When we think of Sauna, we generally think of a wood-lined room heated by an electric or wood-fired kiuas (even though my last post was on the discovery of an old smooth plastered sauna.) The wood is integral to the experience—for the aesthetics of its look, its pleasant smell, and ability to take the humidity and temperature extremes. But all wood is not alike, and the question of what kind of wood to use always arises. The answer to that question, like everything else these days, is changing.
Typically in the US, especially in the generic gym and hotel saunas, and home kit saunas, Western Red Cedar is used. As its name implies, it is from the western US and Canada. All lumber is graded and each board is stamped as it runs through the mill. The grade indicates species, appearance, mill, and strength of the wood. The letters A-D are modified by Select, Clear and STK (select tight knots). For cedar saunas, it will be either a clear select grade or STK, the latter being almost half the price of the former. Cedar is also produced mainly for exterior siding applications and comes with a textured surface on one side that, unlike the sawing pattern of rough sawn lumber, is applied in the mill after sawing. This rough surface is considered the “good” side to which the grade applies. A big frustration with cedar is that I want the smooth side facing out and, since the board is graded to the other side, there is no guarantee that the smooth side has the appearance that the grade indicates.
Western Red Cedar, graded clear select with many variations of color
Color in cedar varies a lot: one side can be red and the other have annoying stripes of white wood. Clear select grade A boards will be better, but they come at a premium price, currently about $12-15 a board foot (12’x1 ft x1” thick, nominal dimensions). For years I have typically used Western Red STK for the walls and maybe Clear Select grade on the benches. This wood comes from either Idaho or British Columbia (BC). STK is likely from managed (regenerated) forest plantations and Clear Select is from larger old growth trees in BC. There is a guilt factor here I consider, so I veer towards STK whenever possible. (I also use Northern White Cedar frequently in freestanding saunas and our mobile saunas but that is the topic of another post.)
Cedar has been touted for its stability in the heat—which is true, and because of its low density, it doesn’t get hot to the touch—an important feature in a hot room with bare flesh touching the walls and benches.
Wood is a global commodity affected by the stock markets, inflation, building trends, shipping woes, fire seasons and the whims of political leaders who set tariffs as a way to taunt each other. You can make a career (and people do) out of studying the ebb and flow of lumber supply and prices. Add to this mix the pandemic and you have a roller coaster of unpredictability. The information I gleaned from building ten or twenty years ago I can no longer rely on. Suppliers have come and gone, quality has gone down and prices go mostly up.
The Pandemic created a real change in the labor force as well. There was never a shortage of raw lumber-logs but as workers and truck drivers got sick or just quit, mills shut down and logs piled up. The calculus used to predict building trends was skewed by everyone staying home and building decks with their pandemic relief money and we all saw prices soar while availability of lumber, especially cedar, shrank. In the meantime, the cedar I could get has been showing up with major defects, some from the mill, some from very poor handing: fork lift stabs are so common I have to over-order for very job. I assume this is the result of experienced older workers leaving the work force and being replaced by a cohort too inexperience to understand that the 6-board bundle they just mangled cost me more than what they make in two days. Some days I feel like all I make is very expensive kindling.
Cedar, graded side up (rough) with shipping damage
The truth is, in Finland, the source of my sauna inspiration, they don’t even have Western Red Cedar. They have soft wood species similar to what we have—spruce, pine, fir (SPF) but, in general, the quality and nature of wood varies by region. Wood from northern climates grows slower and has a denser grain.
As in Scandinavia, trees in uniformly dense forests have straighter grain as the trees race to reach up for the sun. Compare a “lone wolf” white oak, with its sprawling branches, to a deep forest oak.
Norway Spruce is the wood choice for many Finns, as are Alder and Aspen, which are soft hardwoods. The latter grow bigger there than our typical Aspen and Alder which rarely found at local mills. Cedar has been touted for its stability in the heat—because of its low density, it doesn’t get hot to the touch. But now Scandinavians have started using a thermal process of using heat and steam to modify wood and make it more stable and rot resistant (or so the web pages claim). I suspect there is also a Scandinavian work ethic at play: working in the trades there does not carry the same stigma of being a high school dropout, as it does here, and attention to detail and quality are paramount. Call it the IKEA effect.
