The most important thing in a sauna is, of course, the stove. There are many ready-made solutions stoves that can be bought in a store, but in this article we will look at drawings for making metal stoves yourself.

DIY metal sauna stove

Manufacturing stages

There are quite a lot of drawings of a sauna stove and each of them has its own functionality. Let's start with the furnace firebox.

• The firebox is the first thing to do. You determine the size of the firebox yourself, based on the size of your steam room.
  The main thing to remember is that the width and height of the firebox must be the same.
• On some drawings of metal stoves you can see ready-made solutions that you can buy in a store rather than cut and cook yourself. For example, doors, grilles, handles, and so on. You will save a lot of time if you buy them at the store.
• In almost all drawings, the firebox consists of 2 parts. In one part, firewood is burned, and the other is designed to collect ash and also serves as an ash pit.
• If stones will be placed on the top of the firebox, then it should be made of a grate. You can make a decorative lattice for beauty.

Important! If you decide to cook a sauna stove yourself, be careful special attention to the thickness of the metal. The metal must be at least 5 mm thick so that it does not move when heated.

Detailed drawing metal sauna stoves

Water tank and place for stones

Drawing of a metal stove with a heater and a water tank

The pipe must also be made from a pipe with a large thickness of metal. This way it won’t burn out right away and will serve you for a long time.

Sauna stove with a pipe passing through the heater and water tank

Chimney

Also on the drawing of the sauna stove it is necessary to indicate the place where the chimney will pass through the roof. This place must be carefully insulated, since the air passing through the pipe is very hot.

Chimney for a bath

To isolate the chimney from the roof, it is better to purchase ready-made solutions that are sold in specialized bathhouse stores.

Thus, making a sauna stove according to the drawings yourself is not so difficult. In addition, stores sell many ready-made solutions (grills, doors, tanks, pipes, chimneys, chimney insulation), using which it will be even easier to build a stove.

How to make a sauna stove with your own hands from metal video:

There are many metal sauna stoves on sale, but good ones cost a lot of money. If you have sufficient experience in metal welding, you can make a furnace yourself, according to your own dimensions. Read on to learn how to make a stove for a bathhouse from metal (sheet metal), drawings and photos.

• 1 Metal stove for baths and saunas - what is the difference
• 2 Homemade stoves for Russian baths
  • 2.1 Heater: what size and where
  • 2.2 Drawings of homemade metal sauna stoves
• 3 How to make a sauna stove
  • 3.1 Drawings and diagrams

Metal stove for baths and saunas - what is the difference

There is a significant difference between the steam modes in a bathhouse and a sauna. In the sauna the air temperature is very high - from 85C and much higher. At this temperature, the humidity simply cannot be high - you will immediately get burned, and the broom will crumble in five minutes. And it is really small, about 5-15%. In a Russian steam room, the temperature stays between 55-65°C, occasionally rising to 70°C. At such temperatures, the humidity “catch up” is high - 50-60%.

One of the options for a welded sauna stove

To achieve such different tasks, different approaches to constructing a furnace are required. A sauna requires the largest area of ​​contact between the stove body and the surrounding air and acceleration of the passage of air flows along the walls. Everything is subordinated to the task of heating the air in the steam room as quickly as possible. There is a heater, but it is small, open, and is usually located above the firebox. The stones in it warm up to a maximum of 200-250°C, since they give off a lot of heat to the surrounding air. You can get a little steam from such a heater. But you don’t need a lot in the sauna - one or two ladle will give 15% humidity. I just can't stand it anymore.

In a Russian steam room, the task is different - not to overheat the room and achieve large quantity pair. Moreover, the steam must be of a certain condition - it must consist of very small droplets. It is also called “dry” and has a high temperature - about 130-150°C. Under this condition, after soaring, the body feels light and energized. Such steam is obtained only from hot stones whose temperature is at least 500°C. To achieve it, the stones are “packed” inside the firebox - a box is placed in it - a closed heater.

Here the heater is located inside and a tank is attached on top

As you can see, there are solid design differences. They must be kept in mind.

Homemade stoves for Russian baths

What else should you keep in mind when designing a stove for the Russian steam room mode? The fact that having heated metal walls to keep the temperature within the required 60-65°C is unrealistic. Be sure to melt it. At the same time, hard IR radiation comes from the walls of the furnace and is difficult to be nearby. The problem can be solved in two ways:

It's also worth talking about seams. In homemade metal stoves (in factory ones, too, in principle), burnout often begins precisely at the seams. In production this problem bypassed using bent structures. In the upper part they try to avoid seams altogether. When making a sauna stove with your own hands, you are unlikely to be able to bend a sheet of metal 6-10 mm thick, so there is only one thing left to do - make the seams as high quality as possible.

Kamenka: what size and where

The required number of stones depends on the volume of the steam room (provided that the bathhouse is properly insulated). Different sources have different recommendations with more or less amounts - from 20 to 40 kg per 1 m3. In principle, the more stones, the easier it is to obtain the required amount of steam, provided that the oven has enough power to heat them.

The problem is that the stones different breeds have different densities, and, therefore, the same mass occupies different volumes. In principle, for an average steam room with a volume of 12-14 m3, the dimensions of the heater are approximately the following: 30*40*30 mm. The parameters can be changed slightly, made wider/narrower/higher - look at the design of the stove.

Kamenka may be different shapes and size

The ratio of the volume of the firebox to the volume of the heater is a complex thermotechnical calculation that not even every heating engineer is able to master. It is much easier to use ready-made drawings or experimentally determined proportions. At a minimum, the volume of the firebox “free” from the heater should not be less. It’s better if it’s even about 30-50% more.

A little about what part of the firebox is best to place a box for stones. Everyone has long come to the conclusion that the highest temperature is in the upper part and at the back wall. This is where it makes sense to place the container. Firstly, part of the thermal load from the arch of the firebox will be removed, and secondly, the stones will heat up well.

Don’t forget about the maintenance of the heater and the fact that water must somehow get into it. The service hatch should be positioned in such a way that you can reach the farthest edge with your hand without any problems. And the water supply deep into the heater must be organized so as not to get burned. Typically, a tube or system of tubes is inserted, which diverge across the entire plane of the stone container. On the room side, this tube ends in a funnel. The pipe is lined with stones. When water is supplied to it, it is distributed over the surface of the heater/stones and evaporates.

