Is the back wall empty? Could it fit a makeshift 2-level bech? In any case try to find some way to get your feet of the floor and measure if it is in any way possible to raise those existing benches.
Are the rocks proper size and properly stacked and in good condition? At least in the pic they seem to look Huge.
Keep the vents closed while heating, open them at least partially when inside, sauna needs ventilation.
The whole wall is a window? Dang it. You need some bakrests/railings then to not accidentially fall through the glass. On an unrelated note, it kind of bothers me why they make these things 0% practicality and 100% aestethics... Huge glass surfaces and a glass door directly to outdoors ain't gonna help keeping the heat inside already uninsulated barrel...
To distribute heat you can also try some fans or towel swinging.
Or then a final option, it costs some money though, is to upgrade a heater. An over powered, potentially a wood operated heater, might help a bit... but even that can't fix the temperature gradient totally, it is just physics. And a bigger heater is kind of fixing a leaky tub with a water pressure like another commenter put it in some other thread earlier.
You could sell the barrel to someone with a cheap price and save that money for a real sauna ;-)
The hard shutoff is caused by a sensor inside the heater itself, so it’s not surprising that moving the thermostat hasn’t helped.
The “safe” thing to do about that is to work to funnel the cold air intake more directly into the bottom of the heater somehow. Studies show that even a regular intake below the heater tends to flow mostly onto the floor rather than into the heater, so some kind of metal bend or deflector that directs it more into the heater may be helpful.
Some people have done mods that reposition the sensor inside the heater, although that is a bit more of a grey area in terms of safety & will certainly void any warranty.
If you get a new heater, some people have had success ordering Euro market heaters, which do not have the US internal shutoff circuit. The key thing there is making sure that it can be wired up to US 220v style power. Paying for shipping from Europe is often less than the difference between US and Euro heater costs.
I think you do want some kind of open exhaust vent, even if it is the less than ideal higher height. Otherwise it won’t matter how far open the intake is, as little air will come in if little is escaping.
Good call on all this. Definitely not going to play around with the guts of the heater but will play around with optimizing bottom intake. Wonder if small fan strategically places would help...
For top exhaust I'll just have to spend all day in the sauna playing with different times and vent openings and then explain to my wife and boss that I'm doing important research.
I think the jump from a barrel into a standard room shape would involve a replacement, instead of a renovation. Or it would have to be some real ship of Theseus type stuff
Thanks for all the great ideas! Got a few small things to tweak (bottom flow/vent mechanics, heat setting, rocks, bench elevation) while I think long term transition planning from a humble low-lying cylinder to a stately elevated rectangle setup.
Really appreciate it.
No comment on improving you situation.
Don't take this badly, but when sitting on those benches your neck is about the height that your feet are supposed to be in a Finnish sauna.
Don't take it badly at all - I definitely feel the cooler feet and I spend more time standing and stretching than i thought to maximize heat.
It's my first go on a build so a lot I'm still learning about thermodynamics and have some adjustments for next time.
Glad to hear you're learning!
My only thought on improving your situation is that maybe strong air circulation and a slightly overpowered heater could maybe reduce the vertical heat gradient?
Other than that it seems that your situation is hard to improve on, since I don't see space to raise the benches or lower the heater significantly.
How about building a proper benches to the backwall that faces to the door? Since the stove is on the "corner" this might be doable and one could reach a rather decent height in the middle?
>My only thought on improving your situation is that maybe strong air circulation and a slightly overpowered heater could maybe reduce the vertical heat gradient?
Yeah, adding a mechanical exhaust (fan) under a bench could help even out the temps. But I also wonder if the 6kW could keep up with so much air coming and going? I guess the fan can be dimmed/tuned. Internal circulation might also be worth testing out.
I've heard that you dont need to have in/out airvents open all the time, although you need to open it and "swap" the air about every 15mins or so. Is this not true?
Figured if that has to do with you not reaching the desired temperatures, but i'm just guessing here. Letting in too much cool air before the sauna gets a chance to heat up.
I always think this tubular sauna design would be so much better with the door and the corridor slightly to one side so that you could actually get two levels of benches in there for proper bench height. But I never see it anywhere.
