After watching the video advert i was still skeptical. But when i finally downloaded the plans th-cam.com/users/postUgkxZF0EMnrujZvqHhGkxiz559uIABJWR9TG i was very impressed. The whole plan was just as you said in the video. Thank you very much. I now have a large and valuable collection for my woodworks. This is great!
As a finn there is so much wrong in that building method. You need waterproof floor with a drain. Air gaps between panel and insulation. Air inlet near to stove and air outlet somewhere upper corner (preferred opposite corner of the stove). Basically there has to be good ventilation so sauna dries up after every use and dont rot.
Agreed. Not sure how someone who is Russian and claims to have been doing this their whole life could miss that. Especially 1 who calls himself "Mr. Build it". You would think he understands the very important need for proper ventilation and drainage so that the structure does not rot from the moisture. Not to mention the upper level bench is way to high. Nobody wants to set like that in a sauna.
Came here for the frustrated finn-comment and was not disappointed. Ventilation is important also for getting enough air when you are in the sauna. Put four people in that sauna and they will be gasping for air in 15 minutes.
From a craftsmanship point of view, great job. From a Finnish Persons point of view, we do it differently. We actually have an expression: "The worse the sauna is built, the better it is". Meaning that a Sauna should have plenty of oxygen holes and very little insulation. Traditionally a Sauna is built from logs, and the only insulation going between those logs is moss. That way the hot air can escape through all the nucks between them. On the floor level, the logs are intentionally set a bit off, so that oxygen can come in throug there, and the floor is made of uneven planks to allow water to escape and air to flow in. That way the "Löyly" or the steam is soft and rich instead of beating your back like. whip. Once the steam is nice and soft, we take a bunch of birch branches and beat ourselves up with those. It's true, you can google it. It's called a vihta. A great video tho!!
Same in Belarus and tbh better part of Slavic countries. I remember helping my grandfather build a sauna as a little kid and it's literally stacked log with moss stuffed for isolation with a basic roof. Heating done with a wooden stove that aspirates from the outside and gives smoke out too.
As Estonian i have grandparents who's sauna is made of logs and floor made ceramic with window and it's one best saunas we home have everything that men did but ceramic floor drain and went with wooden Fireplace and only pain in the ass is cleaning bc 🛋️ where you sit is In one piece.
@@dragm2123 thats luxury, old finnish saunas have the foundation concrete as floor.. and there is hole that goes into trench. and some of us use these polyetheline or canvas (mini towel) ass covers
With Ryan's th-cam.com/users/postUgkxy_pn55PK60wAV3X_C_RoLS_67mNonoCE plan I was like one taken by the hand and led step by step from start to finish. Thank you very much Ryan!
Greetings from Finland :) Don't use chipboard or treated wood in the sauna (might swell, mold, release toxins etc). Only plain wood Don't use 110/230V electrics over the waist installations (moisture+aluminium will transfer the death) Don't use plastic or vapour barrier and aluminium stacked (will mold in between) You need to have a gap between the panel and the aluminium (to prevent warping) You need free air flow in the floor, dont put aluminium on the floor (will mold in between) You need to pull the vapour barrier in the floor at least 6 inches up the wall (water will gather in the crack between wall and floor) You stacked the stones way too tight, they need to be loose (the heating elements wont last long) Your ventilation is way too little, you need 4 inches under the door and a 10 inch hole (with a flap/door) high on the back wall.
@@markbaker4337 and i made a mistake, you dont need 10" hole.. 10cm, so 4" for ventilation. 5cm (2in) under the door is enough. I was probably drunk when i wrote that..
@novoiperkele I came back to this video specifically for this comment. I'm making a sauna. A pronounced-correctly sauna. At least, that's my hope. Wood-fired, Kuuma stove, as legit as I can on my budget. Anyway, I am most intrigued by the gap between the wall panel and the aluminum. This is not something I have heard from the guys at saunatimes.com, but it makes sense. What do you do, put some furring strips on top of the studs after the aluminum is on?
Hey awesome project and the sauna came out looking great! Few tips from another Finn who has been using and building saunas all my life. First you definitely need a way to drain water not just for whole you use the sauna, but also for when you need to hose it down to wash it because they get smelly from sweat after a while. Second is that you definitely need air flow inside the steam room, but also in the walls. And lastly a wood stove instead of an electric stove is hands down the best way to go for the best steam and best heat.
I was wondering why he didn’t use a fire stove. They’re superior. I’m Ukrainian, we like our saunas around 195-210F, electric stoves constantly trip when getting to that temp.
I think that wood stove would be dangerous in that sauna because it doesn't have any ventilation. Wood stoves burns all oxygen out off the room. The wall structures are also made too tight if water is thrown in the sauna. The wall structure built in this way does not ventilate and moisture remains inside the structure, which causes the building materials to mold and rot.
No drainage. That’s essential in a sauna. Traditional saunas don’t use plastic. Also, there should be a ventilation device in the wall to air out all the moist air after use, specially when you’ve used plastic. I wouldn’t have placed the heat layer on the floor. Other than that, nice build!
I have a feeling there are a lot of dudes in Finland secretly watching and learning and building this EXACT same thing. Yeah, yeah, maybe they are adding drains and whatever, but hello? This sauna is for one guy! If he’s sweating enough to need a drain? He’s toast. As far as vents, big deal. Add a vent if you need to. He’s eliminating ten times more toxins than the treated wood is giving him in the 15 paltry minutes he breathes in there each day. Beautiful job, man. Stunning craftsmanship, great ideas, the exterior is nice too! Thank you for putting this together for us to see. Very inspiring.
It looks like a sauna. Nice work. For practicality reasons as buckets of water is(should be) tossed in general direction of the stove the floor should have draining. You can also take a shower from buckets of warm water if you have drain. A little window could be used to make it feel less like closed space, to control too hot sauna temperature and to efficiently ventilate after done. For air inlet one idea is just leave a gap under sauna door(and have a doorstep to keep water from spilling) and let it ventilate from changing room that has inlet vent.
I would like to tell you thank you so much for making this video. And like the fact that you mentioned buying building materials from habitat for humanity.💯
Nice build, but those walls will rot in few years. There needs to be air gap between the insulation and ceder panels. It takes ages to dry out. You need drain and ventilation as well. Floor doesn't need insulation.
²Tip for ya: when stapling your vap barrier, use cardboard (from an old shipping box, cereal box, etc....) that cut into strips to just fit studs & put over vap barrier then fasten with staple to add more bite for staple w/o tearing barrier (hope understand what saying😁). 0:03 Wouldn’t it be just so AWESOME if all ya had to do is snap your fingers when wanting to do a project & then BOOM; it was 100% finished! If only........😉 ¹Cool vid brah✌🏼 ²edited to add this comment ¹ SORRY bout posting 3x (if get notified each time someone posts), trying to get time just right, lol.
A nice job, with a lot of things done right. However... A few points: - The first syllable of sauna rhymes with "cow". - Sauna doors are typically 24" wide. - The paneling should be free of knots-at least anywhere people are likely to lean (or sit)-because knots are far denser and get a *lot* hotter. - Without an air gap between the foil and paneling (usually achieved by nailing 1x2s to the studs over the foil), the reflective value of the foil is negated. The air gap is also necessary to ensure airflow behind the paneling to prevent mold and mildew. - You don't want to cover those gaps between the walls and ceiling with molding (re previous point). - Insulation on the floor isn't necessary, as there is no significant loss of heat there. Duckboards over concrete is the usual inexpensive solution. Tile is also common. - The floor should have a drain to deal with any incidental water-and to facilitate cleaning the sauna.
Also there's no ventilation. Without proper ventilation there's not enough oxygen coming into sauna. And that causes horrible sauna experience because you can't get fresh air while you are in the heat. Secondly, poor ventilation causes sauna to stay humid after the sauna session, which leads to a mold growth. With these points combined with yours, my prediction is that the sauna in the video is gonna face serious mold problems in the near future.