Drawings of homemade metal sauna stoves

This stove was designed for a steam room 2*3*2.3 m. It was made from sheet metal 3 mm thick.

Metal stove for a bath with a closed heater

To activate combustion, it is possible to connect an additional air duct laid from the street. Other solutions include stiffening ribs (corners) welded to the sides of the firebox in the upper part of the firebox so that the metal does not bend during strong heating.

The following diagram of a metal sauna stove is made with air supplied to the upper part of the firebox. These are so-called gas afterburning furnaces. There is a metal plate welded on the back wall. Air from under the grate is supplied into the gap between this plate and the rear wall of the firebox using air ducts. This seemingly simple device solves two problems at once. Firstly, it cools the back wall, reducing the likelihood of it burning out. Secondly, the air is supplied to the upper part heated. Flue gases heated to high temperatures are concentrated there, most of which are flammable (up to 80%). When these gases mix with heated air, the combustible substances ignite, the temperature in the upper part of the firebox becomes even higher, and the stones heat up to higher temperatures. In this case (when using dry firewood) much less fuel is required. Many furnaces are built on this principle. long burning, but it began to be used in sauna stoves only recently.

Furnace with secondary air supply

Approximately the same model, but without afterburning, made in a different format. The dimensions are not indicated here, but it is easier to understand the proportions and arrangement of the various elements.

Three-dimensional model of a homemade metal stove-heater

IN in this case The volume of the firebox is about 130% of the volume of the heater. Normal ratio. The chimney is shifted back, which is not always good - difficulties may arise when installing the chimney - it may rest against ceiling beam- you will have to bend the chimney, which is undesirable. So think about the location of the pipe.

Even among bathhouse lovers, there is a constant debate about whether a tank for heating water in a steam room is good or bad... Some regulate the humidity by opening/closing the lid of the tank. They are happy with this option. Others say that this steam is “heavy”, and take the tank to the washing compartment, and heat the water in it by building a heat exchanger into the firebox and connecting it to the tank with pipes. The following diagram is a stove in a metal bath with a water tank.

Drawing of a sauna stove with a water tank

The design is clever - with the help of a “spark arrestor” the path of flue gases is longer, it stays in the firebox longer, and heats the walls better. If you don't want a tank, you can put stones in its place.

An interesting option with a tank located at the back of the stove. The chimney is moved back and passes through the tank. The height of the tank is large, heat removal will be effective - the temperature of the chimney at the outlet of the tank will definitely not be high.

Option for a small stove with a large tank

The heater is interestingly designed. It is not very large, but its volume is enough for small and medium-sized steam rooms. It closes with a lid, which on the one hand is not very convenient: closing the lid after applying water to the stones will be problematic. On the other hand, it is convenient to maintain.

Furnace sections and dimensions

How to make a sauna stove

As already mentioned, the main task of this type heating devices— quickly “catch up” to the required temperature and be able to maintain it. There is a simple solution - install a fan that will blow on the walls of the furnace, accelerating heating.

The convector casing performs approximately the same function. This is the casing around the oven body. There remains a gap of 1.5-2 cm between it and the wall of the firebox. Air is sucked into this gap from below. It passes along the walls, heats up, and at the same time cools the walls. Then it rises upward, spreading heat throughout the steam room.

The working principle of the convection casing

If the furnace body is made of thick metal, then the casing can be made of thin metal. It rarely heats up to high temperatures, and burnout does not threaten it. If in a sauna stove the heater is located at the top, above the firebox, as in the photo, then holes can be made in the body to ventilate the heater. Then part of the air that rises along the walls will enter the heater, blow on the stones and heat up even more. This type of heater is called ventilated. It is good for dry air saunas.

Drawings and diagrams

The design of sauna stoves is simpler. You need a normal size firebox that can accommodate large logs. In the upper part, above the top of the firebox, the sides of the heater are welded, the volume of which is usually 20-25 liters. There may be variations in width/height/depth, but there are no special tricks.

Diagrams of metal sauna stoves

Installing a tank to heat water in a sauna steam room is not the best idea. You won't be able to control the humidity, and at high temperatures it's easy to get burned. However, there are several options for installing tanks in the photo above.

Another type of heater is inside the firebox. If desired, you can put a lid on it and this oven can be used in two modes - with the lid open for dry vaping, and with the lid open to produce more steam.

Heater inside the body

When creating a bathhouse, the question of heating it always arises. Choosing from ready-made options, it is better to give preference to one that is not only of high quality, but also economical. If you don’t have the funds to build a stone heating source, you can make a sauna stove with your own hands.

Requirements for metal heat sources

At self-production It’s important to keep ovens on hand necessary tools, a set of drawings for the construction of bathhouses homemade stoves and have experience as a welder. When working with steel sheets, keep in mind that at a temperature of +150 degrees, a change in the properties of iron occurs, at +250 its endurance under constant loads disappears, and at +550 the steel becomes dark brown, which indicates a change in linear properties.

You need to work especially carefully when heating the metal to +900 degrees! At this temperature, unwanted deformation of the future furnace is possible.

Taking these nuances into account will ensure:

• long-term accumulation of thermal masses;
• warming up the bath and raising its temperature in a short time;
• high level of safety for people washing themselves.

In addition, these ovens do not require much space due to their small size.

Pros and cons of metal stoves

The bathhouse must support temperature regime from +50 degrees. For this purpose, it is recommended to install homemade metal sauna stoves. Their use has the following advantages:

• small-sized structures, which is important for small rooms;
• you cannot suffocate, since such an iron “homemade product” removes combustion products through the chimney pipe;

• Due to the high heat transfer coefficient, the steam room quickly warms up. On average about 1.5 hours;
• shelf life, which directly depends on the quality of the work performed and materials;
• absence of smoke when lighting a bath with raw wood;
• low cost.

Such homemade metal stoves also have some disadvantages:

• small dimensions of the structure exclude use in spacious bath rooms;
• quick cooling period. In order for the stove to heat, the heat must be constantly maintained;
• high probability of ignition of objects located near the walls of the structure.

