Hammer and tape measure – I´m going to build a sauna

I want to have a sauna in my house. It all started when me and my Icelandic husband bought a house in the centre of Reykjavik. The house has high ceilings, there is a lovely garden at the back and a one-car garage. What sealed the deal for me, though, was something completely different: an old decaying outhouse in the back yard, sticking out like a sore thumb. What a perfect place for a sauna!

The real estate agent gave us a slight chuckle – in this country no one builds saunas in their houses anymore! Following the 1980s boom of electric saunas, almost every house in Iceland now has a 6 square metre storage room, where you might be able to spot the sauna heater or a piece of the benches hiding under piles of old jumble.

But I wanted a sauna. So we bought a house.

Now all we need to do is build the sauna.

The ugly dilapidated shed is lodged between two stone houses in our back garden. Its back wall is concrete. These three outside walls are in good condition, so we don’t need to do anything to them.

 

The front wall of the shed is wooden and about to crumble into pieces. That we do have to re-build.

 

The shed is 7m x 2m. So far we’ve used it to store empty bottles and cans (which in Iceland you can’t return to a normal grocery store) and parts of various different cupboards and shelves. In a few months’ time, I will hopefully be looking at a more pleasurable sight.

 

My husband’s brother is a plumber. He came to check the hut’s sewage and water pipe situation. Apparently there are pipes running down right next to the shed, which means digging up the whole garden is not necessary. Clunk. Did you hear that? The lava stone that was weighing on my shoulders fell off. We don’t need to turn the back yard into a potato field. And anyway, I’m not very good in growing potatoes.

The first thing we’ll do is re-build the front wall of the shed so that rain water won’t go inside. When that is finished, all this should be done next:

- Floor with some insulation- Inner walls and insulation 
- Sauna benches and heater, sauna door
- Something relating to air conditioning
- Hot-water basin, heitur pottur, in the shower room section (hot water is more or less free in Iceland, and if we have a Finnish sauna in our house, it also has to have an Icelandic hot-water basin heitur pottur)
- Benches, shelves, mirror and towel hooks in the dressing room 
- Fridge for après-sauna beers

The outside of our house will also be redone this summer – I’m hoping our sauna will get finished on the side. I’m clueless when it comes to construction and specially building saunas. So is my husband, though he doesn’t like to admit it. (But honey, you are still much better in this than I am – even though I’m the Finn in the family.) At the moment we’re searching for information, asking for advice and trying things out. I hope this undertaking won’t turn into a life-long project.

Now I’m about to grab a hammer and start smashing the shed’s front wall into pieces. My husband said a sledgehammer would be a more suitable tool for the job. Who won? More of that later!

 

Welcome to my blog about building a sauna.
Any comments and especially expert advice will be more than appreciated.

Greetings from our Icelandic sauna-construction site

Satu Rämö

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