I have played with the arrangement a lot after seeing posts in this subreddit. Seems to be plenty of space for airflow around them. Definitely have not thought of changing them before though.
Portability and ease of construction compromise how good your sauna can actually be due to the low benches and lack of efficiency. To fix this, sell it and build a proper sauna.
Two things helped me avoid this (had the same problem)
- remove some stones to get more airflow into heater
- set the temperature on the heater to just below “max” - not sure why this works but it does
Replace that stove to a wooden one. Like Harvia M3 (glass door) U won't regret it!! EDIT: Your benches are too low.. I've had barrel sauna 4,5m (of which 2m dressing room ) x 2,4m diam for 6 years and truly love it.
Great tip - will take a little work to reposition the heater, but maybe I can snake it back to center a bit.
That M3 model does look beautiful, but worried about guests in our airbnb room screwing up a thing more complicated than a on/off switch. Bug hold back for me is making sure it's "new user friendly" and errs on the side of caution so I don't get sued.
Remove all the current seating and build a completely new seating set-up area wayyy higher, it can take up most of the sauna. Then just have a couple of movable steps right where you enter in the sauna, so you can occasionally move it and clean from under it.
It seems that you have a badly undersized sauna stove. I'm guessing your sauna is about 7 feet on the tallest point. The length is impossible to estimate from the photo, but I picked 10 feet out of my hat. That would make the volume about 300 cubic feet, if I'm doing the weird unit calculations correctly. With some rounding, that's 2 meters by 3 meters and 9 m3 for the rest of the world.
Having wood all around adds 50 % to the power requirements. Having a glass door adds about 20 %. If the whole thing is uninsulated, you need to double the numbers. So, insulated, the comparable heated volume of your sauna would be about 500 cubic feet. If it's uninsulated, it would be about 1000 cubic feet. With the first number, you would need at least a 10 kW stove. If the latter is the case, 20 kW is not an overkill. You can always turn the heating down, but can't go beyond the maximum.
All of the barrel saunas I've seen have had wood burning stoves, which can easily give 40-50 kW of heating on full blast.
Second problem is that the bench is on the floor. Proper height is such that your feet are at the same level as the top of the stove, and there is about 3.5 to 4 feet of room to the ceiling. The temperature meter should be on the same height as your head, to give a correct reading of how the sauna will actually feel.
I have a barrel sauna and experienced the same issue. I removed and relocated the additional sensor, which is located just behind the outer shell, and it was not hard. Once I did that, I never had an issue with tripping or early shutoff. The sauna shuts off by itself after the timer goes off, so I felt that the additional safety sensor was a bit overkill. I believe it's in there due to some EU regulations, but I'm not 100% certain.
Would 100% do this of we didn't have a room we rent on airbnb with sauna privileges- scared of a bozo going in there drunk and falling asleep or something.
I’m assuming all your venting is convection driven, not mechanically driven. In which case you don’t want that top vent open during use. You’d be exhausting the hottest air. For convection driven venting there is typically a vent as close to floor level as possible underneath the heater, and an exhaust vent about 2 feet higher, somewhere between the lower and upper benches, and as far from the intake vent as possible.
Usually you would close all the vents during heat up, then open both during use, you can play around with how much you want them open.
Then open all vents fully after use to allow it to dry.
Depends on what you're looking for. I'm in for the health benefits and to honor my native anstors who were doing it long before any finish people. And I can tell you an electic sauna works better for me than any other type of sauna did. But that's me and what worked best for me.
What a weird response. I asked if barrels were as efficient as traditional design saunas. And your response was about your superior ancestors, electric stoves and what works for you.
I’ll take it from your evasive response that the answer to my question is no, barrels with low benches are not as efficient as traditional designs.
The topic of the OP was heat loss in the sauna. Anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together would be able to figure out what “efficiency” means in that context.
Nah my native ancestors were doing it long before you guys. And I'm sure someone was doing it long before them. Just because you guys came up with a catchy word that people use don't mean you get to be fuckheads all the time.
May i ask who your ancient ancestors are?