On top of Wolf's and Sebastian's comments, you might want to consider running water to the Sauna, even if it is not all that important for the sauna to function. Traditionally in Finland we have either a bunch of water ready to use in barrels, or alternatively running water - this is for washing yourself, cleaning the sauna and for fire safety. In this small space having barrels of water might be not ideal, unless you want to keep them outside. Hence a tap or just a simple water line from the main house could improve the comfort massively.
@TheCharcharro Well, there was no drain on the floor and whole structure was designed to be just heated room. But yeah more ventilation would be needed for sure. Ideally "cold" air would be dropped on top of heater from the hole on the wall, so that toes don't feel cold when they are lower than heater itself and it makes better air quality when throwing water on the heater. Exit would be on the opposite side of room, in ceiling to make it circulate the whole room for better heat distribution. But those things can be added even afterwards. Nice outdoor shower and hot tub would make this setup perfect for relaxing evening or little party with friends.
@@noahvogt That seems to be Finnish heater and that´s why it should be full of stones so you can throw water on it. Throwing water on the heater is the thing in sauna, not just sitting in hot room.
Wow i did not know they had a goodwill for hardware and construction. I searched it up in my area and there is one 10 minutes away gonna go check it out soon
@ES as a Finn, I see so many issues with this sauna design. Real sauna should be very humid, you need draining for the sauna stove (you are supposed to throw water on proper sauna stoves), and the sauna should be well ventilated. Best saunas are the old ones, where you can see the light of nightless night underneath the walls, you heat them with wood and get the good steam heat going with water.
@@emofems all of the saunas ive experienced in the USA have been dry saunas with no humidity and directions to not pour water on them. However next to most saunas here there is a steam room. Just like a sauna but very humid and directed to pour water on the heater. Just my experience Edit: Apparently after reading through the other comments i found that a lot of people agree with you about humidity and moisture. Thinking about it more, the moisture in the wood does have to go somewhere when it dries out.
@@BMVLifestyle If you know something about saunas, you know that they are a Finnish thing, so I do know this stuff 😊. Sauna should be humid, the ventilation should be good, and the heat around 80-100 Celsius, which you top up with throwing water over the sauna stove. Dry saunas are something you'd never see here, and I do understand why they come with a large set of health warnings. Also steam rooms around here are very few, and usually only in bigger spas as a curiosity 😊. They even aren't that hot.
Coming from Finland, it’s great to see someone building a sauna 😊 you could add feet rests for comfort and I hope you still throw water on the heater to get an authentic sauna experience😊
@@nikolaystoyanov3724 Not having ventilation behind the panels is a big mistake here. The gap behind the panels allow for the panels to dry and not go moldy, minimum 30 mm around all of the panels, including the ceiling. If you're going to use insulation then you want a vapour barrier, an aluminium coated xps insulation (30 mm is standard) is quick and efficient with all the seams taped with a good quality aluminium tape. Through holes should be vapor tight. If you're using rock or glass wool, we like to use aluminium coated paper. Connecting it to the floor is always the challenge. We usually put one horizontal row of floor tiles on the base of the wall and tape the vapor membrane to that row using aluminium tape. Once everything is taped and papered you'll want to be extremely careful and keep everything air and vapour tight. You can strengthen the back of the panelling with plywood for hanging the seats and heating element etc. even if the ventilation is slightly reduced in some places due to this. If you're building it as a separate "shed" and don't want to insulate, then just don't. Use a slightly thicker timber to build the walls and make sure you have good ventilation for when the sauna isn't in use. If you don't have electrics in it then use a solar-powered exhaust vent somewhere in the top and have an inlet somewhere at the bottom of the sauna. Keeping a structure at 100% RH and closing it up and letting it cool down a recipe for disaster. Ventilation around all of the structures and inside the sauna is super important. For good videos look up "saunan rakentaminen" which means "building a sauna" in Finnish. You wont get them in english, but a video speaks a million words...
here are a few essential parts of a good sauna. replacement air from the outside, sewer, waterproofing without having to get around the sauna "good ventalation"
A lot of these comments are helpful. I think too many people get fixated on how things "have to be done". Generally speaking having a floor drain, high and low ventilation, air gap in front of radiant barrier, and sizing the room for the heat capicity of the heater, drying out sauna after use, are all good suggestions. I am allergic to cedar so will use alternatives. Alaskan Yellow and Atlantic White Cedar are generally safer to work with. Other low toxic species such as spruce, pine, and aspen can all be used and will last a lifetime. Your local climate and location will dictate the appropriate way to build for you and what materials are readily available. Don't let the "right" way stop you.
Mr. Build it: How to Build a Sauna all finnish people in the comments: How NOT to build a Sauna but still, great video, good work. mistakes where made, you'll know it better in future projects ;)
Nice work, but there are so many serious mistakes made, here are some of them: 1) Between foil and finishing, there must be at least 25mm air gap, otherwise your finishing boards will be done faster then you think. 2) Ventilation! Fresh air intake at the bottom, close to the heater and exhaust at the opposite corner, just a few cm higher then the intake. Without ventilation it will be impossible to enjoy sauna as you will be sitting in "old, wet" air and lack oxygen. 3) The biggest mistake was the heater - never get a heater made for bigger space! If you do that, the room will get hot faster then the rocks in the heater, so it will be impossible to get any steam without heating the room so much, that the devil would burn his face! :)
2) What you said about placing is wrong. Intake should be right next to stove but exhaust needs to be almost at ceiling if on wall or it can also be on ceiling furthest distance from stove. So that's way warmer air leaves from exhaust it draws colder fresh air right next to stove where it warms up and spreads oxygen rich air all over sauna room. That vent placing which you described only works if exhaust vent is equipped with electric fan otherwise it doesn't work because height difference is so small it doesn't create so called chimney effect.
@@mr.wizeguy8995 It's totally wrong to place the exhaust at the ceiling, it will suck out all the fresh hot air. Once hot air gets "dirty" from all the sweat, it falls down, for that reason the exhaust should be at the bottom. Of course you will need to create an air flow, for the exhaust to work, there are two ways, first one is to create a natural flow by building a vent pipe top from the exhaust, higher then ceiling. The second way - just like you said by adding an electric vent. Which way to choose depends on the multiple factors, like the volume of the sauna and construction.
@@Albertsville Nope, old traditional Finnish Sauna has always been exhaust went near ceiling called RÄPPÄNÄ or through ceiling called LAKEINEN and usually floor that has wood planks with caps where all fresh air comes from. I have renovated more than 20 sauna and never seen any that exhaust and fresh air is close to same level when air is flowing natrual without fan. All moderns houses with sauna there exhaust is connected to mechanical ventilation machine and then exhaust vent is under sauna seat but fresh air is over stove on ceiling also often one extra exhaust vent on ceiling which can be opened after you leave from sauna to boost air flow that everything dries faster.
@@mr.wizeguy8995 I'm building traditional Russian saunas for living, but, think logically - fresh cold air comes inside and gets heated by the heater, once it's hot - it moves up to the ceiling. By placing the exhaust at the ceiling, you will be sucking out the fresh hot air! Exhaust at the top means that you are creating full air exchange at the sauna, and that's something you will never want to do, because it will simply overload you heater. All the fresh hot air will be sucked out and you will be sitting in cold, sweaty air which falls to bottom. Exhaust at the top is made only for one reason - to dry the sauna once you are finished, that's all - it can never be used while enjoying the sauna, for that reason most of the time top exhaust will have like a small door, so you can stop the airflow while using sauna and open once finished.
@@Albertsville Traditional Russian sauna how come they are traditional because Russians never invented them? I was just in my own sauna 2 hour ago. Exhaust near ceiling fresh air at floor level and for sure it wasn't cold. I also have separate smoke sauna on my yard and it has plank floor that i can see outside under floor and exhaust went near ceiling and it also works fine just like every other +3 millions saunas in Finland.
Insulation with a kraft face paper - those little flanges goes over the face of the studs. Kraft paper is a vapor barrier and you want that continuous and not stapled to the inside of the stud. By doing visqueen over the top of the kraft face insulation you just created a double vapor barrier. Any moisture that finds its way between them (ie air movement around electrical devices, etc) won't have anywhere to go and will eventually lead to issues.
