Learn how to build saunas and gain expert knowledge from master builder Rob Licht in an intensive 4-day class experience
Dates: SPRING class! May 1-4, 2025
This is a comprehensive sauna building class and workshop with demonstrations, lectures and some hands-on experience. We will cover many aspects of building saunas including:
Design and layout of saunas: Freestanding & Electric Saunas
Selection of the proper wood and other materials
Insulation principles
Interior wood paneling
The kiuas or sauna stove (emphasis on wood burning)
Safe clearances and chimney installation
Floor and stove wall masonry construction.
Mobile saunas
Benches, doors, windows and other sauna details
Using the sauna: usage, custom and etiquette
sauna culture, business, construction challenges and more… !
Total Class Fee: $900 individual $1700 couple/family rate
A $100 non-refundable deposit is due at registration and applied to the class fee.
Location: At the Shop of Rob Licht Custom Saunas 8 Verizon Lane, Unit 1, Lansing, NY 14882
Class size will be limited to 12. There will be a waitlist. Please email us at contact@roblichtcustomsaunas.com to get on the early registration list and we will let you know the dates asap.
Class Schedule: Thursday: 10AM to 5PM, lunch provided Friday: 9AM to 5PM, lunch provided Saturday: 9AM to 5PM, lunch provided Sunday: 9AM to 1PM, lite brunch provided
Throughout the intensive days we will have break-out work sessions, time to answer questions, and coffee breaks. There will be opportunities for socializing after class and the option to take sauna at the shop and by the lake.One evening, we will sauna and picnic at a local park on Cayuga Lake. Significant others are welcome to join us for this event.
Recommended prerequisite: We’re not covering basic carpentry (exterior framing), and basic metal working. If you lack these skills it is advised that you take a hands-on carpentry class.
About the Teacher: Rob Licht has been taking sauna for 50 years and has built and designed hundreds of custom saunas. Rob readily dispenses his knowledge to students and hopes to share his enthusiasm and expert knowledge of sauna with you.
Rob Licht grew up near Ithaca, N.Y., inspired by the bucolic landscape of the Finger Lakes region. He fell in love with sauna and Finnish culture as a teenager at a local cross-country ski center run by a Finnish family. He has a Master of Fine Arts Degree from Cornell University and has been a practicing artist and teacher for over 30 years. He taught art at Ithaca College for 12 years and has also taught adult education classes in welding, art, and design. He began combining his love of sauna, his practice as an artist, and his skills acquired from working in the building trades into a sauna building business in 1995. Today sauna building is his primary focus and he is one of the leading east coast sauna builders and sauna building educator offering a plethora of information to his clients, and now students, from around the world.
Terms & Info: A $100 non refundable deposit is due at registration payable paypal/venmo and applied to total class fee. Your balance is due (via mailed check) at least 45 days before class in order to attend. We realize that check writing may be a thing of the past, so are other options via paypal but ask that you cover the 3% paypal fee. We will also accept cash for the balance when you arrive, just let us know if you are planning on that so we can plan for your attendance. In the event the class is under enrolled (6 or less), you will be informed and your deposit of $100 will be refunded. In the case the class is over enrolled (12+) we will put you on a waitlist and we will let you know asap if you can attend. Because of the overwhelming popularity of the class, there is a waitlist, so if you do need to cancel please keep that in mind so we have time to fulfill your spot. Class size will be limited to 12. Class attendees will have the opportunity to buy our sauna building plans at 50% off.
About the Shop: 3000 sq ft with 16 ft ceilings and two large overhead doors and outdoor spaces to ensure good air quality.
Lunch is included: Lunches will be delivered to the shop. We will accommodate basic dietary restrictions with options. Coffee, Tea and snacks will also be available throughout the days of the class.