Types of metal furnaces

There are 3 options:

1. Open – with a small volume water tank and an open heater. To enhance the heat capacity coefficient of such a sauna stove, you will need to cover the stones with a galvanized lid.
2. Closed. To increase the heat capacity, the outside and inside are laid out with refractory bricks using metal fasteners, and a special grate is placed.
3. Combined. With this option, a complete set is formed: 2 valves, a firebox, a grate, 2 pipes (10 cm and 14 cm in diameter), a blower and 4 holes are provided for a pipe and a bypass elbow. For this, steel sheets about 0.5 cm thick are used.

Sauna stoves also come in cold and hot types. The first is suitable for heated rooms. It is impossible to get burned on its walls, since they only warm up to +50 degrees. The second option does not allow you to control the temperature in the bathhouse and is used when using the steam room irregularly.

Types of stoves depending on the type of fuel:

• electrical - housing with heating element and special elements for heat insulation;
• wood-burning A lot of wood is needed as fuel, a long time to warm up the room and constant monitoring;
• gas. They are convenient and reliable thanks to the presence of a safety device that reacts when the gas supply level decreases or when it is completely turned off.

Metal wood stove

Features of heating sources for baths and saunas

In a traditional Russian bathhouse, it has long been customary to provide a lot of steam and less heat. For this purpose, a closed heater is used, located above the firebox. It is lined with heat-resistant brick on the inside while maintaining a small air gap. For such a bath you need to heat the stones up to +500 degrees.

The Finnish sauna requires a low level of humidity - 5-15% and a temperature range of up to +85 degrees. The heater is used open, with slightly heated stones. To produce steam, just pour water on it.

Main components of metal furnaces

Their presence is provided in all bath structures.

Firebox

This is a two-chamber device. The upper part (furnace) is necessary for burning fuel, and the lower part (ash pan) is necessary for accumulating and collecting ash. These two compartments are separated by a grille, and each of them has a door. Often the lower compartment is left open for air flow, using it as an ash chamber. You can also make holes in the firebox door (dimensions 20x25 cm) with a damper to regulate the air supply.

Kamenka

Rods measuring 1 cm or more are fixed above the firebox door, located opposite the entrance. The door of the heater itself should “look” at the steam room. Next, stones without mica content are placed in it. It is undesirable to use granite. The more cobblestones, the larger the hot surface.
Firebox

It is better to mount a hatch in the upper part of a sauna stove made of metal with your own hands to create access to the bottom of the compartment and ensure maintenance of the heater. A chimney cover is installed above it. The last stage is the installation of a water tank.

Chimney

This is a pipe for removing the resulting smoke and heating the water supplied to the stones. The chimney must be insulated, because due to its high temperature It's easy to get burned.

Its dimensions must correspond to the dimensions iron stove. The thickness of the passages should be equal to half a brick.

It is better to purchase a chimney already assembled with an outer pipe, an internal chimney, and a deflector.

Tank

It is mounted above the firebox. A tap is built into its lower part to gradually supply liquid to the hot stones. On the chimney side, the tank is covered with a steel semicircle with a hole for the chimney pipe. A lid with a handle is mounted on the part of the container that will be filled with water. Just like the chimney, it is better to buy a ready-made tank.

Additional items

These include doors and grilles. To save time, they are purchased ready-made.

Making metal stoves with your own hands

There are many drawings and options, but the set of constituent elements is approximately the same.

Tools

To get started you will need to prepare:

Grate for the furnace

Important nuances

You first need to determine the location for the future structure. If necessary, a foundation and two rows of bricks are laid. A pit 70 cm deep is made under it. Its bottom is sprinkled with sand and broken brick on top. Next, the frame and formwork are installed, after which the surface is filled with concrete.

Foundation for a metal sauna stove

Important to remember:

• the gap between the stove and the wall is at least 1 m;
• Foil must be attached to the wall near the structure;
• it is better to make a chimney from a sandwich pipe with a heat-insulating layer;
• at the junction of the roof and the chimney it is necessary to form a passage unit;
• It is better to surround the structure with bricks to prevent burns.

Stove-heater

This simple variety has several ways to create it.

Option 1

Using an iron barrel without a bottom or top. The resulting container is half filled with bricks placed on edge and a grate laid on top. Stones are placed in the remaining 2/3 of the space and a chimney is installed. At the end, such a homemade stove in the bathhouse is covered with a lid made of sheets of steel.

Option 2

Bricks are not used for the construction of the stove. Sequence of work:

1. Prepare diagrams and necessary tools.
2. In a long pipe, cut a hole for the blower with dimensions of 5x20 cm. Inside the pipe above it, fix the mount for the grate.
3. For the firebox, make a hole 25x20 cm. Above it, mount fastenings for rods, the size of which is about 1 cm.
4. Create a hole on the other side of the oven into which liquid will flow. Place stones in the stove.
5. Make a slot for the chimney. Install a tap at the bottom of the pipe.
6. Form a lid on the heating tank with a slot for the chimney, a hinge and a handle.

Option 3

This stove has 2 heaters. It is made by analogy with the previous ones. The difference is that 4 plates are used to connect two heaters.

a conventional horizontal oven. A propane cylinder and scrap metal scraps are used. Openings for the doors and chimney are cut, a grid of grates is fixed to the corners, and the lid is installed in its original place. Legs and doors are installed;

vertical boiler for a bath. It consists of a firebox, a water tank and a heater closed type. It will be necessary to form blanks for the bottom of the lid and partitions in advance, and carry out the process of welding round grates. The constituent elements are made according to the scheme described above.

Many drawings of sauna stoves made of metal provide for horizontal and vertical options designs with the firebox exiting to separate room, with closed and open heater. A homemade potbelly stove is also common. This is an ordinary metal box with a door and a pipe. It requires a lot of fuel with a low heat transfer rate.

Final finishing

Regardless of the type and size of the sauna stove, the structure must be treated with heat-resistant enamel. To do this, the surface is degreased and then organic composition applied in several layers.
Application of heat-resistant enamel

Finished furnaces cannot be put into operation immediately. First of all, forcefully or naturally dry the bathhouse.