Great job, looks amazing. Few pointers from Finn: you need ventilation and floor need drainage. Ventilation on top corner, ideally opposite to heating (kiuas) and 100-200mm cap between the bottom of the door and floor. Also, no need to insulate floor; basic physics - hot air rises. We have sauna build from logs in about 300 km north from arctic circle and there are about 20mm caps between floor boards. Sauna it self is elevated roughly 300-400mm or so from the ground and in winter time still perfect "löyly" while -30c outside. Plus this ads to fore mentioned ventilation.
@@G1ennbeckismyher0 Weird question in a video about something that's completely unrelated to that eh? It was dramatized quite the bit at the start (perhaps for a reason at the time) but as the immigration numbers started going down to normal levels again, people stopped focusing on it. Now that there's a 2nd generation of them who speak fluent Finnish and respect the rules, it's just chill, they're Finnish people like us innit.
@@G1ennbeckismyher0 Calm the fuck down with the racism buddy, they're Finnish people like the rest of us, aight? There's Finnish people that have moved to places like France, Australia, South Africa et cetera, and people who have moved from those places to Finland. Nothing bad with diversity as long as everything stays controlled, the ones that act correctly are Finnish people, point blank period.
@@G1ennbeckismyher0 "Tainting your bloodlines" goddamn that's such an ass way of disrespecting people, come on man. People can choose who they date, if you prefer someone of color, you prefer someone of color. Those interracial couples will end up with mixed kids, who will most likely end up with "traditional" Finnish partners who will end up with kids that have heavily Finnish DNA anyway, if the extinction of the 'original' Finnish people is what you're talking about.
Most important thing when building sauna is you gotta have Harvia heater, you just got to have it. But, this sauna is missing water drain from floor, air intake above or near heater in the wall, and vent for air to get out somewhere near floor.
@@Sinr0ne well then its ok, and one solution is "towns blacksmith" made also. There is chace that old saunas i were remembering also corp made and the brands just gone by now but i dont really recall seeing any marks on those. But aint Hela older than Aito tho?
I know it even took longer with recording everything by yourself. Especially moving the camera Every time you moved. So props for making it interesting and fun ☺️🙏
Thanks for this! I've recently embarked on the idea of turning one of our sheds into a sauna. I took a LOT of good stuff away from this. THANKS FOR THE EFFORT!
Small idea: On a your door with a simple push/pull, use a closet door ball catch. You cannot have a lock on a sauna door, its easy to enter\exit, and it has enough holding force to not pop open when you put steam on.
Just a heads up that wearing your apple watch into the sauna degrades the seals over time and it will no longer be waterproof. Also most saunas are above the maximum recommended operating temp.
This is an awesome build. It is 20 times neater than the one I built. Mine is 7 x 5 x 61/2. I am amazed at how similar we approached the task. I am talking insulation, vapor barrier, reflex insulation, etc. I did not do the floor. To me, it was not necessary. There are rugs on the floor. He is right about the heater. Get an adequately sized heater. I have friends whose saunas take 45 minutes to heat up and they don't get above 180. I have a 6,000-watt heater and in 30 minutes it is cooking.
Cool video, but you should come to Estonia or go to Finland to get some tips for proper sauna and try some out. We have the tradition of building saunas for hundreds of years, Finland less, but okey, ;) Its not so many things, but there is some you missed by building it. First of all, the material you are using must be a hardwood, otherwise you have a lot of problems with resin and the floor should be also little bit different. The most important thing is where you put intake and outtake ventilation pipe in Your sauna, You can still do it and belive me, you feel the differnce immediately. Really cool video and huge respect to the guy who build sauna like that. Your new follower :)
And foil layer will act as a vapor barrier so there's no need to put second vapor barrier layer between the insulation and the foil. In fact that will cause problems if any of those layers will have any leakage. With any leakage, moisture will condensate between the layers and cause mold problems.
@@sebastianvilen4084 And what i have seen done is the ''painted'' on vapor barrier is actually little bit extended to the wall. If it is done like in video water will go between floor and wall and it's game over.
eei nuo jenkit heitä kiukaalle vettä kun luulee että menee rikki... ihan tosissaan siis sanon ja tämä on jenkeillä ihan yleinen harhakäsitys😂 jos menee rikki niin paska on kiuas
You should wash the stones before putting them in. The often have some dust on them which creates this nasty smell during first heatings. You can smell it the first times you throw water on the hot stones. They are normally just washed with plain water and it is done only to new stones. After that they should be dried. If you heat wet stones, the water inside the stones may become steam if heated fast, which causes the rock to break.
Wow. I've learned a lot from your video, and just as much from the comments. I've grown up in ID and 99% sure I recognize the drive north on 55 1:49 ? 🤞I can make one of these saunas happen one day for us, here in town or up in Donnelly. Cheers!
Saatana perkele! missä korvausilma missä poistoilma? mold and more mold after 1 month! missä kiulu? missä pesut? eiii saatana ei edes kaljaa? väittää olevansa naapuri maasta ja saunonu aina ja kaikki meni silti päin vittua... tai siis hyvinhän toi on tehty mutta väärin? :D
Came across this guy a month or so ago and at first I just thought he was another YT DIYer with a bunch of tools and Adderall. But the outcome of his work is consistently flawless IMO. Hard to find the combo of real artistic creativity with the technical skill to back it up. But fr, hook me up with the addy connect.
Great video. As a DIY-er who’s never built a sauna before this has basically shown me everything I need to know. Well everything except the electric hookups, but fortunately my neighbor is a retired electrician ;)
Nice job! I would have put a bench on the long side wall so i could lay down, but that's up to taste. Very similar to my gym-sauna. Just leave the door a crack open after your done sweating.
Lots of good work here, but also lots of mistakes picked up in the comments. Moisture is the problem with saunas, the heat needs to be kept in, but with it comes humidity from sweat, but more importantly from showered bodies and water sprayed on the hot stones. Its necessary to use moisture barriers that are well sealed, so that also stops the ventilation which is necessary to stop people from passing out. Forced ventilation is a good idea so the heat lost can be used to heat the replacement air. Its also necessary to remove the damp air at the end of the sauna session otherwise the moisture penetrates the fabric of the building. Then we come to moisture on the floor. It makes sense to have a drain in the floor as they commonly do in bathrooms throughout Scandinavia. Its not a common in the rest of the world and we get away with it, and it can be costly to install, so it might be possible to take the risk and not have one. In Europe a 6kW heater can cost under $250 so some of the prices mentioned seem a little excessive.
Nice, my sauna is 6 x 12, but get this......my heat source is a wood stove that I converted to a oil fired furnace, so through the glass you see the oil burner, connected to a digital thermostat that can go up to 230f, 180f is just about right. So heat up time is about 15 to 20 minutes considering my furnace can heat 2000sq feet but my sauna is only 60sq, it is awesome. Got my cedar for only 350 bucks from local cedar mill.
Pressure treated wood in a hot environment where you breathe constantly is probably a bad idea. Frame up with caedar posts, it will cost a bit more but last as long and is significantly more healthy.
@@vandrossmeno5088, what they are adamant about doesn't matter. Depending on your location building codes will require treated lumber for anything touching the foundation. I would still like to see white papers on the subject.
@@brianthompson9485 I've been doing premium construction for 5 years, I can tell you there are a ton of carcinogens in treated lumber. Remember it took the government 50 years to produce white papers on asbestos, What do you know? It's okay, put pressure treaded lumber in your sauna, I'm a firm believer in natural selection.
I work as a sauna designer, this sauna is not correctly built. In a traditional sauna you get heater by convection heat, or by the hot air. Therefore proper ventilation and air circulation is key for an effective and fast heating sauna... The air need to circulate, cool air should be going in by the bottom of the stove, and be expelled on the top wall or ceiling opposite of the stoves location, and the air should come from and go out in the same room or in and out to the outside. Also no need for the plastic (or any kind of) vapor barrier.... Also drainage for the water, or a metal container under the stove for spill water... Also recommended to use sauna wax on the benches to prevent sweat stains on nice and new untreated wood...
