How To Build A Sauna (by someone who’s never built a sauna before) - Part 1

Check out Part 2 for the next installment!

We’re halfway through the build of our first sauna which, at the start of the week, looked like this:

Wait for part 3 to see how it looks now

And I thought I’d share with you a lot of the learning we’ve done so far. Hopefully it’ll be a bit of a window into our design ethos and the journey we’ve been on so far…

Step 1: Read a lot of books (and go to a lot of saunas!)

When we started this, we decided we wanted to build a really bloody good sauna - and for that we had to figure out what goes into making a sauna that much better than your average gym or swimming pool sauna. And for THAT, we needed to go to the experts…

I read Lassi A. Liikkanen’s ‘The Secrets of Finnish Sauna Design’ which is a bit of a Bible for what goes into making a great sauna. The Finns really know what they’re doing when it comes to saunas – they have three million saunas in a country of five-and-a-half million people. Turns out, it’s more than just a really hot room. This book helped to establish all the fundamental design principles that go into a really good sauna.

Lassi tells all

It's one thing reading about saunas, but my favourite way to learn is by doing field research. We had a great time visiting saunas at Pool Bridge Farm, Hebden Bridge and in London at the Community Sauna Baths. I spent the time nosing around and trying to match up what I was seeing in the saunas to what I’d read… so the vents are here, the floor comes up behind the wall, etc.

It’s not a sauna without a cold plunge! Glunk. At Hackney Wick

Another great resource was Trumpkin’s Notes on Building A Sauna, a mammoth blog post that helps to drill into more of the nuts and bolts of how to go about doing it. Between this, a few YouTube videos, and alluring depths of r/sauna, I felt ready to tackle the next step…

Step 2: Ask for advice and create a design brief

Our friend, Mel, at Warmth Sauna

We were super lucky to get very helpful input on our design from two awesome sauna folk, Bethany from Warmth in Sheffield, and Costas from Bristol Community Sauna. If you’re ever in one of these two cities you should make a beeline for these spots, they’re a really good time.

It helped a lot to be about to bounce queries of these guys when I was writing up our design brief, a fairly comprehensive document that set out all the parameters that our design would need to meet – from bench height, to wall build up, to flooring angle. It’s edge of your seat stuff. If any other community saunas would like this resource, ping us a message and we’ll be happy to share it with you.

Step 3: Get yourself a Josh

Josh looking less scruffy than usual

Here's one he made earlier

Whatever you do, don’t miss this step out. Josh is a friend of ours who builds all manner of cool and crazy structures, often with green wood, and has recently gotten into the sauna game. We liked what we saw (here’s a photo of his last sauna) and asked if he’d lead on our project. Josh has been amazing, being really flexible and on the ball through the design process, doing loads of further research for us, and leading on all the procurement of materials.

On site, he’s been a great teacher as he’s led us through the process of building this thing. If you need a sauna building – or a roundhouse, watchtower, drawbridge or any other structure you care to dream up, he’s your guy. You can check out what he’s up to @woodcraftianart on Instagram and get in touch with him there.

Tune in to part 2 to hear about last minute U-turns, and the nuts and bolts of wooden frames!

As a bonus feature, Josh also comes with a Pickle.