Sauna building Class

Apr 22, 2023

Learn how to build saunas and gain expert knowledge from master builder Rob Licht in an intensive 4-day class experience

Dates: Thursday, October 3, 2024 — Sunday, October 6, 2024

This is a comprehensive class with demonstrations, lectures and some hands-on experience. We will cover many aspects of building saunas including:

  • Design and layout of your sauna: 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… !

Class Fee:
$800 individual
$1500 couple/family rate

Location: 
At the Shop of Rob Licht Custom Saunas
8 Verizon Lane, Unit 1, Lansing, NY 14882

REGISTER FOR THE 2024 SAUNA BUILDING CLASS >

Class Schedule:
Thursday: 12PM to 5PM
Friday: 9AM to 5PM, lunch provided
Saturday: 9AM to 5PM, lunch provided
Sunday: 9AM to 1PM
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 45 years and has designed well over one hundred 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 and payable via paypal or venmo. Your balance is due (via check in mail) a month ahead of time in order to attend the class. You will receive an email to pay the balance. 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 we will put you on a waitlist and we will let you know a month in advance or sooner if you can attend. Class attendees will have the opportunity to buy our sauna building plans at 50% off. Class size will be limited to 12.

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: Friday and Saturday. Coffee and snacks will also be available throughout the days of the class. We will accommodate basic dietary restrictions.

Sauna etiquette: About 4 people at a time. Bathing suits required and please bring 2 towels: one to sit on, one for drying off after cool-dip. Everyone will get a chance to sauna.

Rob Licht at Shop

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

REGISTER FOR THE 2024 SAUNA BUILDING CLASS >
Insulating Electric Saunas

Insulating Electric Saunas

Nov 27, 2017

I get a lot of questions regarding sauna insulating details and thought I’d shed some light on a few issues. A caveat before I start: heat transfer science gets pretty complicated and I am grossly simplifying things here. I’m not an engineer but I rely on experience and am constantly probing and measuring my own saunas to see what works. A building inspector may want an engineer’s input, but just make sure the engineer understands what happens in a sauna.

If you are building an electric sauna, either in your house or as a stand-alone building, you’ll naturally want to insulate it for efficiency. Normally builders (and building inspectors) think of R-value (printed on every insulation product label) as the golden metric, and the R- values of a wall assembly are typically added up to get a number that either complies with code or satisfies a self imposed trade-off between cost, efficiency and practicality. R Value is the resistance to heat transfer but measures conduction and convection, not radiation, which is not much of a factor at lower temperature differentials. R values are calculated with normal living spaces and long term heat retention in mind, which in a typical home is calculated using an average temperature differential of 24°C (between heated and outside space). Since R= Delta T/ QA , (where QA is the ability of the material to transfer heat) and in a hot sauna Delta T might be 100°C, the use of labeled R factors is totally skewed!

The second factor is time. Heat loss is measured in BTU/ hr. With the sauna only on for few hours a week (bravo if it’s more!) your heat loss will be minimal and hopefully, in the cold months, will contribute to heating the house. So, in terms of cost vs. efficiency, a lot of insulation may be over kill.

At the higher temps of the sauna, the radiant effect of heat is more of a factor and the use of a radiant foil barrier comes into play. The heat you feel radiating from a wood stove is the long wave radiation. This radiation can move through common building materials but foil stops it dead in it’s tracks. Anyone who has nestled under an emergency blanket or protected himself from the fiery of a blast furnace, like when I pour bronze, understands the effectiveness of foil to bounce radiation back towards the heat source. But if the heat source contacts the foil layer, the aluminum superbly conducts the heat, defeating the purpose. So, when building a sauna, it is the radiant foil layer, with an air gap (on the hot side) that is crucial to holding the heat in. This should be backed by as much standard insulation as is practical, but don’t worry about attaining super R – value. The exception being if the wall is an outside wall of the house and a part of the building envelope- then, R-value must be a minimum of what the rest of the house has. I prefer Mineral wool, but in any case do not use XPS or EPS foam directly behind the foil, as they will melt at sauna temps!

Vapor control in an interior sauna is really important especially in modern tight houses, which tend to trap moisture, both for the damage vapor can cause that you can see, such as peeling paint, but more for the damage you won’t see, like moisture condensing in a wall cavity. Radiant foil barrier, when carefully taped at the seams, is also a perfect vapor barrier. When I build interior saunas I think about all of that moisture and imagine where it can get to and wreak havoc. I then seal off those spaces but provide a vented path for it to escape. Some enthusiastic löyly action will turn ladles of water into steam which fills the sauna but then escapes into the house— like when you forget a kettle on the stove and all your windows fog up. The best thing is to build your sauna next to a shower area and then vent that area with a decent bath fan to the outside or via the household HRV system. The sauna should then have an air intake under the heater as per manufacturer’s instructions and via a gap under the door so sauna gets a healthy exchange of fresh air. Never connect the sauna directly to a mechanical ventilation system.

With careful planning of layout, insulation, ventilation moisture control, and a heater that makes good löyly, your indoor electric sauna can feel like a wood burner on a pond’s edge but also be an integral part of your efficient home. (Read more about Sauna foam and best sauna building materials at Sauna Insulation, Revisited)

More Questions? Book a consultation with Rob >