You should use clear knot free cedar. Knots will heat up and be very uncomfortable to lean up against. Also advisable to be careful what you use for your vapor barrier. Plastic is a terrible idea as the temperature in the sauna can easily run up to 180 F. This guy didn't do enough research.
I am a licenesed electrician and I promise that the electrician that came out did not feed any wire through that 3/4 aluminum flex you ran. You can't push a fish tape through it when there is bends... Great looking build though
Looks cozy! Harvia works. Approved by Finn. Agree with habah drain is good to have for all the blood sweat and tears... and water. My protip sauna doesnt really maybe need that much of insulation considering that we have sauna tents here with one layer of fabrick as insulation. I would priortize that fresh air gets into the room not too fast to take heat away and not too slow to have too thick air that will cause tiredness.
As a professional sauna builder I just have to say this one thing: do not believe everything what you see on TH-cam. This is a polite way to comment the instructions given here.
I'm building a sauna and would love a little insight. Especially trying to figure out what heater to use. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Stephen
Restore is my secret sin. I have a bunch around me and a few are super stores. I can't go a few days without stopping in one.. A sauna is on my to do list, I am from Ukraine originally. I miss the sauna.
Looks good. Only thing that havn't seen a light on top of the heater. Usually light is under the benches or something. Hopefully it does't break with the heat and steam. And I can't understand where does the water goes what falls on the floor.
Warning! Don’t use this video as a teaching material for your own future builds. In this sauna there’s no ventilation, air gaps between wall materials, no drainage ect. It’s matter of time when there’s going to be mold problem.
Thank you. I'm a pretty fair carpenter and had the building idea. But your tips are going to be most helpful. Really liked the way you went thru the process.
Nice to see Harvia :) one thing you were missing which is finnish rule number one always go to shower before sauna. Sauna is like church you stay quiet, clean and fresh.
My understanding is that you shower after your first sweat as the pores have opened, the sweat helps clear the dirt and then you wash it all away. Then back into the sauna, more heat, more sweat and then into the lake to cool off as many times as you like.
I like everything but the floor. I feel like you should have tiled the whole thing. So you could hose it out or at least mop it. That wood floor is going to trap a lot of sweat and bacteria underneath it. Eventually turning into some really nasty stuff.
This is the second video of yours that I've watched and I really enjoyed it. Then I realized that I'm not subbed and got mad because I was missing out.
you need to keep a airgap between the radiation barrier and the ceiling/wall wood to help humidity escape. no need to put the heat barrier on the floor, it will never get hot there. Also a waterinsulation layer on the floor is not needed. Great job :) Next time, you dont need expensive wood like that, its all about protecting the wood with oils and wax.
another pro tip from finn; You have opening under the door, but you also need to build ventilation hole on the outside wall. Otherwise it looks pretty nice - for american made :-) You isolate it much more than I expected, very nice
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
After watching the video advert i was still skeptical. But when i finally downloaded the plans th-cam.com/users/postUgkxZF0EMnrujZvqHhGkxiz559uIABJWR9TG i was very impressed. The whole plan was just as you said in the video. Thank you very much. I now have a large and valuable collection for my woodworks. This is great!
As a finn there is so much wrong in that building method. You need waterproof floor with a drain. Air gaps between panel and insulation. Air inlet near to stove and air outlet somewhere upper corner (preferred opposite corner of the stove). Basically there has to be good ventilation so sauna dries up after every use and dont rot.
Agreed. Not sure how someone who is Russian and claims to have been doing this their whole life could miss that. Especially 1 who calls himself "Mr. Build it". You would think he understands the very important need for proper ventilation and drainage so that the structure does not rot from the moisture. Not to mention the upper level bench is way to high. Nobody wants to set like that in a sauna.
@@Delabeled By your logic, since you have been driving for a long time, you could design a car without missing anything.
Came here for the frustrated finn-comment and was not disappointed.
Ventilation is important also for getting enough air when you are in the sauna. Put four people in that sauna and they will be gasping for air in 15 minutes.
@@jehmed in that sauna 2 people and 5min is enough to make you pass out.
@@TheApina21 what's more you can't lie down because the benches are so narrow.
From a craftsmanship point of view, great job. From a Finnish Persons point of view, we do it differently. We actually have an expression: "The worse the sauna is built, the better it is". Meaning that a Sauna should have plenty of oxygen holes and very little insulation. Traditionally a Sauna is built from logs, and the only insulation going between those logs is moss. That way the hot air can escape through all the nucks between them. On the floor level, the logs are intentionally set a bit off, so that oxygen can come in throug there, and the floor is made of uneven planks to allow water to escape and air to flow in. That way the "Löyly" or the steam is soft and rich instead of beating your back like. whip. Once the steam is nice and soft, we take a bunch of birch branches and beat ourselves up with those. It's true, you can google it. It's called a vihta. A great video tho!!
Not to mention that our saunaculture comes from smokesaunas where the draft was must..
Same in Belarus and tbh better part of Slavic countries. I remember helping my grandfather build a sauna as a little kid and it's literally stacked log with moss stuffed for isolation with a basic roof. Heating done with a wooden stove that aspirates from the outside and gives smoke out too.
As Estonian i have grandparents who's sauna is made of logs and floor made ceramic with window and it's one best saunas we home have everything that men did but ceramic floor drain and went with wooden Fireplace and only pain in the ass is cleaning bc 🛋️ where you sit is In one piece.
@@dragm2123 thats luxury, old finnish saunas have the foundation concrete as floor.. and there is hole that goes into trench. and some of us use these polyetheline or canvas (mini towel) ass covers
@@AndreiKucharavy do you guys have smoke saunas, where the smoke stays inside? and its soot is cleaned before usage.
With Ryan's th-cam.com/users/postUgkxy_pn55PK60wAV3X_C_RoLS_67mNonoCE plan I was like one taken by the hand and led step by step from start to finish. Thank you very much Ryan!
Greetings from Finland :)
Don't use chipboard or treated wood in the sauna (might swell, mold, release toxins etc). Only plain wood
Don't use 110/230V electrics over the waist installations (moisture+aluminium will transfer the death)
Don't use plastic or vapour barrier and aluminium stacked (will mold in between)
You need to have a gap between the panel and the aluminium (to prevent warping)
You need free air flow in the floor, dont put aluminium on the floor (will mold in between)
You need to pull the vapour barrier in the floor at least 6 inches up the wall (water will gather in the crack between wall and floor)
You stacked the stones way too tight, they need to be loose (the heating elements wont last long)
Your ventilation is way too little, you need 4 inches under the door and a 10 inch hole (with a flap/door) high on the back wall.
Great advice from the sauna masters. If anyone knows how to build a sauna it's a Finn, kiitos
@@markbaker4337 and i made a mistake, you dont need 10" hole.. 10cm, so 4" for ventilation. 5cm (2in) under the door is enough. I was probably drunk when i wrote that..
@@novoiperkele hahaha that's ok as long as you finish off with some Minttu
@@markbaker4337 Only elderberries drink that minttu shit. KOSSUA PERKELE!
@novoiperkele I came back to this video specifically for this comment. I'm making a sauna. A pronounced-correctly sauna. At least, that's my hope. Wood-fired, Kuuma stove, as legit as I can on my budget. Anyway, I am most intrigued by the gap between the wall panel and the aluminum. This is not something I have heard from the guys at saunatimes.com, but it makes sense. What do you do, put some furring strips on top of the studs after the aluminum is on?
Hey awesome project and the sauna came out looking great! Few tips from another Finn who has been using and building saunas all my life. First you definitely need a way to drain water not just for whole you use the sauna, but also for when you need to hose it down to wash it because they get smelly from sweat after a while. Second is that you definitely need air flow inside the steam room, but also in the walls. And lastly a wood stove instead of an electric stove is hands down the best way to go for the best steam and best heat.