Thermory and Lunawood are two brands available now in the US. The shipping crisis (highlighted by a boat getting stuck sidewise in the Suez Canal) has calmed down so now the economy of having quality wood freighted in containers from the Baltic’s to you (via a US distributor) probably makes more sense than wasting your time perusing the aisles of a big box store (or several) to glean out a few good cedar boards from a pile of fork lift-stabbed firewood. I also measure the time I spend trying to hide defects as I install the wood. While I still want to get all of my materials as locally sourced as possible, we are now in a global economy and looking abroad is certainly starting to make more sense to me. —Rob
Beautiful samples of thermally modified wood using heat and steam
The landscape of Upstate NY is punctuated by the rural agrarian architecture typical of an area rooted in 19th-century traditions. Massive old barns reign supreme and are typically surrounded by a cluster of smaller accessory buildings: smaller barns and equipment sheds, dairies, smokehouses, and, occasionally, if one looks hard enough, a sauna. Sadly, many of the wood-sided buildings have either burned or fallen into abstract heaps of their formal selves. Their replacements— metal-sided Morton buildings and giant fabric-covered hoop structures—are strictly utilitarian and lack the romantic appeal of the old barns. It is the former that inspires the creative in me.
When I was an aspiring young artist, old barns were often my subject matter. My father and I would go for drives in the country and stop to draw landscapes with a barn as the focal point. Now, when I build my saunas, the vernacular of old farm structures is never out of my mind. In particular, I am drawn to the older simple gable roof structures, rather than the more efficient gambrel roof. There is something pleasing about the simple geometry and the formal balance in earlier barns. When additions were made they typically created a hodge-podge of shapes and the formal symmetry was lost.
Rob stands next to and old saw blade waiting to be refurbished.Rough cut 1×12 Pine for Sauna exterior
The barns were typically sided with local pine, nailed vertically with green boards nailed closely but with gaps that would open as the wood dried. These gaps were often covered with narrow battens that were nailed so that the boards could shrink and swell. This is the beauty of board and batten siding: it takes into account that the wood is alive and not a fixed entity. It is this board and batten technique, or variations of it, like reverse board and batten or vertical shiplap, that I often employ. Nailed correctly so it can move, the wood will last for one hundred years, as is evident in many of the old barns still standing.
The best part of this style of siding is that it typically employs local lumber. Most rural towns have a sawmill nearby. In our region mills typically cut White Pine and Hemlock. I rely on a sawmill that has been in operation for 50 years: Collins lumber in Alpine NY. It was started by Bob Collins and continues to be operated by his nephew. The same saw has provided siding for hundreds of barns, sheds, and other outbuildings in the area. What is distinct about the operation is that they use a traditional circular saw. Many newer sawyers use a bandsaw mill, perhaps even a portable unit they can bring to you. What I like about the wood I have been getting from Collins for the past 30 years is that there is a character to it. The circular saw marks on the rough sawn boards create a pattern that has repetition but also pleasing randomness—like jazz. Certain saw teeth will mark more than others. No two boards are alike. It’s not like metal siding, cement board siding, or any manufactured material typically used in construction these days. It speaks of the trees, the mill, and the rural landscape.
It’s the kind of thing you might never notice, except when you come out of the sauna and have time to stare at the inconsequential things in life while you cool off in the fading light of day with the sunbeams raking across the swirling marks left by an old saw blade.
Most people glorify the act of building, as in being able to transform a humble pile of building materials into a noble sauna or house or shed. I like to think that too: that my profession is a noble one, with an emphasis of craftsmanship and attention to detail that can only be honed by decades of working with fine materials. But the truth is, on any given day, on any given project, especially for on-site work, where I take my tools and materials, my truck and trailer, my lunch and my laptop and various other accoutrements, is that I am often just a professional schlepper. And I bet any other contractor reading this just now nodded his or her head.
I love doing saunas that are removed from the house, perhaps beyond the garden gates or down by the lake or out in the woods next to a pond. I like to work immersed in nature, take lunch by the water, and contemplate the finer things in life while I toil at my craft.
