DIY sauna heater

2024 Author: Arianna Cook | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:23

Every man is able to build a stove. We offer all potential owners of baths to familiarize themselves with the design of the stove and the features of its construction. Content:

1. Differences between a sauna heater

2. Types of heaters

   • Brick
   • Metal
   • Open and closed

3. DIY heater

   • Preparatory work
   • Heater masonry
   • Arched grate
   • Stone backfill

The sauna heater is an unusual stove, it is designed to produce steam. The furnace got its name due to the presence of a container with stones and a water tank in the structure. If you heat stones and splash water on them, steam is formed, without which a bath is not considered a bath.

Differences between the sauna stove and other stoves

The presence of a backfill chamber in the stove and its use to create a high temperature in the bath influenced its design.

The heater differs from other stoves in the following characteristics:

• The construction of downward chimneys is not practiced in heaters.
• Niche channels are often left on the sides of the blower in order to store a poker, tongs and other items in them. They increase the heat transfer area of the furnace.
• The blower and blower door for the heaters are made of large sizes so that more air flows to the burning wood. For the same purpose, grates are laid along the oven. The grates and doors must be cast iron.
• The fuel chamber and the backfill chamber are lined with fireclay bricks, which are placed on a solution of fireclay clay and fireclay with special additives.

Types of sauna stoves

Kamenka stoves differ in the material from which they are made (from brick or metal), the design of the stone container (open or closed). Each design has its own advantages and disadvantages, but all are designed to create comfort in the steam room.

Brick sauna heater

In most cases, steam lovers prefer a steam room with a brick stove. It has the following advantages:

1. The brick heater gently heats the air in the steam room and keeps the temperature for a long time.
2. The stove is capable of heating a large room - more than 25 m².
3. The product is distinguished by its reliability and durability.

Disadvantages of a brick heater:

• The furnace occupies a large area, is heavy, therefore it is installed on a foundation.
• It takes several hours to heat a room.
• The oven is difficult to clean after use.
• The cobblestones in the stove are heated up to + 900 °, together with the red-hot stove, they pose a real danger to visitors.

Metal sauna stove

It is not always possible to build a brick stove in a bathhouse; a metal stove saves the day. Small size and light weight (50 kg) allow installing such a heater in a bath without a foundation. The product is designed to heat a room up to 25 m²… The metal oven will heat up the steam room in 1 hour.

Disadvantages of a metal heater:

1. The oven heats up the room unevenly.
2. The stove cools down quickly and is not able to maintain the temperature for a long time.
3. Refers to fire hazardous products.

Open and closed sauna heater

The open sauna heater is intended for use in small steam rooms. It quickly heats up the room, but the stones cool if they are often sprayed with water. Such heaters are heated when there are no visitors in the steam room, because smoke can enter the room along with the steam. It takes more than 4 hours to heat a room. During this time, the stones are heated to + 900 °, so the steam from such a furnace is dry, does not burn and is easily carried by users.

In a closed-type stove, stones are placed in a special chamber with a door. The fuel is burned with the steam door closed, which is level with the top row of stones. During use, the door is opened and water is sprayed on the stones. The closed sauna heater keeps warm for 2 days.

Brick stove in the bath with your own hands

The process of making a stove consists of choosing the building material, erecting the walls of the stove and building the main structural units. We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the recommendations for each stage of work.

Preparatory work for laying the sauna stove

The materials for the manufacture of the stove must be of high quality, so be serious about their choice:

1. For the manufacture of the furnace, you will need fireclay bricks and ordinary smooth-walled refractory baked bricks. The first is used to build sections of the furnace in contact with fire and smoke. The rest of the parts are built from refractory material.
2. Use unburned brick in a small amount when pieces of material are needed.
3. The use of burnt bricks is not allowed.
4. It is unacceptable to use hollow or sand-lime bricks. Even a slightly porous material will allow smoke to shine through.
5. The quality of a brick can be determined by hitting it with another object. The sound of a good brick will be clear.
6. Prepare a mortar for masonry from clay of medium fat content, to which add in equal proportions (1: 1) calcined and sifted through a fine sieve sand. If the clay is oily, add 2 times more sand.
7. It is recommended to use clay extracted from a depth of at least 50 cm. Soak it in water 5 days before use.

Before building a heater, it is necessary to determine the volume of heated water and, based on the results, to calculate the dimensions of a sauna heater with a water tank. The size of the tank depends on the number of users and is determined based on the consumption of 8-10 liters of hot water per visitor.

It is better to install open tanks in heaters. The advantages of such tanks are the ability to freely clean the internal cavities of the tank from scale and dry the containers after use, as well as the rapid removal of water from the container in winter to prevent it from freezing.