Also throw water onto the stove. Makes the experience way more enjoyable
I was wondering why he didn’t use a fire stove. They’re superior. I’m Ukrainian, we like our saunas around 195-210F, electric stoves constantly trip when getting to that temp.
@@vitaliyburlaka691 Nah my almost 15 year old electric sauna easily goes to 100 celsius or 212 Fahrenheit no problems whatsoever
I think that wood stove would be dangerous in that sauna because it doesn't have any ventilation. Wood stoves burns all oxygen out off the room. The wall structures are also made too tight if water is thrown in the sauna. The wall structure built in this way does not ventilate and moisture remains inside the structure, which causes the building materials to mold and rot.
@@Denofu what brand is your stove? And what country do you live in? I’m in the states and seems like every electric stove here trips the breakers.
No drainage. That’s essential in a sauna. Traditional saunas don’t use plastic. Also, there should be a ventilation device in the wall to air out all the moist air after use, specially when you’ve used plastic. I wouldn’t have placed the heat layer on the floor. Other than that, nice build!
Correct on every point.
What plastic? Insulation? What other option there would be to make it more eco friendly? I want to build a sauna but very ecofriendly wat
mr smarty pants
@@ehysdfafsdf5257 you don’t know the half of it
All you have to do is leave the door open after your done with the sauna
I am glad the comments clarify the do's and don'ts, I didn't think it was quite right. Still useful :D
Pro tip from a finn, your floor needs a drain for water and sweat.
Ei tolla oo ees kiulua. Tuskin heittää kiukaalle ikinä vettä ni mihin tarvis viemäriä.
@@Nuulo kyllähän se jo ihan vaan pesuakin varten vaikka mökiltä tuttu rakoviemäri olis kätevä olla kun on muutenkin jo huolella vedetty.
very true
I thought the same, he put paper to isolate the walls and flor
@@LUIZGUSTAVO-wv6tm this will cause you some mold problems quite soon. Simple gutter drain would be enough to take the waters out here.
I have a feeling there are a lot of dudes in Finland secretly watching and learning and building this EXACT same thing. Yeah, yeah, maybe they are adding drains and whatever, but hello? This sauna is for one guy! If he’s sweating enough to need a drain? He’s toast. As far as vents, big deal. Add a vent if you need to. He’s eliminating ten times more toxins than the treated wood is giving him in the 15 paltry minutes he breathes in there each day. Beautiful job, man. Stunning craftsmanship, great ideas, the exterior is nice too! Thank you for putting this together for us to see. Very inspiring.
It looks like a sauna. Nice work. For practicality reasons as buckets of water is(should be) tossed in general direction of the stove the floor should have draining. You can also take a shower from buckets of warm water if you have drain. A little window could be used to make it feel less like closed space, to control too hot sauna temperature and to efficiently ventilate after done. For air inlet one idea is just leave a gap under sauna door(and have a doorstep to keep water from spilling) and let it ventilate from changing room that has inlet vent.
I would like to tell you thank you so much for making this video. And like the fact that you mentioned buying building materials from habitat for humanity.💯
Nice build, but those walls will rot in few years. There needs to be air gap between the insulation and ceder panels. It takes ages to dry out. You need drain and ventilation as well. Floor doesn't need insulation.
Excellent. Thank you for uploading ☺ what you do for your 👪 family. Thank you for allowing me to share it!
²Tip for ya: when stapling your vap barrier, use cardboard (from an old shipping box, cereal box, etc....) that cut into strips to just fit studs & put over vap barrier then fasten with staple to add more bite for staple w/o tearing barrier (hope understand what saying😁).
0:03 Wouldn’t it be just so AWESOME if all ya had to do is snap your fingers when wanting to do a project & then BOOM; it was 100% finished!
If only........😉
¹Cool vid brah✌🏼
²edited to add this comment
¹ SORRY bout posting 3x (if get notified each time someone posts), trying to get time just right, lol.
Cool build and all, and its nice to see the harvia heater but its gonne get moldy pretty quick
A nice job, with a lot of things done right.
However...
A few points:
- The first syllable of sauna rhymes with "cow".
- Sauna doors are typically 24" wide.
- The paneling should be free of knots-at least anywhere people are likely to lean (or sit)-because knots are far denser and get a *lot* hotter.
- Without an air gap between the foil and paneling (usually achieved by nailing 1x2s to the studs over the foil), the reflective value of the foil is negated. The air gap is also necessary to ensure airflow behind the paneling to prevent mold and mildew.
- You don't want to cover those gaps between the walls and ceiling with molding (re previous point).
- Insulation on the floor isn't necessary, as there is no significant loss of heat there. Duckboards over concrete is the usual inexpensive solution. Tile is also common.
- The floor should have a drain to deal with any incidental water-and to facilitate cleaning the sauna.
Also there's no ventilation. Without proper ventilation there's not enough oxygen coming into sauna. And that causes horrible sauna experience because you can't get fresh air while you are in the heat. Secondly, poor ventilation causes sauna to stay humid after the sauna session, which leads to a mold growth. With these points combined with yours, my prediction is that the sauna in the video is gonna face serious mold problems in the near future.
On top of Wolf's and Sebastian's comments, you might want to consider running water to the Sauna, even if it is not all that important for the sauna to function. Traditionally in Finland we have either a bunch of water ready to use in barrels, or alternatively running water - this is for washing yourself, cleaning the sauna and for fire safety. In this small space having barrels of water might be not ideal, unless you want to keep them outside. Hence a tap or just a simple water line from the main house could improve the comfort massively.
@TheCharcharro Well, there was no drain on the floor and whole structure was designed to be just heated room. But yeah more ventilation would be needed for sure. Ideally "cold" air would be dropped on top of heater from the hole on the wall, so that toes don't feel cold when they are lower than heater itself and it makes better air quality when throwing water on the heater. Exit would be on the opposite side of room, in ceiling to make it circulate the whole room for better heat distribution. But those things can be added even afterwards. Nice outdoor shower and hot tub would make this setup perfect for relaxing evening or little party with friends.
You seem like much more of an expert than me, but is that a heater to add water to?
@@noahvogt That seems to be Finnish heater and that´s why it should be full of stones so you can throw water on it. Throwing water on the heater is the thing in sauna, not just sitting in hot room.
Wow i did not know they had a goodwill for hardware and construction. I searched it up in my area and there is one 10 minutes away gonna go check it out soon
That's a diy project I wasn't ever expecting!
Too hot to handle?
@ES as a Finn, I see so many issues with this sauna design. Real sauna should be very humid, you need draining for the sauna stove (you are supposed to throw water on proper sauna stoves), and the sauna should be well ventilated. Best saunas are the old ones, where you can see the light of nightless night underneath the walls, you heat them with wood and get the good steam heat going with water.
Uh2uu
@@emofems all of the saunas ive experienced in the USA have been dry saunas with no humidity and directions to not pour water on them.
However next to most saunas here there is a steam room. Just like a sauna but very humid and directed to pour water on the heater.
Just my experience
Edit: Apparently after reading through the other comments i found that a lot of people agree with you about humidity and moisture. Thinking about it more, the moisture in the wood does have to go somewhere when it dries out.
@@BMVLifestyle If you know something about saunas, you know that they are a Finnish thing, so I do know this stuff 😊. Sauna should be humid, the ventilation should be good, and the heat around 80-100 Celsius, which you top up with throwing water over the sauna stove.
Dry saunas are something you'd never see here, and I do understand why they come with a large set of health warnings. Also steam rooms around here are very few, and usually only in bigger spas as a curiosity 😊. They even aren't that hot.
I really like the fact that you talk fast and you provide just enough detail.
Coming from Finland, it’s great to see someone building a sauna 😊 you could add feet rests for comfort and I hope you still throw water on the heater to get an authentic sauna experience😊
Finland the home of SAUNA's love the wood burning ones when in Multia and jumping into the lake then :)
Hello from Finland… nice sauna 🤝 perfectly sauna experience is when you use water in the stove rocks…I wish you awesome steam moment’s 👌
Finland we normally heated sauna 176-212 Fahrenheit 80-100 Celsius and used water 💦 of course 🥵
This is how you dont build a sauna greetings from finland
Any tips on how to build it? Im really into making one in the backyard
@@nikolaystoyanov3724 Make sure you have a good ventilation...