Sauna etiquette: We allow about 4 people at a time in the sauna. Bathing suits are required; please bring 2 towels (free from perfumed detergents) to sit on in the sauna. Towels will also be provided everyday. Everyone will get a chance to sauna most days after class.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING…
“This was the best weekend. I learned so much and left feeling full of inspiration and conviction. We can do this y’all- the revolution is happening! I am so grateful to you, Rob and Scarlet, for working so hard to put together such a clear and digestible roadmap for all of us. And I am so grateful for having four days with the loveliest people to talk sauna. What a dream.” —Erin, NC
“What an amazing weekend of sauna immersion. It was something special to be in an intimate group of like-minded folk focused on something that brings us such joy. Rob and Scarlet so well prepared and so packed with knowledge and hands-on experience! I was so impressed with the smooth and thoughtful delivery of information. Possibly the biggest take away I got was that there are many right and not so right ways to do things, in the end sauna building is an art as much as it is a science, which is why my sauna is so authentic in the experience.” —Mark, MA
Rob and Scarlet are the real deal! I’m a professional carpenter and builder. I bought and adapted Rob’s mobile sauna plans, and I also did a consult with him. Two years later, and I’ve just had the pleasure of spending 4 days in the shop with Rob, Scarlet, and about a dozen other students, drinking from the firehose of knowledge and experience. They make a great team, both as builders and educators, and they’re just great people to be around. I couldn’t be more pleased and impressed with the experience, and I’m eager to get back to building saunas back on the west coast with my business, Sauna Väki. —Josiah, OR
Traveling with one of our mobile saunas to the lake and delivering to new owners.
We have been building mobile saunas for the past 10 years! and because of their growing popularity and versatility, they now make up most of our business. Each unit is still handcrafted with many layers of details. The owners each get a unique product tailored to their specifications. It’s also an easy way to avoid zoning and permitting restrictions while avoiding the hassles of a site-built project. Investing in your dream sauna makes more sense if you know you can take it with you!
We hear from our customers all the time that their friends, family, and neighbors are as excited as they are to have a sauna!
mobile sauna, wood-fired sauna on a trailer
For many people, owning a sauna feels like a bare necessity during the winter months!
This recent sauna build is just steps from the owner’s historic New England homestead. Our saunas are designed to blend in with the home and environment. The classic details of this historic house are elegant rustic with dramatic rock outcroppings and a fire pit, making for a perfect gathering spot.Our wood-fired mobile saunas travel well and can be parked in beautiful placesScarlet by the lake ready for a cold plunge
Having a sauna at home is a life upgrade that is low-maintenance.
Our 5×8 ft Mobile Sauna parked in town with 100 gallon cold plunge tank.Interior of our larger mobile sauna. Our saunas can get as hot as you like with a large pile of rocks. We aim for 100°C / 212°F We build many mobile saunas in our shop in Ithaca, NY. Working in our 3000 square foot shop is more efficient than building on-site.Two sizes of mobile Saunas on display at our shop in Ithaca, NY
We offer building plans for DIY sauna builders or your local builder for one-time usage only. Thanks to our valued sauna plan customers, and the growing popularity of DIY sauna building, we have taken the opportunity to launch our new & improved mobile sauna building plans! Our sauna plans are 50+ pages and include detailed notes, drawings, photos, and material lists for a wood-fired 5’x8’/6.5’x10′. If you are thinking about purchasing our plans or building a sauna, we offer you an opportunity to build your own sauna using construction plans. Rob Licht has developed the best practices of sauna building with 30+ years of experience.
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.
You’ve probably heard that I’ve spent a lot of time in the sauna but another hot spot I’ve spent a lot of time around is kilns. Specifically foundry kilns and ceramic kilns. Unsurprisingly there is a strong relationship between the two as they both involve getting things hot. In the lost wax casting process, investment or ceramic shell molds are heated to roughly 1500° F, which burns off the wax original- thus the “lost wax” of lost wax casting. This can take hours or even days depending on the mold type and size. A ceramic kiln can get much hotter- up to 3000° F. That is hot enough to melt steel and many other metals.
I learned how to do bronze casting in Art School. It is an ancient process and we did it pretty much the same way that it was done thousands of year ago. We learned to figure how hot things were by using our senses. All objects emit radiation when heated but at about 1100-1300° it become visible. Peering into a hot kiln (safety glasses strongly suggested) is like looking at another world, perhaps on some alien gaseous planet. Solid objects look like they are transparent. Heat and light become the same thing, the heated molds don’t reflect light but emit light. The blast of heat through the spy-hole is like a ray gun. We rarely used pyrometers (hi temp thermometers) and when we did it was only to affirm what our senses were telling us. We would record the smells of things burning off. When the smells were gone, the molds were clean and ready to accept the molten bronze.
