For the construction of a bath, you can use available tools, for example, ordinary pallets. The process is laborious, requires special care in the selection of insulating materials, but it fully justifies the efforts. As a result, you will get a full-fledged steam room. Content:
- Features of a bath from pallets
- Preparation for construction
- Erection of the foundation
- Floor installation
- Installation of walls
- Roof construction
- External cladding
- Interior decoration
A traditional log house takes a long time to build and is expensive. Not having a large budget, steam lovers are trying to find a way out of the situation and build budget steam rooms from less expensive materials. Some have gone even further - they are building baths from pallets. The pallets themselves are inexpensive, but the process is quite laborious, and you can take on it only with certain engineering and construction skills.
Features of a bath from pallets
In addition to the relative cheapness of such a structure, the following advantages of a pallet bath can be distinguished:
- Light weight … Thanks to this, you can save on pouring a powerful foundation.
- Good thermal insulation … With proper insulation, such a bath can store a temperature no worse than a log house.
- Operational installation … If materials and design are prepared in advance, construction will only take a few weeks.
- Various design options … Such a bath can be decorated in any style and sheathed with material to your liking.
As for the shortcomings of the structure, there are a lot of them:
- Material costs … The building involves the installation of high-quality insulation. It also needs to be carefully steam and waterproof. The cost of these materials is quite high. Add to it the obligatory exterior and interior decoration, and it will not be as cheap as it seems at first glance.
- Complex installation … If the insulation work is done incorrectly, then the steam room will be damp and cold.
- Fragility … Such a building is considered temporary and is designed, depending on the quality of materials, for 1-3 years.
- Demanding materials … Pallets must be of good quality and of the same type.
Overall, this is a decent budget option for temporary use. But if you want to minimize costs even more, then you can build a bath from pallets with your own hands without a foundation, using them as a floor. In this case, it will be necessary to prepare the cleared area in advance. However, such a bath can only be operated in the summer, and it is not suitable for use in the winter.
Preparation for the construction of a bath from pallets
Correct design is the basis of any construction. Therefore, first you need to draw up a bath plan. Traditionally, it consists of a dressing room, a steam room, a washing room and a rest room. At this stage, you need to calculate the amount of materials required and stock up on them.
The main construction element is the pallet. It is necessary to choose these designs with great care. Old products with rotten wood are not suitable for such a case. Broken pallets, damaged by insects, rotten pallets are also not suitable for construction. Also, they must all be the same size.
As for the fasteners, a lot of them will be required to give the structure a rigidity. Self-tapping screws, nails, corners must be chosen only galvanized, since they are not negatively affected by moisture.
Mineral wool is best suited as insulation (in this case, you need to protect it from moisture as much as possible) or expanded polystyrene. For maximum energy savings, it is also advisable to use aluminum foil. Among waterproofers, give preference to roll-up.
Do not forget also about antiseptic and fire-fighting compounds with which you will need to process all the wood before building a bath from pallets.
Construction of the foundation for a bath from pallets
A pallet steam room does not require a strong strip or tiled base. A columnar foundation made of asbestos-cement pipes with a diameter of about 10 cm is also quite suitable.
We carry out the work in the following order:
- We pull out four holes around the perimeter of the future steam room, 1-2 meters deep. We make the intermediate grooves according to the size of the pallet so that each individual element rests on four pillars.
- We place the pipes in the holes made and check the level of the evenness of the parts located.
- We fill up a pillow of coarse sand, spill it with water and carefully ram it.
- We prepare a concrete solution (waterproof cement M200, sand, fine crushed stone, water in a ratio of 1: 4: 7, 5: 3) and fill it up to the top in each pipe in turn, burying the wire at the edges in the concrete for fastening the lower strapping.
For further work, you need to wait until the foundation is completely dry. In hot weather, it must be moistened and covered with plastic wrap. After drying, the film must be removed and allowed to stand for 1-2 days.
Installation of a floor from pallets for a bath
Before proceeding with the installation of the frame, you need to treat each pallet twice with an antiseptic and a fire retardant, waiting for the previous layer to dry.
Further, we adhere to the following instructions:
- We fix pallets together with four galvanized nails. The design should be the size of the area of the future bath.
- We carefully process with rubber-bitumen mastic.
- We attach it to the pillars, face up, using concreted fasteners. According to the construction technique of the base, the junction of the four pallets should be on the pole.
- From above, we overlap by 15-20 cm with a layer of roll waterproofing. For these purposes, roofing material can be used.
