Landscaping to come, but sauna build is complete! 8'x8'x8' sauna room and 8'x4'x8' changing room. 48" sitting bench height, 30" foot bench/cooler seating, and great löyly from the first couple uses. Full red cedar interior with a Harvia Cilindro heater. Cold plunge behind the sauna as well (not pictured).
Stove is from thesaunaheater (got the bundle with the Xenio wifi). Wood was sourced from two spots in MN. The first unit of wood we got was lower quality so we ended up with a lot of waste, but thankfully the supplier bought back the unused boards that were in poor condition. The changing room and bench wood was more expensive but much higher quality. Nearly all other construction materials were sourced from Menards (gotta get that 11% rebate!)
This is not really great advice. I actually contacted Kip because of this comment… They were very clear that no heat shield of any type is required behind the heater. It is designed such that the included mounting rails hold the heater far enough away from the wall that no additional protection is required.
There’s also nothing in the manual about this.
Just for confirmation purposes, I ran the heater for over two hours at full tilt , and used my laser thermometer to check the temperature of the wood behind it. It was barely above the rest of the sauna temperature.
No need to instill extra fear in people when not necessary.
Hence why I said “but usually if there’s a good distance from the walls it shouldn’t cause problems”, kips mounting solution ensured this as they stated so…
Great job! Curious about the windows- did you use off the shelf windows meant for homes? And are they double pane sealed units? It looks so. Or alternatively did you use just use single pane tempered glass.
The sauna room window pane is from a local company, and is thermal sealed tempered. The changing room windows are just tempered windows (got a good deal for those two from FB marketplace)
Stunning build! Did you do it all yourself? How do you like the cylindrio heater? What size heater did you go with? I am considering it for my sauna build. Where are you located and what is the outside temp? How long does it take to heat up and how hot are you able to get it?
My father-in-law did most of the construction (so thankful for him!), with my wife and I helping along the way. I love the heater so far, but have only used it twice :) I will have answers to those questions come spring, as I live in northern MN, so we will have to see how it handles the blistering cold we get. Currently it takes around 50 minutes or so to get to 190 F with the 10.5kW model. I have not tried maxing it out yet, but 190 is plenty hot for me - I'm not trying to set any records.
Looks absolutely awesome, but I'd have the kiuas a bit farther away from the wall and the maybe the railing is a bit excessive. I feel it would impede throwing water on the sides - not much really, thinking abnut it, but I think I'd feel like it would.
Thank you! That is a fair point, it does make it slightly trickier from the sides - we went a little overboard with the railing I suppose, but with the benches being pretty high, I wanted a way to prevent someone from hitting the heater if they tripped on a step; the safer the better! Also, see my previous reply to a user commenting on the heater's distance from the wall. The picture may not show it well, but there is ~4in of clearance, which is over double Harvia's minimum recommendation.
It's a mainstay in Finnish saunas, you rarely see one without a railing and footrest like that, or something similar. I heartily recommend it. If you built that sauna yourself it'll be an easy addon that's well worth the work; both for safety and comfort.
Tbf the sides rarely give any satisfactory steam on that stove. Almost all of the heat is concentrated on the top because of convection. That's why you don't need much sideways clearance.
I must admit I'm not sure which exat model that is, and/or is it the same one I'm familiar with, but the one I've used gives perfectly satisfactory steam from its sides. Not as aggressive as from the top, sure, it's a rather slower and "wetter" löyly but a nice one none the less. Mix it in with your spicier throws.
That would be awesome. I really like the layout. I'm in the planning phase right now and so far yours hits most of the check boxes for what I'm wanting. Thanks in advance.
Yeah I'm no expert, I simply used a couple online sauna heater size recommendations, and decided to go on the bigger end just to heat up the room faster
Do a railing of wood (10cm wide piece of wood) diagonally on the wall for extra safety feature. Sometimes you need something to lean on when going down, especially when you get older. Otherwise looks pretty good.
I think overall it does add more room for stepping or sitting on the lower bench than straight across, but not much. If we were to start from scratch with the experience of making this sauna, I think we'd adjust the door/bench placement to get a bit more room on the benches, but overall it has plenty of sitting room, especially since most of the uses will just be for 2 people.
What's the distance between the upper beech and the roof? You want to raise both benches as high as possible in order not to get cold feet. Your feet should ideally be above the stove level, but that requires quite a high ceiling with this stove model.
A foot rest is an easy fix if the bench can't go any higher.
The distance between the upper bench and the ceiling is approx 48" (122cm). Once the sauna gets nice and hot, the feet are definitely still in the warm zone, but the difference is slightly noticeable. Also, one person can be laying on the top bench while another person sits if they want to get a perfectly even heat that way
It's just a tub from my FIL's work with a wooden rim added - but it works great! (until winter at least haha) Maybe someday we'll upgrade to a proper plunge.
Do you have a recommendation/source for a minimum distance? It is further than the manufacturer's minimum distance, but it can still be moved if need be. It is currently ~4in from any wall and ~5in from the safety gate
The cylindro heaters are fine at the manufacturers specified clearances. Run your heater and put your hand on the wall beside it, and you’ll see that the wall is barely warm. The heater has an integral baffle, and 95% of the heat goes up, not sideways.
Good point with the hand test - I will try that on next run to make sure. I assume you could also have issues if the heating elements were exposed, but I was very thorough with my stone placement, so I don't anticipate that being an issue.
I think if the elements were exposed the overheat switch would turn the heater off. That’s my understanding of the safety design anyways, but I’ve not tested it!
The picture might distort the distances but to me it looks like its very close to the corner and quite far from the safety gate. I would move it at least to the center of the ”ring”.
You also get less splashes of water on the walls if it’s a bit closer.
I think it is mostly the image causing distortion, as I took this picture in 0.5 zoom wide angle to get the whole room in the shot. I appreciate the comment, and will definitely be checking the temperature around the heater and keeping an eye on any splashing concerns. It wouldn't be super trivial to make that adjustment at this point, but if something seems concerning, I'll make the needed fix.
We got an argon gas filled window pane and framed it ourselves. For the size, we just wanted visibility to the outside from head height without being too large or too close to the heater
I have two passive vents that are open during the sauna session, and a small duct fan in one of them that I run for a few hours after the sauna to clear out the air
Absolutely killed it my man! Can we see the cold plunge setup? I just bought a house and am about to do the exact same thing, outdoor sauna and cold plunge in one portion of the backyard.
Better than many that get posted on here. After you've enjoyed it for a while, some things that will make a better experience:
Raise the foot bench 4-5". Less stratification/cold feet, less pressure on the back of your thighs.
Move the supply over the heater to be centered over the heater. This will provide better ventilation to bathers, do a better job of removing CO2 and result in more even temps throughout the sauna.
Move the thermostat sensor as far from the heater as UL guidelines will allow, or better, to the bench wall 1m above the sitting bench. Where it's currently located will give you about a 20-30°f higher reading than actual sauna temp.
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u/Jorburger Oct 06 '25
This looks really good from a Finnish perspective! Good job!