When loading the kiln there is always discussion about the hot spots- certain delicate molds need to avoid the heat while larger molds might need it more. There is always conjecture about how the heat circulates; a whole aspect of kiln building is dedicated to controlling the flow of heat within the kiln. Some of this conjecture is borne out in the results of a firing—whether things fire correctly or not. Ceramicist use cones: small tapering forms that bend at specific temperatures. After a firing these will give a true telling of how the firing went. But, despite the science, there is still a lot of mystery and art to the process, so much so that a firing of a large kiln can take on a ritualistic feeling. Staying up late to tend the kiln, as is done with wood fired and other non-automated kilns, drinking beer and heating up pizza on the kiln, tends to add to the aura.
Thinking of all of this makes me think of sauna. Both have been done pretty the same way for millennia with an aura of ritual and involving community. Both have a focus on fire and heat, and, as well studied and commonly practiced as they both are, there is still a bit of mystery involved in each.
A kiln is like a sauna on steroids. The heat is so amplified that its flow and effects are unmistakable. Observing one is a lesson in thermodynamics. In the sauna building culture there is a lot of banter about how to best heat, insulate, and vent a sauna, yet all of it is conjecture based on theory until one sits in a sauna and feels the heat radiating off of the rocks and the wave of löyly hitting you on the sensitive tops of your ears.
When I design a sauna I draw from my years of kiln experience; I think of the heat as visceral substance, almost visible, as in a kiln. I relish the use of my senses to discern quality rather than depending on technology. Even if the sauna is electric with a digital control panel I rely on feel, not the number on the display. I imagine the flow of heat like the way it flows in a kiln. My foundry experience has informed my understanding of sauna in ways that are hard to describe but suffice it say that I have always been drawn to fire and to the mysteries that it holds.
COVID sure has made life strange and difficult for all of us. Patterns of living have been upended and new norms have emerged that will probably stay with us. One pattern that became very clear was that many people have decided to make their homes more livable, especially when it comes to outdoor spaces. Fortunately for me, this includes home saunas, which have seen a huge spike in demand which I am tying to keep up with. But, there has also been a huge increase in demand for materials associated with these types of projects causing me delays and headaches. Like the toilet paper that disappeared early in the pandemic, framing lumber, cedar, and pressure treated decking have all but vanished in some stores. Not only are people buying more for their home improvement projects but the triple whammy of last years wild fires, Covid taking out some of the workforce, and tariffs on Canadian lumber has caused major shortfalls and huge price increases in building supplies. Yesterday I bought a single sheet of OSB (oriented strand board— the most ubiquitous of building materials and the sheathing on virtually very house) and it cost me over $27—$20 more than what I paid 18 months ago. Everything else from 2×4’s to steel plate has doubled.
The contracting business depends a lot on giving a solid price well ahead of time so that the buyer can plan and budget. I’m working on projects I bid 6 months ago at prices I thought I could expect to pay when I got to the checkout. How can I give quotes when the prices are going up like that? Often, I have to eat those unexpected cost increases. Maybe the prices will fall, but I think, like wearing masks in grocery stores, we have hit a new norm.
I can’t absorb all this pricing mayhem so I’ll have to pass some of it on to you- my valued customer. If you are doing a DIY project and using a book written ten or more years ago, be sure to check prices; the big box stores do a pretty good job of posting it all online. And when you ask me how much something cost remember that cost, like time is a fleeting thing.
The most important thing to remember though is: how much is a sauna worth to you? It is measured not in dollars but in real value added to the quality of your life. In other words: priceless.
With over 30 years experience working in the building trade, Rob readily dispenses his knowledge to clients, a clear, professional communication style. If you need in-depth information on how to build your own sauna or need drawings/plans whether you are a builder, DIY builder or architectural firm I offer plans and consults. BOOK A CONSULT HERE >