Sauna on a PondSauna on a LakeSauna in the Woods
But, when I bid jobs like these, I have learned to think of the schlep— that is the sum total distance from truck to the site. I think of thousands of steps back and forth to carry lumber, to retrieve the pencil or glasses from the cab, of the steps I have to climb or the potential for slipping and falling with a 100 pound load on my shoulder. I have literally carried an entire eight by twelve sauna on my shoulders, load by load. Some days I count the steps and do the math—how many miles I wonder? Other times I count the load— a ton of concrete mix, how much work was that?
I don’t mind the schlep. The key is to embrace it. If I know from the start and plan for it: clear the path, remove obstacles, make ramps, then I can proceed slowly but with the steadiness of a Yoga master moving through a progression of poses. Each repeated carry is perfected in the same way a bobsled driver learns to lean through each curve.
With two or people it is a choreographed movement. Go left here, stoop here, K- turn at the end and dosey-do before we enter the door. Perfecting the movement makes it almost enjoyable.
At 60 I have to protect my body. I know my strengths and limits and my strength is knowing how to carry and move heavy objects. Always keep one hand free- you never know when you’ll have counter an off- balance step. Always be relaxed and take smaller loads— there is no race. It is amazing what you can in an hour of honest schlepping. Ironically when I do have spells of days or weeks when my back is “out” and the chiropractor is needed, it always the stupid stuff that gets me: desk work (I stand at my desk now), shoveling snow or that heroic effort to rake all the leaves in one Sunday. These are unintentional actions. Work with intention and you will become stronger. Work smarter and you will avoid injury. I really like those 60 pound concrete bags— and I’m eyeing those forty’s. At 19, everything came in 100’s.
Rob – der schlep
I’ve had jobs where the schlep caught me, like the sauna-cabin in the woods where I was promised an ATV to haul everything. After the first week, 3 feet of snow put the brakes on that. Everything had to be hauled on a sled with me in snowshoes. Good thing I Loved those Jack London stories as a kid.
But then, I’ve been pleasantly surprised too- like a recent job on the lake where the haul was several hundred feet down steep stairs or a windy path. Then the owners produced a golf cart. It became my mini-truck and my morning joy as I breezed down the hill silently. There is a beauty to electric vehicles: the joy of still hearing nature as you whizz through it.
I’ve thought of offering classes on Schlepping—or even rigging—which is a specialized form of schlep that involves more weight, more dance, more cooperation. We would move things each day. And then maybe move them back again. Everyone has it wrong about Sisyphus. If the enjoyment of the act of moving becomes the goal, rather the completion of the act, then he could be seen as a master perfecting his craft. Like a cat that keeps hitting the toy away only to chase it again, a worker who carries load after load and enjoys the process will reach the goal of enjoying his or her work.
And only when a worker enjoys his or her work is true craftsmanship possible.
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It’s been a busy year at Rob Licht Custom Saunas and as the holidays approach it is a good time to look back everything that’s been accomplished, the hurdles we’ve gotten over, and to be thankful for the blessings we’ve received.
We started the year in the midst of the pandemic which made for some challenges but mostly the pandemic has meant a huge uptick in the sauna business as we all became more centered on home life and more reluctant to go out into public for things like gyms and saunas. Besides the several projects I have completed locally and around central New York I have fielded calls and emails from folks desperate to have their own saunas from as far away as Europe and Australia. I never set out to become a sauna expert, but here I am, 25 years into making them, and people are seeking out my knowledge from all over. In the process I feel like I have made many new friends. The global sauna community is alive and well. At the same time, due to the pandemic, I have mostly refrained from seeing all but my closest friends and family. It’s a strange new world but I am thankful to be connecting to so many people, if only on Zoom.
For my new friends I have designed and consulted on saunas from Maine to California— that has kept me busy when I was not getting my hands dirty. But whenever I can, I am working with my hands, either in my 3000 square foot shop, which I am ever grateful for, or I am on jobsites. It used to be that builders would simply stop in the winter and spend the dark months sitting around the woodstove reading back issues of Fine Homebuilding, but now we all seem to be out there in any weather. My cut off is 10° F; any colder and I want to be by a fire, in the sauna, preferably. Good gear helps; I’m especially grateful for my boot warmer and insulated pants.
