The latest sauna that we built is an indoor electric affair in a new addition that also holds a hot tub and pool, an enviable personal home spa combination. It has an ample window and large 10 kw Harvia Cilindro heater that should make the top bench a real hot spot. A feature of this sauna that I love is the view from that bench. Not just any view, but one that takes me back to my childhood.
The property is located on the eastern shoulder of Cayuga Lake, at a point where the land starts to dip dramatically downward to the long snaking shore. The slope is so steep here, that you don’t see the lake, only the opposite side, a little more than two miles away. Someone unfamiliar with our landscape might not even be aware that the longest of the Finger Lakes fills the glacial trough below. While the scene feels close, it is, in fact, a long journey away.
Most pronounced is Rice Hill: the old ski and sledding hill that, at one time had a rope tow run off of an old tractor motor. At the top of the hill is a warming hut and two shallow ice rinks, where many a hockey game was played. When we were too broke or didn’t have the ambition or means to go to the closest downhill ski area, we would go to Rice Hill and practice our ess turns. I also recall many tobogganing adventures; it was the kind of hill where serious injuries where the mark of a good run.
Just to the north was a ten-acre parcel my parents bought in the 1960’s with the dream of building a house. My dad designed it with all the meticulous detail he employed on his larger architectural projects. It was a three story modernist affair, with a flat roof, and cantilevered balconies that would have commanded a view across the lake to precisely where this sauna is.
In the early 70’s, things turned south for my Dad; there was a recession, he lost his job, increased his drinking, and the dream of the modernist masterpiece overlooking the lake was deflated like a balloon the cat played with. All we were left with was the model of the house my dad crafted out of mat board, with twigs as stand-ins for trees. Later, before my parents had to sell the property as a part a bankruptcy plan, I actually lived there in my tent after I finished Grad school and waited for my dreams to come to life.
I bring all of this up become of the associations of sauna with memory. So many of my clients, who are typically, like myself, aging baby boomers, tell me that they want a sauna because of the wonderful childhood memories they have of taking saunas. Perhaps their family has Finnish roots and they experienced summers in Finland, or they had a camp somewhere with a sauna. Like my experiences at Podunk, these childhood memories start to loom larger with age. Memory acts as a filter; the important things are retained and the trivial is set aside.
Landscape acts as a placeholder for memory. Living where I grew up, I constantly encounter places that stir memory. Working with my past literally out the window on this job, I was constantly reminded of my connection to this magical place in the heart of the Finger Lakes. Sauna is like a keystone in all of this.
Like so many saunas that I build, I dream for a moment; what if it was mine? But then, I hand over the sauna to the new owners so they can ponder their own dreams. In this case, the owner will be looking at the near view of the land he grew up on.
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.
Increasingly I hear from clients who want their sauna as a way to enhance their hot yoga (Bikram) practice. It’s a perfect pairing: what better way to follow up (or warm up for) a yoga session than with an even hotter sauna!
Recently a couple asked me to convert an old dingy freestanding cinder block garage into a sauna/ hot yoga studio. First I made sure the cinderblock wall was stable and did some minimal repairs. Then I isolated the block wall from the warm, humid space by adhering expanded polystyrene (XPS) foam board to the walls. This is critical as it prevents moist air from hitting the cold cinder blocks and condensing. Then I framed in the space, insulated the walls with mineral wool batts and finished the yoga space with drywall and the sauna with cedar (with the requisite radiant sauna foil layer and air gap). New windows replaced the old; the dramatic deep window recesses a result of the thick walls. Bamboo flooring over floating sleepers over foam board created just the right bounce for the yoga space, while the sauna has traditional duck boards. LED lighting added just the right ambiance. The heart of the sauna is the Harvia Cilindro heater with it’s 200 pound rock capacity. Amazingly, the old building was plumb and square— the original masons did a good job. Fighting an out-of-square space is the bane of all renovators.
This project was a complete transformation for this building (see below), turning it from a creaky old, under-utilized garage into a revitalized space for self-transformation. Make an inventory of the neglected spaces on your property awaiting transformation and give me a call!
You ask how or why electric mobile? There are a number of reasons why going mobile makes sense, especially if you rent. You need no permits or special permissions. You just park it in your yard and use it. You can take it with you on vacations or just for a Saturday down by the lake, you can even enter it in a parade. But why electric? Electric is no longer the inefficient dark horse of the energy world that it once was. It can be generated cleanly by wind or solar and is cheaper, cleaner, and easier to use than gas or oil. Although any purist will tell you a wood-burning sauna is the real deal, in some places wood is not so easy-—firewood may be hard to come by and to difficult store, and your neighbors may too close for comfort or offended by the occasional whiff of smoke. Since I’ve eliminated gas burners from my repertoire (for reasons I won’t go into here) an electric mobile sauna is the next best thing. All you need is a place to plug it in.
When clients ask me to create a sauna they often push me to do things I might have never considered doing. I’ve been requested to make saunas in spaces I thought were too tiny, on trailers, deep in the woods next to a pond, or to convert a cheap shed or laundry room. The most recent project to leave the shop is an electric mobile sauna. The owner has a Tesla electric car so an electric sauna just seemed to make sense. She also wanted the benches to flip up so it could be a mobile hot-yoga studio. The colors were more of an emotional choice: I painted it Sea Reflections blue like the ocean, where she likes to swim all year, with a Bonfire Red door to beckon her into the warmth of its interior, and Vanilla Ice Cream trim because, well, who doesn’t like ice cream, especially after a sauna?
The how, is simple: an 8 KW heater with a standard RV type hook up and a fifty-foot very-heavy extension cord that connects to standard car charging port (or special outdoor outlet). This will also work in many campgrounds with RV hook-ups. In a pinch, it can also be run off an 8500-watt generator.
This sauna also has a solar powered low-voltage lighting system, just so there can always be light and because low voltage systems are safer and more versatile than 120 volt lighting. I’ve been using these in some mobile wood burners and freestanding units. The neat little solar panel is a conversation starter; people are suddenly aware that the unit is more than a fancy tool shed trailer. When I tell them it’s an electric sauna, the little 25 watt solar panel gets a second glance.
What I envision next (but probably won’t consider doing unless a client pushes me) is a fully solar electric sauna. It would have to use Tesla’s 270-pound Powerwall home battery, which has an 8kw output capacity. I imagine the entire sauna roof would a have to be a solar panel but I haven’t done the engineering on this. This would not be cheap, but if there is someone out there who wants to be the first…. give me a call…
My latest mobile sauna project started when a customer contacted me wanting a mobile sauna she could use for hot yoga. It’s my standard five by eight foot trailer sauna but without the benches. The arched roof allows for plenty of room for stretching out and the floor is soft cedar. The heat comes from a Scandia propane-fired heater. It’s a cute little unit that weighs under 2000 pounds. Tow it to the next yoga retreat and show off your downward facing dog