By following these tips and having experience in welding, you will get a stove that will bring you joy for many years. Choose an option that will optimally fit into the bath room and will not “eat up” additional space.

Metal stoves have always been serious competition for brick stoves - both in private homes and in bathhouses. They heat up quickly and are easy to install, which is what attracts today those who build their treasured steam room with their own hands. On the one hand, a metal sauna stove is distinguished by its aesthetics and good thermal conductivity. But if you use it technically incorrectly, a fire cannot be avoided. That’s why it’s so important to take into account all the nuances – which is what this article will be about.

What are modern metal stoves like?

The simplest homemade ones metal stoves for a bath - these are the so-called “potbelly stoves”. They consist of a box with a pipe and a door; they provide little heat, but require a lot of firewood. One might say that such stoves are simply a relic of the past.

Modern metal sauna stoves are much safer. They are made mainly from sheet iron 4-5 mm thick, with a well-thought-out special thermal chamber for stone backfill. Often their design also includes a water tank - even up to 70 liters in volume. But the most important thing is that a metal stove must be lined with refractory bricks. After all, this is the only way to avoid burns and allow the air to heat up evenly.

In total, the drawings of metal stoves for baths have three types: closed design, open and combined. The first is especially convenient in family small baths due to its compactness - inside and outside it is built with red brick for the sake of heat capacity. The bricks themselves are secured with wire clamps, and a grate for stones is installed in the middle of the oven.

Ovens open design They have a tank with a smaller volume, and the heater is open. The steam room with such a stove warms up much faster, and to increase the heat capacity, the stones are covered with a galvanized screen cover. But combined metal stoves are made of steel sheets with a thickness of 3-5 mm and consist of a firebox with two valves, a blower and a grate, and two pipes 10 and 14 cm in diameter, with four holes for a pipe and a bypass bend.
There are iron sauna stoves of different types depending on the type of fuel:

• Electric

The design of electric metal furnaces consists of a body with heating elements and heat-insulating materials.

• Gas

These are iron sauna stoves with a thermostat to regulate power. Responsible for the safety of the unit safety device, which instantly shuts off the gas supply if the fire goes out.

• Wood-burning

Such stoves heat up more slowly, but they delight you with the warmth of a real fire and a pleasant smell. But they require a lot of fuel, just like ongoing care after them.

An example of installing a heat-resistant screen on a stove and lining it with soapstone - soapstone

An example of a homemade metal stove

No matter how much homemade iron sauna stoves are criticized for the “hardness” of heat, they have much more advantages than disadvantages:

• The steam room warms up completely in literally 1.5 hours - after all, metal has much greater heat transfer than brick or stone.
• It is almost impossible to get poisoned by carbon monoxide: when wood burns, all harmful substances go into the chimney and do not penetrate through invisible cracks.
• Even if the firewood is wet, the room will not smoke.

But you need to install iron stoves in a bathhouse correctly: no closer than a meter from the walls, only next to the chimney and on a good, solid base made of refractory materials.

A good homemade iron stove for a bath can be made with your own hands - in fact, it is not as difficult as it seems. And what about appearance it will be inferior to the spectacular store one - this is nothing, because you will still need a brick screen that will cover everything. The main thing is that the metal thickness is at least 10 mm.

Installation of an iron stove in the wall of a log bathhouse

There are two main parts in the stove: one for the firebox, the second for the water tank. At the bottom of the pipe you will need to make a cutout up to 20 cm wide - this will be the blower, and above it - mount a round steel plate. After which a niche for the firebox is cut out, and a door is made from a piece of metal. Now a heater is welded over the firebox - so that there is no less than 10 cm from its top to the bottom. And, finally, a hot water tank - there will be a hole in it for the chimney. It is important for everyone to carefully monitor the tightness of all seams.

Why is the shape of the stove so important?

Both its performance and ease of use depend on the shape of the furnace. So, the most common metal stoves are: cylindrical, shaped, horizontal and the most practical - rectangular. The latter are good because their angular zones never become red-hot, and therefore it is precisely this frame that literally “holds” the shape of the stove. Although even with this design, stiffening ribs will not be superfluous - they can be equipped with welded corners.

In general, the shape of the firebox completely determines which elements will heat up more and which ones will heat up less. And heating one element (for example, the bottom) leads to a decrease in the degree of heating of the wall from the combustion zone, which helps the steam room heat up more evenly and establishes a balance of heat flows. Secondly, proper heating determines the mechanical stability of the structure. And cylindrical and round stoves are less stable in this regard - that’s why its walls are always very thick and reinforced. In a rectangular one, thin walls are held together by cold corners, but warping over time cannot be avoided - this is a fact.

The installation of a metal furnace must follow all the rules - heat-resistant screens and a foundation, if necessary

But choosing the right metal stove based on shape and material alone is not so easy - there are a lot important points. And the most important thing is to prevent possible warping of the stove walls, i.e. flattening of the oven due to overheating. This is extremely dangerous in terms of fire: overheating metal walls leads to the formation of cracks in the so-called “warpage folds”, which expand over time and lead to ignition of the bath.

About this process in more detail: hot sheets of metal naturally increase in linear dimensions, swell strongly - and therefore bend the neighboring, colder parts of the furnace. And when they cool down, they can no longer return to their previous shape. Therefore, when choosing a metal stove for a bathhouse or making one yourself, it is important to conduct a thorough inspection of all its walls for burns or cracks.

If everything turns out to be in order, the new metal stove will delight you with warmth and durability for many years to come!

About 25 years ago, doctors finally confirmed: the main secret of Russian and Finnish baths was revealed, and the discovery turned out to be amazing. One of the consequences of the revival of interest in the steam business at a new level is a home-made sauna stove. Firstly, the demand for sauna stoves is still not fully satisfied, so factory-made products are quite expensive. Secondly, both the Russian bathhouse and the sauna are complex hygienic and health complexes, the heart of the bathhouse is the stove, the entire bathhouse is built around the stove, and in the conditions of serial production it is not possible to provide for all possible combinations of local conditions. Therefore, often, even if they have available funds, true connoisseurs first “suggest” a bathhouse for the location, and then select a suitable stove for it or even design a suitable stove themselves. This is what this article is intended to help with.

