My wife is obsessed with all things Scandanavian, so we have had a number of discussions over the years about getting a sauna. The stopper has been the cost, $4000+ for the ones we like, and that’s if I do the installation myself.
I’ve been looking into it again since my PsA has ramped up, with the thought that a sauna might help with the symptoms. The infrared ones are all the rage these days, and medical-seeming shills are eager to extoll their therapeutic virtues, but honestly, who wants to sit in a glorified microwave for an hour? What am I, a TV dinner? My wife wants a traditional sauna: hot lava rocks, a beechwood bucket, some studly flaxen-haired sauna attendant ladling water on those rocks (I can still ladle, but I’m not too studly and my flaxen days are long past.)
So, I am wondering if anyone has experience with a traditional sauna as a mode of treatment for PsA.
Couldn’t live without mine. BTW its “Custom Built” after LOTS of shopping way under 2 grand. All you REALLY need is the heater Cement backer board works for the Liner just fine (althou I do have Cedar. I used fence boards (cheap) that I ran through a planer) You can also do an Inuit (eskimo) Style which I used for several years which is really just a wood stove under a bucket of water. We also have a native American Sweta Lodge. (Several of my Kiddos are native) OR you can build an infred dirt cheap: http://www.morelectricheating.com/default.aspx?page=item+detail&itemcode=MORIR10006&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0IOTj7zq2gIVz7jACh1S5A_tEAYYAiABEgK26vD_BwE I call it a taoster oven but each to their own.
Anyway the scandanavians also brought us IKEA furniture so take anything THEY do with a grain of salt. The Russians got things going with the Banya. You can actually get a nice sauna effect with a couple of Infrared Bulbs in a chicken coop (or shed)
Here’s the heater I use and the plans/instructions You can easily turn fence boards to ship lap if your anal but I did just fine with butt joints
At one time, I thought about doing it all myself from scratch. I know I’d save money that way. Friends of ours had a wood-fired one, free-standing in the woods. It was charming, but they hardy ever used it because of the hassle of firing it up.
My wife wants the full-on Scandanavian thing, with cedar walls and so on, which runs pretty high, and what the heck, I tend to get her what she wants. I also have too many projects as it is, so I think it’ll be a prefab or kit unit. I’ll do the wiring/plumbing/installation to save a little money.
I had to laugh about the chicken coop idea. Our chickens have between one and three infrared lights in the coop many winter nights, depending on how cold it is. I suppose I could fire up all three and spend the odd hour with them. I tried holding my hands under one of their lamps this spring, but it doesn’t offer the full-on sauna experience sitting at the kitchen table watching your hands glow red!
If we do it, i think we’re just gonna spend the dough for the whole enchilada. We haven’t been able to justify the expense so far, but if it really would help with the PsA pains, I think we’d go ahead.
I once went on a ‘romantic’ weekend to a spa. Turned out the facilities consisted of a goldfish pond and a ‘sauna’ in each room which was basically the size of a small wardrobe. I think they were converted wardrobes. There was room for one person at a time as long as that person was curled up in the foetal position next to the coals. Tolerable for all of a split second before leaping out screaming for help. I’ve not had one since … oh yes I did, naked people I’d never met. Also didn’t last long. Obviously the experience can be better than that, can it?
This was a long time ago … I suppose the inmates, sorry, ‘guests’, were meant to find it relaxing but I recall falling in it & the owner was furious. The goldfish were valuable koi carp and he seemed to think I’d put his breeding specimens off their stride. Not the most successful weekend really.
@Kutya. Hey did you get your wife the sauna? If so, Has it help you at all? I can’t handle any kind of heat but it maybe nice to have in the winter months.
That s a wonderful idea! Must start asking my husband, as if he doesn t have enough requests from me as it is. But provided sensible and tasteful solutions can be incorporated in the flat refurbishment plan, and if saunas are beneficial to ones health, it certainly bears thinking about. Thank you ever so much for the idea.