The Sauna

The Sauna. 001

Conversation on April 7, 2005. Apparently a Finnish Tradition.

Before you build your house, you build your Sauna. Water is heated in the central cook stove, and piped into an open water basin in the sauna. Steam arises, and you can also dip the water out of the basin, to clean yourself with, after steaming. Male and female would use the sauna, at the same time. Though both sexes are naked, it is not a sexual environment, but a traditional one.

The central cook stove has a cover of rocks on the top, which you wind up cooking on.

This was a first conversation only, that gives the basic outline. More will follow, in later files.

The sauna was built out of cedar wood. One would lash oneself with cedar branches, or strike your body, not to hurt it, with the cedar braches. The cedar would get into the skin, and the people would be both cleansed by it, and be given a clean, clear, cedar odor, as they sat in the sauna.

Again, in the central cook stove, a pipe that ran through the fire box. ( You needed to be careful not to hit it when throwing wood in.) The water in the pipe would be heated, and it would circulate naturally, by convection. That is to say, as the water was heated, it would naturally circulate upward, and the cooler water would come in behind it. (I believe the cook stove would commonly be made of an old fifty-gallon drum.)

The pipe ran from the house to the separate sauna. Some saunas where attached to the house, some were in separate buildings.

DL said to look up Finish Sauna anywhere on the web to see what he was talking about.

I find this whole system a very good idea. You will have food cooking on the rocks, in the house, the house heated, and the sauna running at the same time. One could also pipe off the hot water. DL wants to build a similar sauna where he lives now, and if I can get there to help him, we will have some pictures.

More files about this will certainly follow.

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Some links and archived web pages about the sauna

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The Sauna in America http://www.cyberbohemia.com/Pages/saunaamerica.htm

Archived The Sauna in America

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How To Build a Sauna http://www.alfabricating.com/build.htm

Archived How To Build a Sauna

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A Stove Made from a Fifty Gallon Barrel. Not apparently of the type DL had.

http://www.electricrailroad.com/stove/stove.html