The secret of the steam room

And what is the main secret of bath health? It turned out that it was short-term, up to 40 minutes, warming up the whole body to about 40 degrees:

• Destroys cells with damaged DNA, i.e. capable of degenerating into cancer.
• It breaks down accumulated toxins into forms that can be easily removed from the body.
• It suppresses a certain gene, the function of which was not entirely clear at that time. Now it is quite clear - this is an aging gene.

By the way, methods of treating cancer are precisely based on the fact that cells with disorders are not as tenacious as healthy ones. They die from poisons (during chemotherapy) or radiation (during radiation) faster than healthy ones. In fact, the beneficial effects of a steam bath are much broader, and its mechanism is more complex. But to understand what follows, this information is sufficient.

A little incidental

The Russian bathhouse is inextricably linked with Russian culture. In particular, many famous Russian painters and sculptors paid tribute to the bathhouse not only in the steam room, but also on canvas and in round sculpture. During the time of the moral code of the builder of communism, works of fine art of such content, of course, were not exhibited for public viewing, but lay in the storerooms of museums and galleries. The following selection of illustrations is intended to fill this gap to some extent.

Sauna with a stove or a stove in a sauna?

Neither one nor the other. The parameters of the stove and bath must be linked to each other. Therefore, let us first briefly consider what a bathhouse is. A detailed discussion about the construction of a bathhouse, of course, needs a separate and thorough discussion. We will just figure out what is essential for the design of a sauna stove.

Russian or Finnish?

There is more than enough debate about the difference between a Russian bath and a sauna. But everyone agrees on the main difference: temperature and humidity conditions. In a Russian bath - 50-70 degrees with a relative humidity of 20-65%; in the sauna – 70-100 degrees with 5-15% humidity. If we turn to physics, then a cubic meter of air in a Russian bath contains 50-80 g of water vapor, and in a sauna – 15-40 g/cubic. m. It is already known that steam in a sauna is dry. And from the point of view of medicine and biochemistry, there is also no fundamental difference: in both cases, the skin steams and becomes permeable from the inside, which helps remove toxins through sweat, bypassing the usual excretory pathways and without loading the body. In the sauna it is not forbidden to “pour it on with a broom”, but in a Russian bath you can take a dry steam bath. But the design of the bathhouse itself and the sauna stove turn out to be somewhat different in design. Firstly, the Russian bathhouse (see figure), kondovoy or modern, is a log house; as a last resort - a box made of timber, lined with a townhouse from the inside. Bulges and depressions inside are necessary to better capture infrared radiation ovens and draw in excess water vapor from the air.

The fact is that the absolute, in grams per cubic meter, humidity in a Russian bath is close to critical at a given temperature range. This speeds up the steaming of the skin and warms up the body throughout its entire volume, but also increases the risk of unpleasant and harmful heavy steam. A Finnish bathhouse can be made of logs, lumber, or even frame. But you must take a steam bath in a cap - it protects the hair follicles with fatty glands from drying out, which can lead to premature baldness or, conversely, to the appearance of thick and coarse hair, especially on the eyebrows, and excessive hair growth in the nostrils and ears . In relation to the furnace, all of the above means the following: A sauna stove must first warm up the walls of the sauna, and only then the air in it. Otherwise, even in the sauna, heavy steam may appear, which at such temperatures is very harmful.

How someone cares

About 20 years ago, a then good friend of the author, a seasoned Ukrainian owner named Vasily and nicknamed Khakhluy among his villagers, built himself a Russian bathhouse. The author, who had previously helped him build an Abyssinian well, was invited to take a steam bath. They melted it and settled down. Vasya scooped up some dark brown liquid and poured it on the heater. It was crazy, and the author felt that he was flying to the moon. At first I attributed it to habit – I hadn’t taken a steam bath for about 5 years before that. But the second portion made me feel the same way. Being already mentally prepared for the next salvo, I determined from the sensations: euphoria of clearly unnatural origin. - Vasya, what are you pouring on the stove? - That hemp infusion. - Vaska, are you completely swollen? Not only is it a drug, but such a dose can even kill your motor! - That's how the drugs are there... and the heart of mane is crippled... it's good to clear your eyes... But let's go back to the bathhouses and sauna stoves.

Bath structure

A bathhouse can be either a cramped closet without a foundation or a solid building, comparable in area to a city apartment. We will return to the second one later, because... Only a brick stove, which slowly releases heat, is suitable for it; with a small steam room volume, up to 30-35 cubic meters. m – cast iron. In a small one-room bathhouse you can also install a welded stove made of steel sheet.

Both baths can be light - made of linden or birch, or heavy - made of oak. It is not advisable to build a bathhouse from coniferous wood, just like from maple, walnut, or ash. Over the years, when heated, this wood, especially in an atmosphere with a high content of water vapor, releases volatile substances that are not always useful. A sauna is not so critical to the material of the walls; it can even be built from seasoned pine. The “heaviness” of an oak bath is explained not by the heaviness of the wood, but by the presence of tannins in it. A heavy bath is not for women and children. And it lasts for 5-8 years, then the tannins disappear. But for a strong man who can run a kilometer without being out of breath and without feeling his heartbeat, a heavy bath will only give him strength and vigor.

Note: According to one version of the famous fairy tale, Alyosha Popovich went out against the Snake Tugarin several times, but was able to defeat him only after taking a proper steam bath in a heavy bath.

What does this mean for the oven? Firstly, the value of thermal power. If for a light bath 0.5 kW/cu.m. is enough. m of room volume for linden and 0.7 kW/cu.m. m for birch, then for an oak bath you need at least 1.2 kW/cu. m.

Note: the indicated values ​​are valid for a ceiling height of 2.2-2.4 m. A ceiling higher than 2.5 m in a bathhouse is generally undesirable.

Secondly, the weight of the stones for the heater. We’ll talk about what kind of stones are needed there below, but the weight needed for linden is 2.7 kg/cube. m, for birch 3.6-4 kg/cu.m. m, and for oak 6 kg/cu.m. m.