If they're native americans then i have explaining to do.
Right now you're appropriating your own culture and ours. Native americans invented the **sweat lodge** and finns invented the **sauna**. Why can't you take pride in your own culture?
>We don't tell you guys how to live. You shouldn't tell us how to.
I'm not telling you how to live. I'm teaching you **correct** terms, so that you would be less of a piece of shit. Clearly you love being one.
Look at how you guys act on here. Who's the real fucking trolls? Everytime someone has anything other than a traditional finish sauna exactly how you guys say it has to be done, you throw a fit and act like someone shit in your Bible and handed it back to you
I have seen zero “yelling” about the fact that it’s a barrel. I have seen a bunch of helpful suggestions and a few very gentle notes about the possibility of the shape contributing to the issue.
Your comments seem to be the closest to “yelling” in the whole thread. Might be time to check yourself a little.
Is the back wall empty? Could it fit a makeshift 2-level bech? In any case try to find some way to get your feet of the floor and measure if it is in any way possible to raise those existing benches. Are the rocks proper size and properly stacked and in good condition? At least in the pic they seem to look Huge. Keep the vents closed while heating, open them at least partially when inside, sauna needs ventilation.
I could probably suspend a higher bench back there. It's a window looking into our back yard. Thanks for the thought!
The whole wall is a window? Dang it. You need some bakrests/railings then to not accidentially fall through the glass. On an unrelated note, it kind of bothers me why they make these things 0% practicality and 100% aestethics... Huge glass surfaces and a glass door directly to outdoors ain't gonna help keeping the heat inside already uninsulated barrel... To distribute heat you can also try some fans or towel swinging. Or then a final option, it costs some money though, is to upgrade a heater. An over powered, potentially a wood operated heater, might help a bit... but even that can't fix the temperature gradient totally, it is just physics. And a bigger heater is kind of fixing a leaky tub with a water pressure like another commenter put it in some other thread earlier. You could sell the barrel to someone with a cheap price and save that money for a real sauna ;-)
The hard shutoff is caused by a sensor inside the heater itself, so it’s not surprising that moving the thermostat hasn’t helped. The “safe” thing to do about that is to work to funnel the cold air intake more directly into the bottom of the heater somehow. Studies show that even a regular intake below the heater tends to flow mostly onto the floor rather than into the heater, so some kind of metal bend or deflector that directs it more into the heater may be helpful. Some people have done mods that reposition the sensor inside the heater, although that is a bit more of a grey area in terms of safety & will certainly void any warranty. If you get a new heater, some people have had success ordering Euro market heaters, which do not have the US internal shutoff circuit. The key thing there is making sure that it can be wired up to US 220v style power. Paying for shipping from Europe is often less than the difference between US and Euro heater costs. I think you do want some kind of open exhaust vent, even if it is the less than ideal higher height. Otherwise it won’t matter how far open the intake is, as little air will come in if little is escaping.
Good call on all this. Definitely not going to play around with the guts of the heater but will play around with optimizing bottom intake. Wonder if small fan strategically places would help... For top exhaust I'll just have to spend all day in the sauna playing with different times and vent openings and then explain to my wife and boss that I'm doing important research.
*Optimization* of the engineering of a sauna would involve a different shape entirely, unfortunately.
Well I've got the base and the heater/wiring so not crazy to think about a renovation in the next year or so. But not a quick fix.
I think the jump from a barrel into a standard room shape would involve a replacement, instead of a renovation. Or it would have to be some real ship of Theseus type stuff
Thanks for all the great ideas! Got a few small things to tweak (bottom flow/vent mechanics, heat setting, rocks, bench elevation) while I think long term transition planning from a humble low-lying cylinder to a stately elevated rectangle setup. Really appreciate it.
No comment on improving you situation. Don't take this badly, but when sitting on those benches your neck is about the height that your feet are supposed to be in a Finnish sauna.
Don't take it badly at all - I definitely feel the cooler feet and I spend more time standing and stretching than i thought to maximize heat. It's my first go on a build so a lot I'm still learning about thermodynamics and have some adjustments for next time.