Sauna stove masonry

The heating device for the steam room has a complex design. In order to build it correctly, it is necessary to develop a drawing of the sauna heater, in which to show the layouts of structural elements and the order of the bricks. Ordering saves time on the construction of walls, simplifies their construction.

When preparing the diagrams, keep in mind that the following elements must be present in the stove: an oven for placing stones, the bottom of the combustion chamber that overlaps the blower chamber, the blower door, cast-iron flooring.

Each row of bricks is precisely tailored to the individual dimensions and design of the heater, otherwise they cannot be built in hermetically. The order of the sauna stove depends on the size of the stove, and its dimensions are determined by the height of the room. You can familiarize yourself with the finished drawings of the furnaces, which show the recommended dimensions of the furnace and smoke channels, and also shows the standard placement of the furnace elements. After studying the drawings, adjust the diagrams for your bath.

Features of laying a brick heater with your own hands:

• Lay the first two rows of the oven solid. Place the bricks on a clay mortar. Do not forget the basic rule of dressing when laying: any vertical seam must be covered with a brick. The thickness of the mortar for laying bricks is 6-10 mm.
• Seal the seams for the tightness of the walls.
• You cannot start the next row of bricks if the previous one is not completed.
• While working, check the horizontal surfaces and vertical walls every two rows.
• It is recommended to erect brick walls in a metal corner.
• It is possible to build the lower part of the furnace, which is slightly heated, using cement mortar. The cement will keep moisture from blurring the wall.
• From the next row, start building a blower. Make its base from solid bricks. Next, build the walls of the blower and fix the door vertically. Cover the walls from above with a cast iron grate, which will serve as the bottom of the furnace.
• Remember to install an ash pan when building a blower. It will regulate the intensity of firewood combustion. To warm up the steam room quickly, the ash pan slides out. When the wood is on fire, install it in its original place.
• The height of the furnace from the grate to the chamber with stones is 8-9 rows (57-63 cm). Do not do less, because the highest temperature is at the top of the flame.
• The average depth of the furnace is 80 cm, of which 55 cm is allocated for firewood.
• For laying stones, a special chamber is made, which is separated from the firebox and chimney so that smoke does not enter the room. Determine the dimensions of the chamber based on 60 kg of stones per 1 m² premises.
• The height of the chamber for filling stones is no more than 50 cm (7 rows), the width is 40 cm. Such a firebox can accommodate 8-10 logs.
• The stove should be of such a height that the cobblestones are not located above the shelf in the steam room. The lower the stones, the more efficient the source of steam.
• The distance between the top of the stones and the roof of the backfill chamber should be at least 4 rows of bricks. If you leave a smaller gap, it will be difficult to pour water on the distant stones.
• The distance from the window through which water flows to the upper overlap of the backfill chamber is 1-2 rows of bricks. Smoke collects in this space when the stove is fired.
• Leave a gap of one row of bricks between the arch and the rows of the main floor. This gap is used as a chimney to a chimney that can be installed in any corner of the stove.

Arched brick grate for a sauna stove

One of the problems of the heaters is the deformation of the grates on which the stones lie. Even the rails, which are sometimes placed instead of grates, bend under the influence of the high temperature and the weight of the stones. Instead of a metal grate, you can build a brick arch, on which you can safely put a stone backfill on top.

The arch is performed in the following sequence:

1. To create a vault or arch, make a formwork.
2. Before laying the brick, immerse it in water for a short time, but do not wet it for a long time - fireclay brick does not really like moisture.
3. Pre-lay the brick on the roof without mortar and see the result.
4. Prepare a medium-thick masonry mortar.
5. Place the bricks with mortar on the formwork, pushing them down with a rubber hammer. After a few hours, disassemble the formwork and put 3-4 bricks on the arch. Under the action of the load, the arch will be energized and in the future will be able to withstand a large weight from the stones.
6. If the formwork is not disassembled for 2 weeks, the masonry mortar will shrink strongly and gaps that are invisible to the eyes will appear, greatly weakening the structure.

Stone backfill for the sauna heater

The device will not be able to function if the backfill chamber is filled with low-quality stones.

The rules for choosing stones are as follows:

• Choose heavy and dense cobblestones, do not use sandstones. To check, hit one stone on the other, they should not crack.
• During operation, cobblestones should not crack after sprinkling with water. Good stones can be found on the banks of rivers and lakes. Their dimensions should not exceed 10 cm in diameter.
• You can put bricks in the stove that were left after the construction of the stove.
• The size of the window in the cell should allow for the replacement of cobblestones or the repair of grates.

How to build a sauna heater - watch the video:

[media = https://www.youtube.com/watch? v = iLFFdXMQ2KQ] A well-built sauna heater heats the room in winter for 2 hours, in summer for half an hour. We hope that after reading the article, everyone will understand how to build a heater on their own.