If you are health conscious and have the budget, you should really think of building a sauna in your home. Spending a few minutes in a sauna room is a great way to lose weight. It is also a great way to open up your pores and achieve truly beautiful skin. The benefits of taking regular sauna sessions are many, and it is worth the expense. However, before you start building a sauna room, you ought to know the key things that will make it fully functional. Here are 7 tips for building a effective home sauna:
1. Choose the Right Spot
Before you start building your sauna, you should make sure that you choose the right spot. Remember that your sauna should not only be accessible, it should also be well ventilated and won’t obstruct your path. If it’s possible, you should build your sauna near your home gym, or connect it to your bathroom.
By placing them as near to your gym or bathroom, you can go to the sauna directly after a workout, or take a bath after your sauna session. Remember that you will be quite sweaty after every sauna session, so you should make sure that you could get rid of the excess sweat right away.
2. Purchase Quality Materials
Although it could be tempting to go cheap on your building products, you should really invest in them. Remember that hot air will be passing through your pipes and vents, and if you buy low-quality building materials, they will deteriorate so much faster.
First things first, you should make sure that your pipes and ball valves are of the best quality. Your pipes are very important because they are your main form of ventilation. If they are not designed to take extreme heat or cold, there is a chance that they will rupture, and leak. The same could be said for your ball valve.
A ball valve is solely responsible for keeping the hot air from passing through. For these instances, it is best to use a low-temperature ball valve, because these types of valves could handle both extremes of temperature: they can handle extreme heat and cold, and won’t get damaged no matter how much hot air passes through it.
3. Dig up the Necessary Space for Heating Materials
Most saunas have an area where you place heating materials such as lava rocks. This helps create more steam and makes it easier for you to sweat and have your pores opened. So before you set up the frame for your sauna, you should dig up a small pit where you could place these heating materials.
It is also important that you take precautions with your sauna flooring. Remember that the hot temperature and moisture could also seep into the floor if it is not constructed well. So it is important that you purchase two sets of flooring.
There should be ceramic flooring at the bottom, and wooden boards on top. The ceramic flooding will help collect the moisture. While the wooden boards will act as a removable floor that can soak up the sweat and dirt and can be cleaned up after every use.
4. Construct a Stable Frame for Your Sauna
A sauna room is basically just a room that you fill up with steam. Aside from the seats, there is technically no other bits of furniture to add to the sauna. However, despite its very simple and utilitarian design, you should make it a priority to build a truly stable frame.
The frames should be made of quality wood, that won’t reshape or crack from the steam. Remember that steam could seep into wood and make it deteriorate a lot faster. So it is imperative that you choose your wood carefully.
Think of the frame as the skeleton of your sauna room, and it should be able to handle the weight of all the tools and equipment.
5. Insulate the Frames With Fiberglass
After you finish building the frame for your sauna, now is the time to line the walls with fiberglass. The fiberglass will help make the sauna airtight, and keep the hot air within the sauna room. When you install the fiberglass to the walls you should make sure that you fasten them tight, and use adhesive and insulating foam to plug up any holes.
6. Line the Frames With a Solid Outer Wall
Once you insulate the frames with fiberglass, you should make sure that you line the frames with a solid outer wall. You could use plaster or wood, just as long as it covers up the fiberglass. This will not only make the sauna more aesthetically pleasing, it will also further insulate the sauna room.
7. Install a Quality Heater
Of all the parts of a sauna, the heater is the most important.. Although it is easy to create steam from your lava rocks, it is difficult to keep the steam going. You will need to fan the flames on a regular basis. Whereas with a heater, you could just turn it on, and wait for the room to heat up. However, before you purchase a heater you should be as discerning as possible. Remember that heaters could be quite expensive, and you will want to do your research before you invest any money on a heater. One of the key features to look for in a heater is energy efficiency. You don’t want to spend a fortune just to power your heater.
Conclusion
Building a home sauna is considered a luxury, and it could be expensive if you have a contractor do it for you. However, if you build the sauna yourself, you won’t have to spend too much on the building process. Luckily with these tips, you’ll be able to build one to your liking with little to no fuss.