@@nikolaystoyanov3724 Not having ventilation behind the panels is a big mistake here. The gap behind the panels allow for the panels to dry and not go moldy, minimum 30 mm around all of the panels, including the ceiling. If you're going to use insulation then you want a vapour barrier, an aluminium coated xps insulation (30 mm is standard) is quick and efficient with all the seams taped with a good quality aluminium tape. Through holes should be vapor tight. If you're using rock or glass wool, we like to use aluminium coated paper. Connecting it to the floor is always the challenge. We usually put one horizontal row of floor tiles on the base of the wall and tape the vapor membrane to that row using aluminium tape. Once everything is taped and papered you'll want to be extremely careful and keep everything air and vapour tight. You can strengthen the back of the panelling with plywood for hanging the seats and heating element etc. even if the ventilation is slightly reduced in some places due to this.
If you're building it as a separate "shed" and don't want to insulate, then just don't. Use a slightly thicker timber to build the walls and make sure you have good ventilation for when the sauna isn't in use. If you don't have electrics in it then use a solar-powered exhaust vent somewhere in the top and have an inlet somewhere at the bottom of the sauna. Keeping a structure at 100% RH and closing it up and letting it cool down a recipe for disaster. Ventilation around all of the structures and inside the sauna is super important.
For good videos look up "saunan rakentaminen" which means "building a sauna" in Finnish. You wont get them in english, but a video speaks a million words...
@@haider254 thanks a lot!!!
here are a few essential parts of a good sauna. replacement air from the outside, sewer, waterproofing without having to get around the sauna "good ventalation"
A lot of these comments are helpful. I think too many people get fixated on how things "have to be done". Generally speaking having a floor drain, high and low ventilation, air gap in front of radiant barrier, and sizing the room for the heat capicity of the heater, drying out sauna after use, are all good suggestions. I am allergic to cedar so will use alternatives. Alaskan Yellow and Atlantic White Cedar are generally safer to work with. Other low toxic species such as spruce, pine, and aspen can all be used and will last a lifetime. Your local climate and location will dictate the appropriate way to build for you and what materials are readily available. Don't let the "right" way stop you.
Mr. Build it: How to Build a Sauna
all finnish people in the comments: How NOT to build a Sauna
but still, great video, good work.
mistakes where made, you'll know it better in future projects ;)
was going to say something about drainage but then Finland commented 😂 ihana murut 🥰
Nice work, but there are so many serious mistakes made, here are some of them:
1) Between foil and finishing, there must be at least 25mm air gap, otherwise your finishing boards will be done faster then you think.
2) Ventilation! Fresh air intake at the bottom, close to the heater and exhaust at the opposite corner, just a few cm higher then the intake. Without ventilation it will be impossible to enjoy sauna as you will be sitting in "old, wet" air and lack oxygen.
3) The biggest mistake was the heater - never get a heater made for bigger space! If you do that, the room will get hot faster then the rocks in the heater, so it will be impossible to get any steam without heating the room so much, that the devil would burn his face! :)
2) What you said about placing is wrong. Intake should be right next to stove but exhaust needs to be almost at ceiling if on wall or it can also be on ceiling furthest distance from stove. So that's way warmer air leaves from exhaust it draws colder fresh air right next to stove where it warms up and spreads oxygen rich air all over sauna room.
That vent placing which you described only works if exhaust vent is equipped with electric fan otherwise it doesn't work because height difference is so small it doesn't create so called chimney effect.
@@mr.wizeguy8995 It's totally wrong to place the exhaust at the ceiling, it will suck out all the fresh hot air. Once hot air gets "dirty" from all the sweat, it falls down, for that reason the exhaust should be at the bottom. Of course you will need to create an air flow, for the exhaust to work, there are two ways, first one is to create a natural flow by building a vent pipe top from the exhaust, higher then ceiling. The second way - just like you said by adding an electric vent. Which way to choose depends on the multiple factors, like the volume of the sauna and construction.
@@Albertsville Nope, old traditional Finnish Sauna has always been exhaust went near ceiling called RÄPPÄNÄ or through ceiling called LAKEINEN and usually floor that has wood planks with caps where all fresh air comes from.
I have renovated more than 20 sauna and never seen any that exhaust and fresh air is close to same level when air is flowing natrual without fan.
All moderns houses with sauna there exhaust is connected to mechanical ventilation machine and then exhaust vent is under sauna seat but fresh air is over stove on ceiling also often one extra exhaust vent on ceiling which can be opened after you leave from sauna to boost air flow that everything dries faster.
@@mr.wizeguy8995 I'm building traditional Russian saunas for living, but, think logically - fresh cold air comes inside and gets heated by the heater, once it's hot - it moves up to the ceiling. By placing the exhaust at the ceiling, you will be sucking out the fresh hot air! Exhaust at the top means that you are creating full air exchange at the sauna, and that's something you will never want to do, because it will simply overload you heater. All the fresh hot air will be sucked out and you will be sitting in cold, sweaty air which falls to bottom.
Exhaust at the top is made only for one reason - to dry the sauna once you are finished, that's all - it can never be used while enjoying the sauna, for that reason most of the time top exhaust will have like a small door, so you can stop the airflow while using sauna and open once finished.
@@Albertsville Traditional Russian sauna how come they are traditional because Russians never invented them?
I was just in my own sauna 2 hour ago. Exhaust near ceiling fresh air at floor level and for sure it wasn't cold.
I also have separate smoke sauna on my yard and it has plank floor that i can see outside under floor and exhaust went near ceiling and it also works fine just like every other +3 millions saunas in Finland.
Insulation with a kraft face paper - those little flanges goes over the face of the studs. Kraft paper is a vapor barrier and you want that continuous and not stapled to the inside of the stud. By doing visqueen over the top of the kraft face insulation you just created a double vapor barrier. Any moisture that finds its way between them (ie air movement around electrical devices, etc) won't have anywhere to go and will eventually lead to issues.
Good call out. DIY is great but a lot of times the knowledge is lacking.
Great job, looks amazing. Few pointers from Finn: you need ventilation and floor need drainage. Ventilation on top corner, ideally opposite to heating (kiuas) and 100-200mm cap between the bottom of the door and floor. Also, no need to insulate floor; basic physics - hot air rises.
We have sauna build from logs in about 300 km north from arctic circle and there are about 20mm caps between floor boards. Sauna it self is elevated roughly 300-400mm or so from the ground and in winter time still perfect "löyly" while -30c outside. Plus this ads to fore mentioned ventilation.
how are the Somalian immigrants treating you?
@@G1ennbeckismyher0 Weird question in a video about something that's completely unrelated to that eh? It was dramatized quite the bit at the start (perhaps for a reason at the time) but as the immigration numbers started going down to normal levels again, people stopped focusing on it. Now that there's a 2nd generation of them who speak fluent Finnish and respect the rules, it's just chill, they're Finnish people like us innit.
@@laurikotivuori1585 except they are tainting your blood lines lol
@@G1ennbeckismyher0 Calm the fuck down with the racism buddy, they're Finnish people like the rest of us, aight? There's Finnish people that have moved to places like France, Australia, South Africa et cetera, and people who have moved from those places to Finland. Nothing bad with diversity as long as everything stays controlled, the ones that act correctly are Finnish people, point blank period.
@@G1ennbeckismyher0 "Tainting your bloodlines" goddamn that's such an ass way of disrespecting people, come on man. People can choose who they date, if you prefer someone of color, you prefer someone of color. Those interracial couples will end up with mixed kids, who will most likely end up with "traditional" Finnish partners who will end up with kids that have heavily Finnish DNA anyway, if the extinction of the 'original' Finnish people is what you're talking about.
