Finding Personal Saunas For Home

If you want a great way to relax and improve your health, you might want to look into personal saunas. The Scandinavians invented the sauna hundreds of years ago as a way to get temporary relief from harsh Nordic winters, but soon realized their other therapeutic effects. Turks, Russians and Native Americans have traditionally used sweat therapy as well. There are many benefits, ranging from simple relaxation to detoxification and skin health. Over the years, saunas have improved technologically and traveled to America, where they have continued to develop. While you used to have to go to a health club to experience a sauna, now you can have that same relaxation in your own home. Saunas have been clinically proven to soothe sore muscles and arthritis pains, relieve congestion and produce endorphins in your body to promote relaxation and happiness.

Saunas are small wooden (usually cedar) paneled rooms that are heated to high temperatures by a small stove with volcanic rocks on top. The sauna bather, (as they are called) sits or lies down in the sauna, allowing the heat to make them sweat and relax for a while, but not too long--it is dangerous to stay in that kind of heat for more than a half an hour. Then water is thrown onto the rocks, producing clouds of steam and transforming the room into a steam-room, cleansing the bather of the sweat and toxins they have been releasing.

Personal saunas can be indoor or outdoor. It is best to have your personal steam sauna be at lest 4x6 feet, which provides enough room for the bather to lie down. Experts say that lying down in your sauna is idea, because it allows even distribution of heat over your body. A small outbuilding on your property can easily be converted into a sauna for around $1,500 by adding insulation, benches and a stove. Alternatively, you can build a new sauna on your property. There are a number of options for doing this. They are simple enough that you can build one yourself if you are a handy person (Bert Jalasjaa's The Art Of Sauna Building is a good resource if you choose this route). You can buy a kit that has everything you need to put one together in simple steps, and there are even portable saunas that can be put up and taken down in very little time. Additionally, putting a sauna in your home is a very good investment--it can increase your property value and they last as long as your home.

You can install a personal sauna in a small room of your home quite easily as well. You can buy a precut personal sauna package for around 2,700 through a wholesale contractor, although there are a few things to be aware of. It is important to use wood that is thick enough--if it is thinner than 1 inch, the wood can shrink when it is heated, ruining the sauna. Interior saunas also need electric stoves, as opposed to the traditional wood-fueled variety. This is due to the lack of ventilation in an in-home sauna. In fact, many outdoor saunas use electric heaters as well, due to their convenience and increasingly advanced features. While wood stoves require proper ventilation, they also need a steady supply of wood to feed the fire, and they build up ash, which needs to be periodically emptied. Wood and electric stoves both used to need around 30 minutes to reach the optimal temperature, however new developments have yielded electric stoves that can heat a sauna immediately.