Sauna Building Class

Apr 15, 2023

Sauna Building Class and workshop with Rob Licht

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

Dates: Spring 2026 and Fall 2026 (CHECK AVAILABILITY>)

A comprehensive sauna building class and workshop with demonstrations, lectures and some hands-on experience. We will cover many aspects of sauna building:

  • Design and layout of freestanding & electric saunas
  • Selection of the proper wood and materials
  • Principals of insulation
  • Interior finishing of wood paneling
  • Basics of the kiuas or sauna stove (emphasis on wood burning but electric is covered)
  • Safe clearances and chimney installation
  • Floor and stove-wall masonry construction
  • Mobile saunas
  • Sauna details: Benches, doors, windows and more
  • Sauna essentials: usage, customs and etiquette
  • Sauna business and culture in the US
  • Sauna construction challenges

Total Class Fee:
$975 individual
$1850 couple/family rate

A $300 non-refundable deposit (for each person) is due at registration and applied to the total 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 for future classes.

EMAIL US ABOUT CLASS AVAILABILITY >

Class Schedule:
Thursday: 10AM to 5PM
Friday: 9AM to 5PM
Saturday: 9AM to 5PM
Sunday: 9AM to 1PM

Lunches will be provided every day. 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 $300 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.

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

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

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. 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 it 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 BTUs/hr. With the sauna only on for a few hours a week (bravo if it’s more!), your heat loss will be minimal, and hopefully, in the cold months it will contribute to heating the house. So, in terms of cost vs. efficiency, a lot of insulation may be overkill.

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 themself from the fiery radiation 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. In this case, 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. These structures tend to trap moisture. Vapor can cause damage that you can see, such as peeling paint, but also damage you won’t see, like moisture condensing in a wall cavity. A 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, and provide a vented path for moisture to escape.

Some enthusiastic löyly action will turn ladles of water into steam, which fills the sauna and 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 adjacent area with a decent bath fan to the outside or via the household HRV system. The sauna should also have an air intake under the heater, as per manufacturer’s instructions, and via a gap under the door so the 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 and also be an integral part of your efficient home.

LEARN MORE about Sauna Insulation, Revisited and Radiation in saunas and sauna building materials (including foam) in related blog posts. Do you have more questions? Book a consult with Rob >