As a Finn I approve this sauna, good work man! Next time the crown jewel of saunas, wood stove?
When you’ve run out of rooms to renovate, so you have to turn a shed into a sauna.
In texas.
It’s Idaho.
Here in Texas my garage is a sauna. Unfortunately thats where i do all of my home projects 😪
Could have used an old gas tank and put it in the sun
🤣🤣🤣
I live in Miami and have a sauna in my garage lol. I'm Russian though so it's necessary to maintain lifestyle.
I’ve got a sauna right here in Houston.
Most important thing when building sauna is you gotta have Harvia heater, you just got to have it. But, this sauna is missing water drain from floor, air intake above or near heater in the wall, and vent for air to get out somewhere near floor.
such a electric sheep you are, go with wood or dont use sauna at all is most important lessons
@@LazlaTheFallen But Harvia makes heaters which are used with wood. Either you go Aito kiuas, or you go with Harvia.
@@Sinr0ne well then its ok, and one solution is "towns blacksmith" made also. There is chace that old saunas i were remembering also corp made and the brands just gone by now but i dont really recall seeing any marks on those.
But aint Hela older than Aito tho?
Harvia👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿
You channel DIY stuff is so fun to watch, even when they're long....
I know it even took longer with recording everything by yourself. Especially moving the camera Every time you moved. So props for making it interesting and fun ☺️🙏
Very cool build I want one now. May I suggest putting a magnet on the door just to hold it closed
Thanks for this! I've recently embarked on the idea of turning one of our sheds into a sauna. I took a LOT of good stuff away from this. THANKS FOR THE EFFORT!
I love it. Insulation should be tucked at top and bottom though. Not sure why the ceiling insulation was installed with VB towards cold side.
Small idea: On a your door with a simple push/pull, use a closet door ball catch. You cannot have a lock on a sauna door, its easy to enter\exit, and it has enough holding force to not pop open when you put steam on.
Magnet works too. Similar to a screen door with a magnet
Nice job. Now that you have a sauna, has it become damp and stuffy? Mold? Smell? How's the maintenance? and electric bill
Just a heads up that wearing your apple watch into the sauna degrades the seals over time and it will no longer be waterproof. Also most saunas are above the maximum recommended operating temp.
lol nobody should wear a watch to sauna! sauna is relax mode!
@@kentabenno I wear it to time myself. But I guess now I’ll just buy an egg timer
@@davidcardinal3654 just put an alarm on your phone and put it outside of the steam room
Lol
just needed to add some blocking around that light on inside! all around good job and cool video! keep it up!
Seems to be missing a low and high air vent, air gaps and waste water drain, but thanks for sharing!
I always come to read the comments on his videos 😂. At least the dude is motivated.
This is an awesome build. It is 20 times neater than the one I built. Mine is 7 x 5 x 61/2. I am amazed at how similar we approached the task. I am talking insulation, vapor barrier, reflex insulation, etc. I did not do the floor. To me, it was not necessary. There are rugs on the floor.
He is right about the heater. Get an adequately sized heater. I have friends whose saunas take 45 minutes to heat up and they don't get above 180. I have a 6,000-watt heater and in 30 minutes it is cooking.
Cool video, but you should come to Estonia or go to Finland to get some tips for proper sauna and try some out. We have the tradition of building saunas for hundreds of years, Finland less, but okey, ;) Its not so many things, but there is some you missed by building it. First of all, the material you are using must be a hardwood, otherwise you have a lot of problems with resin and the floor should be also little bit different. The most important thing is where you put intake and outtake ventilation pipe in Your sauna, You can still do it and belive me, you feel the differnce immediately. Really cool video and huge respect to the guy who build sauna like that. Your new follower :)
Where's your ventilation? /Finnish guy.
And drainage ?
Yeah. And i´m a little skeptical how floor structure will hold on with very moist conditions saunas often have.
And foil layer will act as a vapor barrier so there's no need to put second vapor barrier layer between the insulation and the foil. In fact that will cause problems if any of those layers will have any leakage. With any leakage, moisture will condensate between the layers and cause mold problems.
@@sebastianvilen4084 And what i have seen done is the ''painted'' on vapor barrier is actually little bit extended to the wall. If it is done like in video water will go between floor and wall and it's game over.
eei nuo jenkit heitä kiukaalle vettä kun luulee että menee rikki... ihan tosissaan siis sanon ja tämä on jenkeillä ihan yleinen harhakäsitys😂 jos menee rikki niin paska on kiuas
Братуха!!! Отличная банька получилась! Зачёт, на следующей надела ставлю свою парную! Подпишусь на тебя!
You should wash the stones before putting them in. The often have some dust on them which creates this nasty smell during first heatings. You can smell it the first times you throw water on the hot stones. They are normally just washed with plain water and it is done only to new stones. After that they should be dried. If you heat wet stones, the water inside the stones may become steam if heated fast, which causes the rock to break.
amazing dude!! loved watching.
I’m so glad my dad doesn’t do this stuff. Otherwise I would have to hold the flash light
Lmao so true
You mean this? : th-cam.com/video/do7InNH9wx4/w-d-xo.html
Better than holding the fleshlight for him.
I think holding a flashlight makes up for having a fully decked out house
Ha! Good one.
Your safety glasses is look good on you when you wearing it! 😊
Normally you need an air inlet at the bottom of the sauna, easiest under the door, and exit vent to the ceiling, furthest corner from heat source.
Wow. I've learned a lot from your video, and just as much from the comments. I've grown up in ID and 99% sure I recognize the drive north on 55 1:49 ? 🤞I can make one of these saunas happen one day for us, here in town or up in Donnelly. Cheers!
Saatana perkele! missä korvausilma missä poistoilma? mold and more mold after 1 month!
missä kiulu? missä pesut? eiii saatana ei edes kaljaa? väittää olevansa naapuri maasta ja saunonu aina ja kaikki meni silti päin vittua...
tai siis hyvinhän toi on tehty mutta väärin? :D
no niimpä!
hyvin tehty väärin :D
No tää :D
Repesin... ei oo tuo kuumakoppi saunaa nähnykkään.
@@miiahirvonen183 täähän olis aiva loistava jos olis
Infrapunasauna
Спасибо за подробное видео! Я строю сауну, и многие ваши идеи обязательно использую. Привет со штата Вашингтон!
Don't use
Я тоже строю с Вашингтона 😂
Came across this guy a month or so ago and at first I just thought he was another YT DIYer with a bunch of tools and Adderall. But the outcome of his work is consistently flawless IMO. Hard to find the combo of real artistic creativity with the technical skill to back it up. But fr, hook me up with the addy connect.
Wabi Sab-e is amazing too
You can check I Like to make stuff too
Great video. As a DIY-er who’s never built a sauna before this has basically shown me everything I need to know. Well everything except the electric hookups, but fortunately my neighbor is a retired electrician ;)
Do not build as he has or you will have problems later on. So many mistakes in here!
Yeas this is not built properly. Be careful with TH-cam DIYers!
Sooo.. when you run out of things to do in your house.. you can gladly come on over to mine and help!
Considering there's nowhere that sits at 160⁰ +, they are useful anywhere. Great health benefits .
@@dalton1824 huh? Lol did you accidentally comment on the wrong comment?
@@myteaminc you would be correct haha
Nice job! I would have put a bench on the long side wall so i could lay down, but that's up to taste. Very similar to my gym-sauna. Just leave the door a crack open after your done sweating.
Lots of good work here, but also lots of mistakes picked up in the comments. Moisture is the problem with saunas, the heat needs to be kept in, but with it comes humidity from sweat, but more importantly from showered bodies and water sprayed on the hot stones. Its necessary to use moisture barriers that are well sealed, so that also stops the ventilation which is necessary to stop people from passing out. Forced ventilation is a good idea so the heat lost can be used to heat the replacement air. Its also necessary to remove the damp air at the end of the sauna session otherwise the moisture penetrates the fabric of the building. Then we come to moisture on the floor. It makes sense to have a drain in the floor as they commonly do in bathrooms throughout Scandinavia. Its not a common in the rest of the world and we get away with it, and it can be costly to install, so it might be possible to take the risk and not have one. In Europe a 6kW heater can cost under $250 so some of the prices mentioned seem a little excessive.
