your head. You could also go outside and use the dump shower to rinse off.

One thing I will absolutely guarantee is that you will never have felt so clean in your life. The heat of the sauna has opened your skin pores and drawn everything out of them. The soap and water cleanse your skin (from the inside out) and the cold water rinse closes your skin pores to complete the process.

Cooling off is an integral part of the sauna experience. Your body core cools slower than your skin. During the post-sauna experience it is vital to replenish the fluids you lost during the sauna experience. Sit back, relax, and rehydrate with cold water and perhaps some light salty snacks.

You will sleep well after taking a sauna.

What Happened?

The evolution of the sauna experience has changed during the years, and not always in a good way, in my humble opinion.

I think the change has occurred because people are not aware of the history of saunas and how they were traditionally used. The focus today is so much on the health benefits. While taking a sauna may impart some physical benefits, I feel the sauna experience is much more of a mental benefit and social experience. Years ago, a sauna was built and used primarily as a place to bathe your body. Today it is more of a place to cleanse your mind and body and reconnect with each other.

The video below gives us a good explanation of the history of the sauna and the changes that we have seen in recent years.

The "Our Sauna" website

If you're viewing this website on a computer, look for the links to the other pages on this site at the top of the page. If you're viewing it on your mobile phone or a tablet, look for the three horizontal bars in the upper left corner which when clicked on, will give you access to the other pages on this website.

The following pages on this website detail the design and construction of our sauna. We hope you enjoy sharing our experience of bringing this dream to life.

The Thank You page acknowledges some of the individuals who helped in the design and construction of our sauna
The Sauna Design page details the thoughts and ideas we tried to incorporate into our sauna
The Sauna Stove page details information about the sauna stove and chimney system we used in our sauna
The Base page shows the efforts we did in transforming our existing deck into the base floor for our sauna
The Shell page shows the construction work that went into fabricating the shell structure for our sauna
The Interior Finish page shows how we finished off the interior of our sauna
The Sauna Benches page shows the design considerations and fabrication of the sauna benches for our sauna
The Cooling Off Area page shows how we built a private cooling off area for our sauna
The Photo Gallery page will show photos of the completed sauna project and additional photos of its construction.

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