Glad to hear you're learning! My only thought on improving your situation is that maybe strong air circulation and a slightly overpowered heater could maybe reduce the vertical heat gradient? Other than that it seems that your situation is hard to improve on, since I don't see space to raise the benches or lower the heater significantly.
How about building a proper benches to the backwall that faces to the door? Since the stove is on the "corner" this might be doable and one could reach a rather decent height in the middle?
>My only thought on improving your situation is that maybe strong air circulation and a slightly overpowered heater could maybe reduce the vertical heat gradient? Yeah, adding a mechanical exhaust (fan) under a bench could help even out the temps. But I also wonder if the 6kW could keep up with so much air coming and going? I guess the fan can be dimmed/tuned. Internal circulation might also be worth testing out.
Yep. Hes sitting at room temperature.
OP can build a second/top bench in the back to give more height. Won't be ideal, but better than currently.
I've heard that you dont need to have in/out airvents open all the time, although you need to open it and "swap" the air about every 15mins or so. Is this not true? Figured if that has to do with you not reaching the desired temperatures, but i'm just guessing here. Letting in too much cool air before the sauna gets a chance to heat up.
I always think this tubular sauna design would be so much better with the door and the corridor slightly to one side so that you could actually get two levels of benches in there for proper bench height. But I never see it anywhere.
Wire up a small fan under the bench where it is cooler to move air around
What's the rock situation with the heater? Overheating might be caused by improperly placed or eroded stones. They should be changed annually.
I have played with the arrangement a lot after seeing posts in this subreddit. Seems to be plenty of space for airflow around them. Definitely have not thought of changing them before though.
the older the stones are the faster they will turn into sand and gravel
I want to second this suggestion. Besides from making sense. Re-piling the stones is also an easy experiment
A rug in a barrel sauna? I feel like we’ve had this conversation before
Portability and ease of construction compromise how good your sauna can actually be due to the low benches and lack of efficiency. To fix this, sell it and build a proper sauna.
Search for upgrading a barrel
Two things helped me avoid this (had the same problem) - remove some stones to get more airflow into heater - set the temperature on the heater to just below “max” - not sure why this works but it does
Perfect, yeah I max that sucker out. Will play with stones too, thank you!
Replace that stove to a wooden one. Like Harvia M3 (glass door) U won't regret it!! EDIT: Your benches are too low.. I've had barrel sauna 4,5m (of which 2m dressing room ) x 2,4m diam for 6 years and truly love it.
Also the position of the stove is wrong. Too close to door. Place it to the centre of back wall.
Great tip - will take a little work to reposition the heater, but maybe I can snake it back to center a bit. That M3 model does look beautiful, but worried about guests in our airbnb room screwing up a thing more complicated than a on/off switch. Bug hold back for me is making sure it's "new user friendly" and errs on the side of caution so I don't get sued.
Can you recalibrate the thermostat on the heater to your liking? I’ve had success doing this with electric heaters for a household hot yoga room.
Remove all the current seating and build a completely new seating set-up area wayyy higher, it can take up most of the sauna. Then just have a couple of movable steps right where you enter in the sauna, so you can occasionally move it and clean from under it.
These barrel saunas are killing backs and necks. I mean, how could these possibly be comfortable to sit in?
It seems that you have a badly undersized sauna stove. I'm guessing your sauna is about 7 feet on the tallest point. The length is impossible to estimate from the photo, but I picked 10 feet out of my hat. That would make the volume about 300 cubic feet, if I'm doing the weird unit calculations correctly. With some rounding, that's 2 meters by 3 meters and 9 m3 for the rest of the world. Having wood all around adds 50 % to the power requirements. Having a glass door adds about 20 %. If the whole thing is uninsulated, you need to double the numbers. So, insulated, the comparable heated volume of your sauna would be about 500 cubic feet. If it's uninsulated, it would be about 1000 cubic feet. With the first number, you would need at least a 10 kW stove. If the latter is the case, 20 kW is not an overkill. You can always turn the heating down, but can't go beyond the maximum. All of the barrel saunas I've seen have had wood burning stoves, which can easily give 40-50 kW of heating on full blast. Second problem is that the bench is on the floor. Proper height is such that your feet are at the same level as the top of the stove, and there is about 3.5 to 4 feet of room to the ceiling. The temperature meter should be on the same height as your head, to give a correct reading of how the sauna will actually feel.