Safety

Burns

In an atmosphere with a temperature of 50 degrees or more, almost any touch to a metal heated to the same temperature or higher will result in a second-degree burn, with a blister. The metal easily conducts heat and quickly transfers it to the steamed skin, intensively cooled by the sweat glands. Nowadays, the problem of thermal safety of sauna stoves has been solved: there is an inexpensive, poorly conductive heat, durable and resistant material on sale - basalt cardboard. It is used to make a fire protection area, it is used to cover the screens of stoves such as potbelly stoves, etc. You can also make a furnace fence from basalt cardboard on wooden posts; it is strong enough for this.

Frenzy

In hot, humid air there is a high probability of formation carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides. Therefore, a stove with a flow-through heater (see below) can be “added” only after finishing the firebox and removing the ash. In any case, it is advisable to lead the combustion door of a stove with a blower through the wall into the dressing room, insulating it from the heat partition with the same basalt cardboard if the stove is metal.

Fuel

Only suitable for the bath. It is the physico-chemistry of wood combustion, the intricacies of which cannot be discussed here, that makes it possible to organize the heating of the room from the walls to the center. Coal quickly gives off the first heat - volatile components - and then the remaining carbon (pure carbon) smolders for a long time, which is good for heating, but will produce heavy steam in the bathhouse. A complete replacement for firewood “from the forest, of course,” will be fuel pellets made from sawdust or straw. They can be recognized by their size: these are logs or logs with a diameter of 30-70 mm. Pellets are also produced specifically for baths, but they are disproportionately expensive. In any case, a package of pellets costs little, and a test fire will show what this variety is good for. According to physical chemistry, gas with automatic control that regulates the flame is also good for baths. external sensors temperature, but this design is not for DIYers. Industrial gas ovens for baths are very expensive and not always reliable: gas fittings that provide 100% safety when outside temperature 60 degrees and above, not in production yet. The same applies to electric sauna stoves; let us mention that the heating element is not a fuel, but still a heater.

Kamenka

Any wood-burning sauna stove is a heater stove. This means that it has a heated container for stones. Stones work like a heat accumulator: they absorb the first heat and then release it with radiation; Due to the weak permeability of the stone mass, convection from the heater is not very strong. As a result, the stove heats 2/3 or more of the heating time with infrared rays, which ensures that the walls, floor and ceiling are heated before the air and the body of the stove itself. The relationship between the times of heat transfer by radiation and convection is the opposite.

Stones

Firstly, to comply with the above conditions, it is necessary that the ratio of heat capacity to thermal conductivity of stones be higher than that of brick, not to mention metal. This is provided by dense volcanic rocks: basalt, diabase, gabbro, soapstone. They can be recognized by their heaviness, dark color, and smooth or very fine-grained fracture.

Brecciated rocks: granite, diorite, syenite, labradorite, etc. not suitable for thermal performance indicators. Metamorphic rocks are completely unsuitable: limestone, dolomite, marble, shales. In addition to complete non-compliance with the requirements of heating engineering, when heated, they can also release harmful organic matter, because often contain bituminous components.

Note: beautiful veins in marble are precisely the bituminous inclusions in it.

Secondly, the stones for the heater should have a more or less smooth surface and a round shape. In this case, the ratio of their surface to volume is the smallest (the smallest is for the ball), which ensures the desired mode of heat accumulation/heat transfer. In former times, they began to build a bathhouse only after accumulating a sufficient supply of rounded pebbles for the heater.

Laying stones

The method of laying the stones is equally important. For a flow-through heater (see below), the largest ones, the size of a fist or two, are placed at the bottom, then gradually reduced in size so that the top layer consists of pebbles the size of the knuckle of the thumb. For a solid heater, they are laid in the opposite way: fines that provide largest area thermal contact, down and up - large.

Flow-through and solid heaters

A homemade sauna stove can have a solid or flow-through heater. A solid heater is separated from the firebox and/or flue gases by a solid partition and is open at the top. You can press on it during the heating process, you never need to sort out the stones, they remain clean. But, due to the small area of ​​thermal contact with the firebox, a solid heater heats up more slowly. This is especially true when the size of the furnace increases, when the contact area of ​​the pelvis with the stones increases more slowly than the volume of the stones. Therefore, a solid heater can only be made in a metal furnace with a power of up to 25 kW, which will ensure light steam in a one-room bathhouse with a volume of up to 30-45 cubic meters. m. Install a blind heater in brick oven It’s not possible at all, it won’t warm up through the brick.

Note: the ceiling in a bathhouse with a stove with a solid heater should be no higher than 2.2 m. Otherwise, heavy steam cannot be ruled out.

In a flow-through heater, stones are placed in a casing on a grate above the firebox, and flue gases pass through the stone mass before escaping into the chimney. A stove with a solid heater is more difficult, because... A hermetically sealed loading and cleaning hatch is required in the heater casing. Such a stove can only be heated with wood that does not produce soot, for example, aspen or pellets. You can add steam only after burning it completely until it turns to gray fluffy ash. The stones must be removed, washed and cleaned periodically. But the stone backfill warms up over the entire surface area of ​​the stones composing it, and very quickly. This removes any restrictions on the size of the furnace and its power. You can independently make a stove with a flow-through heater with a power of up to 50-60 kW, for a bathhouse with three compartments of 50-80 cubic meters. m.

Furnace material

Sauna stoves are made of cast iron or welded sheet metal. Provides ideal heating conditions and, when correct execution, eliminates heavy steam in a bath of any volume. But its construction requires full mastery of the art of a stove maker., careful selection for quality and preparation of materials, because She works in difficult conditions. Only possible with a flow-through heater, i.e. Steam can be added only after complete combustion of the fuel. The minimum heating time until the bath is ready is 3-4 hours. After long (more than 3-5 days) breaks in the use of the bathhouse, it is necessary to dry and warm up the stove with accelerating fireboxes, otherwise there is a high probability of microcracks appearing in the body of the stove, which are especially dangerous in the bathhouse as a source of fumes. According to doctors, more than 70% of cases of burning of people occur in a bathhouse. As a result, a brick sauna stove is also very voracious. heats up quickly; the bathhouse with it is ready to receive visitors within an hour and a half after lighting. Design critical; If the execution fails, don’t expect easy steam. It also cools down quickly; In order to properly steam with the whole family, the stove needs to be heated. This is not such a disadvantage, because... the metal does not crack, but without a fireclay brick lining, a welded stove can only heat a one-room bathhouse to 20-25 cubic meters. m volume. A stove cast from cast iron has thermal engineering similar to a brick one, because The thermal conductivity of cast iron is low, but the heat capacity is high. In terms of cost and ease of use - to welded. Most industrial sauna stoves are made of cast iron.

