I’m excited about my latest project: a wood-burning mobile sauna.
Unlike all of my other projects, which I design and build to meet the needs of my customers, this one is for myself. Over the past five years, I have been without my own sauna. It’s a long story. Basically, I sold my house (and sauna) expecting to buy another and build a new sauna, but because the lending rules changed after the housing crisis, with a bias against self-employed folks, I have been stuck in renter’s hell. So, while my customers have been basking in the warmth of my creations, I have been languishing in a sauna-less purgatory, dependent on the generosity of my clients for the too infrequent sauna. Like the proverbial cobbler whose kids have no shoes, I have been the sauna builder without a sauna. For renters like myself, the mobile sauna is the perfect solution.
It is a 5’x8′ sauna built on a commercial utility trailer. It is lined with northern white cedar and fired by one of my custom Lämpimämpi wood stoves. It has an arched roof using laminated bent cedar supports and aluminum sheet. It feels a lot roomier inside than you would think and comfortably holds four people. And, yes, it meets the two-thousand pound gross vehicle weight restriction of the trailer, so it doesn’t require a huge truck to haul it.
I’ll use this sauna for promotion—look for it at various venues and festivals including the Ithaca Festival parade (Again! Our first mobile sauna appearance was back in 2014). I’ll be taking this one with me on vacation or to my favorite park or forest stop. So, if you see it, feel free to stop and ask me to show it to you. Who knows, if it is hot I might even have a few spare towels.
I just completed my second mobile sauna for a client and brought it home to give it a test run.
The premise is simple: take a small trailer and build a sauna right onto it so the client can move it back and forth between their lake house and their regular house. As simple as it sounds, the challenges to pulling off such a project are many. First, creating a roomy design for a 5’x8′ space without creating a claustrophobic box takes some planning. A big window with a generous view really helps. So does the gently arched roof—which means that even a tall person doesn’t have to stoop. And the white cedar I use creates a world of it’s own. Upon entering the sauna, you are bathed in the aroma of the north woods. The color and gentle pattern of the grain is soft and welcoming to the eyes. It is this cedar, which I get from Northern Vermont, that makes this little vessel possible. It is the lightest North American species, yet it is no weakling. Favored by boat builders, cedar is easy to bend, strong, and stable. It allows me to keep the trailer under its listed gross weight limit. The entire roof structure weighs less than a hundred pounds!
This second mobile sauna is heated by propane with a Scandia heater. The ample rocks make good löyly—in fact, after a few hours, the rocks were still warm when I went out tonight and looked through the sauna window to check out the Moon chasing Jupiter and Venus across the heavens.
Several years ago, feeling a need for a change, I sold my house (and sauna). But the new mortgage rules discourage banks from lending to self-employed folks like me and have kept me in a renters trap. I don’t mind the mobile existence for now, but I do miss my sauna. The trailer sauna is the perfect solution. No matter where I end up, I can take it with me! So, if you are a renter but dream of owning a sauna, there is a solution.
Interior in white cedarMobile sauna by Rob Licht Custom Saunas
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