Mobile Saunas showcased in the shop. Lansing, NY
Nothing I do is cookie cutter—I would die of boredom is life was too easy— thus the custom in my business moniker. This year I seemed to run the gamut of sauna permutations: First, a garage retrofit to a Yoga and sauna retreat, then a quiet walkout basement electric affair, then a classic one room wood burning sauna on a idyllic creek, then a more urban collaboration in Syracuse, followed by a tiny personal electric sauna in a bathroom, a rustic elegant wood burning retreat in the trees, and a distance job downstate. Currently I’m finishing up an electric sauna in a historic boathouse on Cayuga lake. I’m hoping to take it for a test drive, with a jump in the frigid water, by Christmas.
Garage Retrofit for Hot Yoga and SaunaClassic Creekside Sauna set 50 ft from swimming hole. Idyllic.Walkout Basement Electric Sauna BlissBackyard Sauna Design, Urban Collaboration in Syracuse, NYRustic elegant wood burning saunaCozy interior of a backyard sauna
In between all of these I have sold a few of my Lämpimämpi sauna stoves and many sauna plans. DIY interests, especially in the mobile saunas which are really big now. I get a kick out seeing my designs being brought to life by many different hands. It is also fun to see all of the other builders following in my steps. The more builders, the better. There is plenty of work to go around and I encourage anyone who wants to take the work seriously to pursue it with a passion. I did offer a sauna building class this year but had to cancel; Covid has thrown a wrench into a lot of plans. But stay tuned: perhaps 2022 will be the year.
Covid also threw into a wrench into the supply chain. We’ve all heard the phrase “supply chain disruption” by now. I bid jobs in the beginning of the year only see to prices on materials I quoted go up by 250%. Some materials simply vanished from the shelves. But now things have settled down and I also started ordering and stock piling materials well in advance. I can keep several saunas worth lumber and supplies in my big shop and insulate myself from some of the inflation—another reason to be grateful for the big work space.
Rob at the shop!
I’ve been working alone for most of the year, which actually suits me fine, especially with Covid lurking. Workers are hard to come by: not only are the skilled trades losing new blood, but, I think, the pandemic relief made a lot people lazy and unwilling to get off the couch. Scarlet, now my partner in everything, has been my greatest blessing. When she can escape childcare duties she has proven to be the hardest worker I could wish for. I could use a few more workers like her: eager to learn, unafraid of dust and dirt and willing to sweat. She also manages all of the marketing, so give her the kudos for the web media you see. The business feels like it wants to grow so if anyone is seriously interested in building saunas and wants to relocate to Ithaca, drop me a line.
For those of you lucky enough to have a sauna, I hope you get to celebrate the New Year in it for there is no better way to bring in the new and shake out the old. It’s been my tradition for four decades now and I hope to continue for four more.
Taking Sauna with Scarlet by the Lake, December 2021.
Lately I have been thinking about the application of the foil I use in my saunas as a radiant vapor barrier. Perhaps this is because it almost Christmas and I was thinking of how we decorated the tree each year. The final touch would be to drape foil tinsel over everything; our mother would have to constantly damp down our enthusiasm by reminding us to place it carefully on each branch, not to throw it.
This suspicious “sauna” foil is Aluminum-coated Plastic—upper working temperature of only 55-120° C.
There are tricks to using the foil but the first and most important step is to buy the right stuff. Like the tinsel we put on the tree, the foil may actually be aluminum-coated plastic— which you don’t want to use. That plastic is likely polyethylene which, if you look it up on the material specification sheet that every product has, it has an upper working temperature of 55-120° C, meaning it will likely melt at typical sauna temps. Sauna Foil, available from any of the familiar sauna suppliers, is aluminum foil on a kraft paper backing. I used to find it with fiberglass reinforcing thread, which is helpful because the stuff tears easily. Also helpful is 4 ft. rolls, rather than 3 ft so you can do a wall in 2 passes, but I have trouble finding this too. I recently tried a new supplier selling 4 ft rolls of “sauna” foil, but upon opening it had a suspicious plastic look to it. That night I put it in the sauna and within seconds it began to distort and curl up like the polyethylene I suspected it was made of. (See illustration above)
The second thing is to design the wall correctly. I read and see a lot of misinformation that touts using no air gap with foil. The air gap is essential. The foil works by reflecting radiant heat. All “black bodies” give off and absorb radiant heat that travels in a straight line from one hotter object to another cooler one, the hotter the body, the more heat it emits. The sauna rocks radiate a “soft” heat to you, the walls, and the benches, and that is why you want the sauna to be laid out so that everyone has a view of the rocks. The fire, if seen through a clear glass door, also radiates heat— but at a higher intensity. Too high for a comfortable sauna (but great for ambiance.) When that heat hits foil, it is reflected back into the room or the backside of the cedar—if there is an air gap of at least 1/2″. If it touches the backside of the cedar the foil— also a perfect conductor—pulls the heat away from the cedar and transfers to the wall space behind.