Choosing a stove

Which stove is best for a sauna? Which one will you have to buy, and which one can you make yourself? This depends on the volume of the bath and the nature of its use. For a large bathhouse with three or four compartments, about which further, only a brick stove or a large industrial cast iron stove, with a stone filling of 150-250 kg, is suitable. Such baths, as a rule, are collective for commercial purposes and are constantly heated. We will further consider the design of the furnace for it, but simply as an example of complexity, although industrial conditions for its construction are not required.

Note: a brick stove with a flow-through heater is suitable for both a Russian bath and a sauna. In the latter case, they simply heat it harder and don’t splash anything into the heater.

For a private bathhouse, heated once or twice a week, but designed for a family with relatives and also multi-room, but of a smaller area, the best option There will be a factory-made cast iron stove. There are many models on sale, of different power and price categories; we will touch on them later. All of them allow flooding when washing, and many are equipped with a water heating circuit. And finally, for a country house or a small individual bathhouse, for a family of 3-4 people, with one or two compartments, one of the homemade steel stoves described below is quite suitable. Which one is more suitable for which bath is indicated in the description.

Everything is big and real

Bath

Let's first decide what kind of bathhouse we can build. If the hut is about 3x4 m or an extension to the house of the same size, you can skip this section, except, perhaps, for information about the construction of floors and bath equipment. Although everyone already knows this. Here we will describe the bathhouse, arranged, as they say, according to the complete scheme. Its plan is shown in Fig. on right. Designations:

1. Capital (load-bearing) wall;
2. Light wooden partition;
3. Waiting room;
4. Washing department;
5. Steam room;
6. A bed, there may not be one, but in return there will be a bridge to a pond;
7. Sauna stove with solid heater;
8. Furnace firebox;
9. Kamenka;
10. Chimney;
11. Furnace foundation (flooring is not shown);
12. Sand bedding;
13. Double entrance door;
14. Regular single door;
15. A fiberglass window, approximately 400 mm wide and 250 mm high. It is necessary to quickly release excess heat, if necessary, without drying out the compartment;
16. Regular casement window;
17. Water heating register (water heater);
18. Hot water storage tank, suspended from the ceiling;
19. Steam room equipment: tub with hot water, ladle, brooms. Gangs, benches, soap, washcloths - in the washroom (4);
20. Polati;
21. A tub of cold water.

We will give the necessary explanations. It has already been said what the walls of the bathhouse should be like. To clause 7 - it is assumed that a cast iron stove for a Russian bath is installed. The disadvantages of a solid heater do not affect it as much as the heater works and the cast iron of the stove itself. And adding more heat to the heater at any time, which will immediately warm up again, is much more convenient. To paragraph 9. The stove on the foundation should be located so that the projection of its center of gravity (and not the center of the chimney, as is often incorrectly written) falls on the geometric center of the foundation. Otherwise, the heating of the soil may cause the stove to warp, even if other conditions for its stability are met. To point 10. The chimney structure is shown in the figure, which shows a sectional view of the bathhouse. Fire safety is vitally important for a bathhouse, and factory stoves, as a rule, are not equipped with chimney elements and materials, with the exception of its lower bend with a damper. This must be taken into account when drawing up an estimate for the bathhouse.

To pp. 11 and 12. The design of the furnace foundation is shown in Fig. below. Its foundation must be separate and not in any way in contact with the foundation of the building. Sand bedding is also required; without it, the stability of the stove cannot be achieved. The fire-resistant blind area (dark blue in the figure) is made of basalt cardboard.

Note 6: for cast iron stove with a power of up to 20 kW, a simplified foundation is possible from ready-made reinforced concrete monoliths laid directly on the ground.

To pp. 17 and 18. There are many designs of homemade stoves with a built-in water heating tank. They all have a common flaw: the water in the tank boils before the heater warms up. Keeping the tank empty and throwing hot water into it is then dangerous: the instant release of a large amount of steam can simply cause the stove to explode. Do it in the tank safety valve or you can’t open its cap either: the uncontrolled flow of water vapor into the room will produce heavy steam. Therefore, the only acceptable solution is a U- or W-shaped hot water register in the firebox in combination with storage tank, see figure:

However, if the bathhouse is not used every day, then the heated water will cool down in vain. Here again, the only acceptable solution is a bathhouse in the form of an extension to the house, and in the tank, along with the bathhouses, there are nozzles from the kitchen or heating stove. Then the tank will be a common hot water storage tank for the entire household.

Note: This, of course, does not apply to factory furnaces with a correctly designed water heating circuit.

To pp. 19 and 20. Equipment for the steam room must be made of wood, see fig. Otherwise, burns cannot be avoided. You need two- or three-tier floors, see next. rice. on the right. So each of the steamers can position themselves according to their taste and health. It’s not just a question of taste - you can put a lower-power stove in the same bathhouse and steam for several people. The fuel costs are very noticeable.

And a brick oven

And if you want to make a bathhouse completely in the old fashioned way? Or, let’s say, several owners agreed to distribute expenses, bath days, hire a stove-maker, and jointly build a bathhouse according to all the rules? Well, in order to know what you need to get in the end, and to control the quality of work - in Fig. on the right is a brick stove for a bath. We will give the order below, but for now let’s talk about materials and accessories:

• All parts in contact with flames or flue gases are made of fireclay bricks only; in Fig. (below) highlighted in yellow.
• The seams between fireclay and ordinary brick, between any brick and metal - from 6 to 10 mm.
• Halves and three-quarter bricks are ready-made, with smooth edges. Chopped or sawn with a grinder will go anywhere except a sauna stove.
• All doors and grate are cast iron; others will not last long in the bathhouse.
• The heater grill is made of channels; best of all - used pieces of rails, i.e. cold forged wheels of a train or tram.
• Masonry - medium fat with sand 1:1.
• Sand - calcined, washed and sifted through a sieve with a mesh size of 0.15-0.25 mm, gully or mountain, with ribbed granules. River sand with rounded granules is not suitable for a sauna stove; it produces microcracks.
• The cladding is made of facing, smooth and with rounded corners, brick. This will give optimal heat transfer in both convection and radiation modes.