Nice, my sauna is 6 x 12, but get this......my heat source is a wood stove that I converted to a oil fired furnace, so through the glass you see the oil burner, connected to a digital thermostat that can go up to 230f, 180f is just about right. So heat up time is about 15 to 20 minutes considering my furnace can heat 2000sq feet but my sauna is only 60sq, it is awesome. Got my cedar for only 350 bucks from local cedar mill.
Pressure treated wood in a hot environment where you breathe constantly is probably a bad idea. Frame up with caedar posts, it will cost a bit more but last as long and is significantly more healthy.
Do you have any white papers on that?
@@brianthompson9485 just go check r/sauna. Everyone is extremely adamant about not using treated wood
@@vandrossmeno5088, what they are adamant about doesn't matter. Depending on your location building codes will require treated lumber for anything touching the foundation. I would still like to see white papers on the subject.
Yeah I was surprised about that myself
@@brianthompson9485 I've been doing premium construction for 5 years, I can tell you there are a ton of carcinogens in treated lumber. Remember it took the government 50 years to produce white papers on asbestos, What do you know? It's okay, put pressure treaded lumber in your sauna, I'm a firm believer in natural selection.
I work as a sauna designer, this sauna is not correctly built. In a traditional sauna you get heater by convection heat, or by the hot air. Therefore proper ventilation and air circulation is key for an effective and fast heating sauna... The air need to circulate, cool air should be going in by the bottom of the stove, and be expelled on the top wall or ceiling opposite of the stoves location, and the air should come from and go out in the same room or in and out to the outside.
Also no need for the plastic (or any kind of) vapor barrier....
Also drainage for the water, or a metal container under the stove for spill water...
Also recommended to use sauna wax on the benches to prevent sweat stains on nice and new untreated wood...
You should use clear knot free cedar. Knots will heat up and be very uncomfortable to lean up against. Also advisable to be careful what you use for your vapor barrier. Plastic is a terrible idea as the temperature in the sauna can easily run up to 180 F. This guy didn't do enough research.
What to use instead? Good point. Plus anything heating in there should be natural. Rubber plastics adhesives will be breathed in
@@assyrianme Just wood. Thick wood.
@@assyrianme usually foil. Construction grade foil.
I came to see a shed turned into a sauna, but was more interested in getting that fr jacket and rebar jeans.
I am a licenesed electrician and I promise that the electrician that came out did not feed any wire through that 3/4 aluminum flex you ran. You can't push a fish tape through it when there is bends... Great looking build though
use a fiberglass tape and make sure bends large radius. also little as possible movement in the flex ' i run wire through it all the time
6:24 Great room to grow the green stuff😉
Lmao
Looks amazing. I just hope you didn't make it too air tight. But 10/10 loved this video. Thanks for it!
Looks cozy! Harvia works. Approved by Finn. Agree with habah drain is good to have for all the blood sweat and tears... and water. My protip sauna doesnt really maybe need that much of insulation considering that we have sauna tents here with one layer of fabrick as insulation. I would priortize that fresh air gets into the room not too fast to take heat away and not too slow to have too thick air that will cause tiredness.
As a professional sauna builder I just have to say this one thing: do not believe everything what you see on TH-cam. This is a polite way to comment the instructions given here.
I'm building a sauna and would love a little insight. Especially trying to figure out what heater to use. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Stephen
Restore is my secret sin. I have a bunch around me and a few are super stores. I can't go a few days without stopping in one.. A sauna is on my to do list, I am from Ukraine originally. I miss the sauna.
I was going to complain a lot but it looks like it has been done by my fellow finns.
Ill give you an A for effort.
Looks good. Only thing that havn't seen a light on top of the heater. Usually light is under the benches or something. Hopefully it does't break with the heat and steam. And I can't understand where does the water goes what falls on the floor.
Pro-tip: Make the seats removable, so that you can take them outside once a year and give them a good sanding. Totally worth the little extra effort.
You do not have to do that. Removable seat is easier to change when they are 20 years old.
@@kimmosuominen4932 Its worth it 100%
I love everyone pointing out his errors and mistakes.
sauna business needs to be done right, the first time otherwise it can be a subpar experience .
This guy is the perfect example of ‘you don’t have to be good at something to sell it good’
Very good craftsmanship, but you need a drain to drain the water out and a good ventilation system.
can this guy redo my whole house? for free ofc :) 😂
Depends on ur budget 🤔
That lamp + that electrical box... Jeeze.
Warning! Don’t use this video as a teaching material for your own future builds. In this sauna there’s no ventilation, air gaps between wall materials, no drainage ect. It’s matter of time when there’s going to be mold problem.
Also the electrics arent safe for sauna
Thanks for the great tutorial! That tile is going to be cold cold cold in winter!
Is there anything this guy hasn't redone/renovated to his house? Lmao
He's gonna have to buy a new house cause he's gonna run out of stuff to improve
I don’t think this was his house. However to answer your question. I think he’s done pretty much his entire house. Lol.
If you were listening carefully in the beginning he went on a roadtrip to get to this shed
@@mikey6128 ikr lol
@@JuanValentine haha yea 🤣
Thank you. I'm a pretty fair carpenter and had the building idea. But your tips are going to be most helpful. Really liked the way you went thru the process.
Nice to see Harvia :) one thing you were missing which is finnish rule number one always go to shower before sauna. Sauna is like church you stay quiet, clean and fresh.
My understanding is that you shower after your first sweat as the pores have opened, the sweat helps clear the dirt and then you wash it all away. Then back into the sauna, more heat, more sweat and then into the lake to cool off as many times as you like.
I have never been in a sauna and dont even if id like kt, but this makes me wanna build one.
Hahah
As a Finn, NO NO and NOO, this is wrong on so many levels.
idk why i keep watching ur video. I don't have house or ability to do. I guess I'm addicted about ur video....
I like everything but the floor. I feel like you should have tiled the whole thing. So you could hose it out or at least mop it. That wood floor is going to trap a lot of sweat and bacteria underneath it. Eventually turning into some really nasty stuff.
Tiles get hot, couldn't walk on it.
@@jasonmajere2165 Usually the floor doesn't get hot in sauna. TIles are commonly used in saunas in Finland.
@@jasonmajere2165 no they dont. Hot air goes up, not down. Tiles could easily stay cold.
This is the second video of yours that I've watched and I really enjoyed it. Then I realized that I'm not subbed and got mad because I was missing out.
I remember the first time I hit 200 F in the sauna...
I wasn't even 1 year old yet...
people don't have any memories from that time lmao under 1 year old
@@taahasiddiqui1071 yes they do
Really awesome build, will be using this to build ours!
It’s “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time” -African proverb
This my friends.. is a video how NOT to build sauna.
This thing turned out bangin!!! nicely done
you need to keep a airgap between the radiation barrier and the ceiling/wall wood to help humidity escape. no need to put the heat barrier on the floor, it will never get hot there. Also a waterinsulation layer on the floor is not needed. Great job :) Next time, you dont need expensive wood like that, its all about protecting the wood with oils and wax.
That's a fabulous set up. I would love that at my house. I have a perfect location in my garage. How soon can you start this project?
oh, when you discover the proper way to enjoy sauna (throwing water to the rocks) you wish you have built the floor and ventilation differently.
It's beautiful! 😍 I want one.
Such a good video production, you get to see everything important. It's dynamic and never drags on.
it's a fucking shit sauna
you clearly dont know how sauna should be built
I complimented an outlook, not function. And engaging video production.
I did read other comments about ventulation before doing it.
“Progress report: I feel like I’m living on Mars” lmao I literally had to pause the video, I laughed so hard.
another pro tip from finn; You have opening under the door, but you also need to build ventilation hole on the outside wall.
Otherwise it looks pretty nice - for american made :-) You isolate it much more than I expected, very nice