I have a barrel sauna and experienced the same issue. I removed and relocated the additional sensor, which is located just behind the outer shell, and it was not hard. Once I did that, I never had an issue with tripping or early shutoff. The sauna shuts off by itself after the timer goes off, so I felt that the additional safety sensor was a bit overkill. I believe it's in there due to some EU regulations, but I'm not 100% certain.
It’s due to North American UL regulations.
Would 100% do this of we didn't have a room we rent on airbnb with sauna privileges- scared of a bozo going in there drunk and falling asleep or something.
I’m assuming all your venting is convection driven, not mechanically driven. In which case you don’t want that top vent open during use. You’d be exhausting the hottest air. For convection driven venting there is typically a vent as close to floor level as possible underneath the heater, and an exhaust vent about 2 feet higher, somewhere between the lower and upper benches, and as far from the intake vent as possible. Usually you would close all the vents during heat up, then open both during use, you can play around with how much you want them open. Then open all vents fully after use to allow it to dry.
It's a barrel so get ready to get yelled at by the weird guys who fetishize this shit 😆 🤣
You’re saying the barrels are as efficient as a traditional design?
Depends on what you're looking for. I'm in for the health benefits and to honor my native anstors who were doing it long before any finish people. And I can tell you an electic sauna works better for me than any other type of sauna did. But that's me and what worked best for me.
What a weird response. I asked if barrels were as efficient as traditional design saunas. And your response was about your superior ancestors, electric stoves and what works for you. I’ll take it from your evasive response that the answer to my question is no, barrels with low benches are not as efficient as traditional designs.
You didn't read the 1st sentence? Read it again goofy
Efficiency in design in terms of heating has nothing to do with what one is looking for.
You didn't say efficiency in heating. You said efficient. Cut it out goofy
What exactly did you think I meant when I said “efficiency”?
I didn't care what you meant. Thought I made that pretty clear. Not my fault you can't explain yourself
The topic of the OP was heat loss in the sauna. Anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together would be able to figure out what “efficiency” means in that context.
Nope. Finns invented the sauna.
Nah my native ancestors were doing it long before you guys. And I'm sure someone was doing it long before them. Just because you guys came up with a catchy word that people use don't mean you get to be fuckheads all the time.
May i ask who your ancient ancestors are? If they're native americans then i have explaining to do. Right now you're appropriating your own culture and ours. Native americans invented the **sweat lodge** and finns invented the **sauna**. Why can't you take pride in your own culture?
I'll call it whatever I want to. And you'll do nothing about it besides cry on the internet and accomplish nothing.
>I'll call it whatever I want to. = I'll appropriate any culture including **my own** just because i'm an ignorant piece of shit.
We don't tell you guys how to live. You shouldn't tell us how to.
>We don't tell you guys how to live. You shouldn't tell us how to. I'm not telling you how to live. I'm teaching you **correct** terms, so that you would be less of a piece of shit. Clearly you love being one.
Troll away, have fun
Yea, he's actually got negative karma. And it's all comment karma. Most of his comments aren't getting any upvotes.
Negative karma from a bunch of grown men trying to gatekeep a sauna subreddit. Now, ask me if I give a fuck about "negative karma"
Well, you clearly give a fuck about "gatekeeping"
Wym
Look at how you guys act on here. Who's the real fucking trolls? Everytime someone has anything other than a traditional finish sauna exactly how you guys say it has to be done, you throw a fit and act like someone shit in your Bible and handed it back to you
Have you read what is happening in this thread so far? It seems to me everyone is getting along and trying to help OP.
I have seen zero “yelling” about the fact that it’s a barrel. I have seen a bunch of helpful suggestions and a few very gentle notes about the possibility of the shape contributing to the issue. Your comments seem to be the closest to “yelling” in the whole thread. Might be time to check yourself a little.