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For the past decade, I’ve been in love with extreme heat and extreme cold in combination. Some of my friends over the years have had wood-fired saunas that I would use in the winter, followed by rolling in the snow. I’ve also experimented with similar traditions: steam rooms, sweat lodges, hot springs in Iceland (followed by swimming in the 28º F ocean), and submerging myself in high-mountain streams. I find the effects extremely therapeutic.
In recent years, I’ve been a regular at the Sirius’ sauna (a nearby eco-village). But with onset of Coronavirus in March, it became clear that we would need our own sauna.
I’ve been researching sauna construction for a few years now. I read Rob Roy’s book The Sauna followed by Mikkel Aaland’s classic, Sweat. In thinking about building something here I wanted a good hybrid of simplicity of construction and elegance of design. In my research, I came across various cedar barrel constructions, including this one which served as my primary inspiration:
