Sauna. There are many copies of it but the original is the best. Wood burning stove, about 80 degrees of Celsius and water is thrown to the stones of the stove. Electric stove can be good too but the problem is how to arrange the sauna room ventilation? Wood burning sauna stove kind of solves half of this challenge by taking care of air venting out thru the smoke pipe and this draft can be used to bring in fresh air if done right way. In electric sauna stove there is no smoke pipe and natural draft it creates and vice versa bring in natural way same amount of fresh air from outside. In saunas with electric sauna stove this has to be done with blowers to both directions. What is right amount of air? Where does the incomming air come in? Where does the out going air leave? If any of these go wrong you for sure feel it in the sauna. Ether you feel exhausted because there is no ventilation or the amount is too little, cold because there is too much and/or the air comes and leaves from wrong places.
If you can choose always select wood burning sauna stove for your sauna. I would say that it is the easiest way to build a good sauna. Wood burning sauna stove creates half of the experience. The mild scent of burning wood, sound of fire, light from stove. Always select the stove with glass window in the hatch!
So in the wood burning sauna the stove takes care of the out going ventilation by creating natural draft as the smoke goes out from the pipe. 1 kg of burning wood in the stove creates draft of 10 m3 of air. The place of the out going draft is ideal as it sucks air from the lower part of the sauna room pulling warmer air down and leveling the heat in the sauna.
The incomming air should always be broad to above the sauna stove so that it mixes in to the hot air of the sauna stove. This way it creates a plesant experience of fresh air comming in and not as draft. The clever way to solve this is to use kind of Z shape "saunakanava" which lower hole takes air outside and the upper hole is above the sauna stove near the ceiling of the sauna. This saunakanava is installed right behind and center of the sauna stove and smoke pipe so that it warms from the heat of the stove. This makes the outside air to warm inside the saunakanava and rise to come out from the other hole near ceiling and to mix with the heated air of the sauna stove. Also the draft created by the wood burning at the sauna stove helps this process of ventilation. The door of the sauna room needs to be tight so that the draft that the stove creates does not pull the air from the other room/outside.
How about the sauna stove. This is as important as the ventilation of the sauna room. There are many types and models of the sauna stoves in the market. The rule of thump is the less it has metal casing the better. So net casing is the best for various reasons: the stones of the sauna stove are the part that generate the steam and preserve the heat of the stove. And net casing in the sauna stove lets the stove to radiate the heat better sideways and lower than the other models that have a metal casing around.
The upper sauna bench should be about 110 cm/4 feed from the ceiling. And or the top of the sauna stove should be at between knee and ankle. Then the warmness of the sauna room feels equal to the body and you avoid the feeling and head is burning while feed are cold.
You should always follow the recommendations of the sauna stove manufacturer about the size of the sauna stove relative to the size of the sauna room as well as safety distances to walls, ceiling and floor around the stove. Too little or too big sauna stove for the sauna room is a bad choise.
Then the stones of the sauna stove. There are many different types of sauna stove stones availabe. Before we go to what I prefer I remind that the stones need to be change once and couple times a year if you use sauna once or several times a week like I do. The stones wear and lose their property to function as purposed as a sauna stone.
After tested several different sauna stones I tried ceramic sauna stones. Their properties for my sauna stove have been the best and also they have been long lasting by quality. And the price is not bad at all for something that is manufactured in Finland. The link to the ceramic sauna stove stones is in the comments.
I selected Skamet stove for my RV's sauna. Absolutelly the best in the market for the purpose I need it for and awesome customer support! The stoves are hand build in Estonia and if you need somekind of customization for your stove it is no problem for the factory. And they can build your custom stove in a week if you need one and they have a good reseller network.
I needed a special sauna stove with a boiler on the side as the sauna stove is a part of the heating system of my RV. If not the heart of it as I love sauna so much that I would live in it. I think couple times a day would be almost enough for me, every day!
I selected Skamet SS-110 model with angular net casing, glass door in hatch, net around the smoke pipe and floor protection plate under the stove. The safety distances around the stove are 25 cm/10 inches which can be half if a non burning barrier is placed between the stove and walls. As the SS-110 stove is compact for my small RV sauna there is no problem also with the safety distance (1m/40 inches) to the ceiling above the stove when a non burning barrier is placed between the stove and ceiling.
Skamet has a very interesting option for the sauna stove. The stove can be heated from the sauna room as usual or from the other room. If you select the sauna stove model with the option heated from the other room you get a fireplace for the other room from the glass hatch of the sauna stove! What an excellent idea! I would had definatelly selected this model if it had been earthly way possible to install for my RV room plan. The RV's huge A/C unit is in the roof and makes it impossible to turn the floor plan around so that I would get a wood burning sauna stove and real fireplace for living room all in the same. Have to accept that and I'm so happy about my wood burning sauna stove with it's special features which I explane later in the blog post.
How to build a good Sauna?