- We install from above the second structure knocked down from the pallets with the face down, fixing with screws or nails. It will take about eight fasteners to attach each such part.
- We put mineral wool in each pallet. The cut-out insulation element should be a couple of centimeters larger. When laying, we squeeze it.
- We select the thickness of the heat insulator taking into account the thickness of the pallet. It should be almost twice as large.
- Cover the resulting "box with insulation" from above with the second pallet face down and fix it with fasteners. We completely cover the flooring in this way.
- From above, between the resulting grooves, we cover the repeated waterproofing layer with an overlap of 15-20 cm.
- We process the formed logs with rubber-bitumen mastic.
To lay the floor, you need to remove the boards from the pallet, treat them with protective compounds, grind and mill them using the comb-groove system.
Installation of bath walls from pallets
Before proceeding with the construction of the frame, in advance on the ground, make blanks in the form of a kind of sandwich - two pallets fixed to each other with an interlayer of rolled insulation.
We install the walls of the bath from pallets in the following order:
- We fasten the two resulting elements together vertically. This is necessary for efficiency and ease of installation.
- We prepare individual structures with a window opening. If the part is cut along the base, we reinforce it with an additional board that can be dismantled from another pallet. This is necessary to give rigidity and further convenient installation of the window.
- We install individual elements along the edges of the foundation and in places of partitions.
- We fasten together with screws and corners.
- After finishing the installation, we install the windows and the door. The latter can also be made from a pallet by insulating it and lining it with clapboard. In this case, the hinges must also be galvanized.
Placing pallets horizontally is undesirable due to a decrease in bearing capacity.
Construction of a roof for a bath from pallets
Given the temporary nature of the structure, as well as the fact that it is undesirable to place a heavy load on the base, the best option is to build a pitched roof and combine it with the ceiling.
We build it in this order:
- On one side, we install horizontally connected pallets, which were used for wall mounting.
- We knock down pallets according to the size of the future roof into one structure.
- We cut out triangular pieces from a kind of sandwiches for horizontal installation between partitions.
- We fix the assembled system on the roof using corners and nails.
- We lay two layers of steam, waterproofing in a checkerboard pattern with an overlap of 20-30 cm.
- We glue the joints with sealing tape or reinforced tape.
- We fill the slats, dismantled from the pallet, 3-4 cm thick in 10-15 cm increments to install the roofing material. The best option is ondulin. Its weight is only 3 kg / m2.
Please note that there must be a ventilation gap between the battens and the roof.
External cladding of a bath from pallets
The best option for exterior decoration is metal siding, since it has a low weight - 2, 4-3, 5 kg / m2.
In the process, we adhere to the following instructions:
- We fix the vapor barrier membrane with an overlap of 15-20 cm. For these purposes, you can use glassine.
- We carefully glue the joints with metallized tape.
- We fill the slats vertically with a step of 0, 4-0, 5 meters. They can be dismantled from the pallet and treated with protective compounds.
- We attach the sheets of metal siding.
- We mount platbands on windows and doors.
Please note that it is better to place the trim horizontally to improve the rigidity of the structure.
Interior decoration of a bath from pallets
For covering the steam room inside, hardwood lining is best suited. We start finishing work from the floor, then we will sheathe the ceiling and, last of all, we proceed to the walls. Before finishing, deal with the issue of summing up communications (electricity, water supply), equip a drain and think over ventilation.
In general, we adhere to this order:
- We cover the floor with pre-milled and sanded boards from the pallet. If you wish, you can buy ready-made grooved boards.
- On the ceiling, combined with the roof, with an overlap of 15-20 cm, we fix the aluminum foil, making an approach to the walls. The material is easy to damage, therefore we work with it very carefully.
- We cover the walls with the same layer. Note that the reflective surface must face inward.
- We carefully glue all joints and places damaged during the installation process with metallized tape.
- We fill the crate on the ceiling and walls in increments of 0.5 meters and a thickness of 2-3 cm.
- We mount the wooden paneling on the ceiling, then on the walls.
- We install the electric heater, protecting the surfaces around it with a galvanized sheet of metal.
After finishing work, you can start arranging furniture and equipping shelves. By the way, pallets can also be used to create sauna furniture.
Watch a video about building a bath from pallets:
Instructions and photos of pallet baths will help you build a functional structure from available tools. Such an original steam room is designed for temporary use, but it will serve its operational life effectively.