Air Gap. A Sauna Building Best Practice.
I’ve understood this for along time. The first semester of college I took a class: Solar Design and the Energy Efficient Home. We learned all about insulation, heat transfer and basic building skills. The first day of lab, where we were building a timber frame house, I was handed a Makita 12″ circular saw. My building career started right then and there.
With the web of misinformation out there I had to think of a way to illustrate this basic principle of thermodynamics that I learned my freshman year. So, one slow day in the shop I rigged up an experiment and photographed it. (see illustration below) I set up a section of cedar wall about 18″ from my infrared shop heater and fastened 2 pieces of foil to the back, one with a 3/4″ air gap, and one with no gap. After an hour the cedar was 250°F on the front—like it is often is in my sauna. The back of the cedar was 121° F, which is impressive by itself. The back of the foil with no gap was 115°F, meaning it was acting as a perfect conductor, and the back of the foil with an air gap was 71°F: room temp. The air gap was clearly making a difference, 45° in this case.
The thermodynamic experiment begins.
After an hour on cedar
back of cedar
back of foil, no gap
air gap makes big difference!
The foil is a perfect vapor barrier rated at zero perms— meaning no vapor moves through it. But unless you layer it properly, with insulation behind it, the moisture will condense on it, or the first cold surface it hits. Even in a perfect build, there might be cold spots in the insulation (typically about the size of a mouse hole), so there likely be some condensation, but not a problem if there is air movement. The air gap behind the cedar allows air to circulate around the cedar, removing any moisture and ensuring that the wood heats and dries evenly and remains stable. Heating one side of a board and wetting or cooling the other is how you make curved boat staves.
There are other tricks to using the foil- like unrolling it and re-rolling it foil-in, or using temporary magnets when working a commercial job with metal studs, but the key is to use care. Use plenty of hi-temp foil tape and patch tears as you go and work with a partner if possible.
I suppose you could build a sauna by putting a heater in a refrigerator box- but that would last about a day and be incredibly wasteful. Cedar touching foil won’t ruin your sauna and neither will plastic melting in the walls where you don’t see it. But if you are going to take the time and bear the expense of building a sauna, you might as well do it right and so it will last generations. I guess my mother was right: applying foil carefully and not just throwing it up is the way to work.
Building a sauna requires many skills. Basically it is a small house; there are windows and doors, a roof and a foundation; framing, sheathing, subfloor, and the like. It also requires a design, and many cases, a permit, which will include drawings such as a site plan, showing required set backs and orientation. All of this I can do— from plans and permit applications to foundation to chimney. I pride my self on being able to do it all and to being as comfortable holding a drafting pencil ( yes, I do drawings old-school) as I am a pick-axe or nail-gun. But the truth is, sometimes it is best to let others do the work they do best so I can focus on what I do best, which is the sauna.
Recently I had a job where distance made it much more efficient for the owners to use a local contractor to build the shell while I did only the sauna interior and the overall design. It turned out that Tim and his crew were much more adept than me at not only building the shell but carefully replicating the trim details of the 150 year-old adjacent main house. By the time I got to the job site the interior was ready for my sauna work.
Just like everyone else during the pandemic, planning sessions happened on the web or via text; we only actually all met once. Despite that, or maybe because we weren’t in each other’s hair (a sauna is, after all, a very small space), things flowed very smoothly once we got over the scheduling speed bump caused by the pandemic-induced supply chain upheaval. The sauna sits perfectly between the historical architecture of the house and the modern look of a contemporary sauna. It was a team effort that paid off.