The fat content of the solution is checked “on a stick”. Planed, wooden. Let's say a mop handle. They stick it into the solution, mixed until it becomes thick with sour cream, take it out and look. There should be a continuous layer of 1.5-2 mm. If it drains, leaving gaps, the clay is too thin. If lumps or lumps are visible, it is too oily. Nowadays, construction stores sell ready-made dry clay of any fat content. If you dug the clay yourself (this needs to be done from a depth of at least 1-1.5 m), and it is too greasy, then you can add crushed brick. Not sand! Brick is made from clay. But it is not the best option, and not because fatty natural clay is a valuable raw material and is not so easy to obtain. It is much better, although more troublesome, to fatten the skinny gully clay. Then there will definitely not be any foreign particles in it that cause the same microcracks. Clay is fattened by grinding:

• Dry clay broken into small lumps is poured into the barrel 1/4-1/3 full.
• Fill to the top with water.
• Beat with a mixer until a homogeneous slurry is obtained.
• As soon as the top of the batch begins to lighten (this means that a precipitate has begun to form), pour off the top third of the solution.
• When all the clay has settled and is visible through the water, drain the rest of the water and remove the silt deposits from the “cap.”
• Mix the masonry mortar and check for fat content as described.

As a rule, one torture is enough. In the old days, stove makers for wealthy customers built sauna stoves on tortured clay. And now in industry clay is fattened in a similar way.

Arranging and drying

The order of the sauna stove is shown in Fig. on right. The principle of masonry is, i.e. ligation of seams is necessary only between rows, and in rows the seams may not be tied. The first row is laid out dry on a sheet of metal laid on the foundation and covered with a sheet of basalt cardboard 4-6 mm thick. The seams between fireclay bricks are 3 mm. Undercutting corners, where necessary, is done with a grinder using a stone wheel No. 220-240. Row 22 shows the filling of the heater; this is where it ends. Backfilling is done after drying the furnace and accelerating furnaces. Dry the oven for at least 2 weeks at a temperature of 20-30 degrees, i.e. The stove needs to be built in the warm season. After drying, you need at least 4-5 accelerating fireboxes with high-quality fuel (aspen firewood or pellets), with an interval of 12 hours. The fuel load for the first acceleration is 4-5 kg, and gradually increased to the maximum. When there is a break in the firebox for more than a week, one accelerating firebox is needed for a third of the load, and after a month of inactivity - 2-3 with an increase in load from a quarter to full.

Video: brick sauna stove

We take on the metal ourselves

Now let's try to choose a prototype for a welded homemade stove. Drawings of some well-proven designs are shown in Fig.

Bath stove

This one differs from the well-known one in the presence of a tray for stones and a firebox paved with dry, without mortar, fireclay bricks. When lighting, place a bucket or boiling water with water on the handles on the sides of the heater (made of 8-12 mm steel rod). It is not so much the stones that heat it as the convection currents between the screen and the body of the furnace. This helps create optimal mode warming up the bath, and a 20-liter boiler heats up in 30-40 minutes, covered with a lid, to 50 degrees. It’s quite enough for two and there will still be enough left for a child. A screen for a potbelly stove in a sauna is even more necessary than for a heating stove: a tray for stones disrupts the circulation of hot gases in the firebox, and the stones take away a lot of heat. It is undesirable to apply thermal insulation to the screen when the bath volume is close to the maximum; it must effectively radiate IR outward. Therefore, in this case, you need to make a fence for the stove. A potbelly stove is suitable for a very small bathhouse, up to 20 cubic meters. m volume. It does not need a foundation; it can simply stand on a layer of basalt cardboard. The height of the straight chimney is 4-5 m, no damper is needed. The draft is adjusted according to the season and weather by a sliding damper made of a galvanized strip that covers some of the holes in the firebox door, but at least 2 should not overlap. A potbelly stove in a sauna can be heated during washing. You can feed no more than 0.25 liters at a time with an interval of at least 20 minutes, otherwise the heater will dry out and heavy steam will come out. This is more than enough kvass in a small bathhouse.

Note: Do not add bottled store-bought kvass. Instead of a bread spirit, such a spirit that you could at least take away the saints. Soon, probably, they will start making children from powder concentrates.

Without brick

This is an all-welded sauna stove made from 4-6 mm sheet metal. small size, also up to 20-25 cubic meters. m. The design is simple and clear from the drawing; it heats up the steam room quickly, which is good. But there is nowhere to attach the water heater, which is bad. On the heater hatch, a bucket will heat up to 40 degrees in a maximum of an hour. There is no need to shield this stove, but it is advisable to insulate it. Most of the heat already goes into the stones; the screen simply has nothing to reflect. Therefore, in such a simple stove it is necessary to have a blower: there is no vortex in the firebox, and the efficiency, which is already low in sauna stoves, will turn out to be completely unimportant. The grate is made of reinforcement bars welded along.

In a case

A brick stove in a metal case made of 3-4 mm steel is already suitable for a sauna, and for a Russian bath of 30-40 cubic meters, which it will heat in 2 hours. Therefore, a U-shaped water heating register can be built into the smoke circulation, during which time it will produce into the storage tank 40 liters of 50-degree water. Enough for three or four. The masonry is made of fireclay, the stove is without foundation. The screen is not needed for the reasons described above, but the fence is necessary - the temperature of the case is more than 100 degrees. Before washing and steaming, the oven must be completely heated; Keeps warm for about an hour.

From a barrel

This stove has similar properties to an all-welded sauna stove. It’s just as difficult to put a water heater in it. But it is very simple to implement and therefore suitable for a summer house with a bathhouse-shed of up to 15 cubic meters. You can heat it during washing/steaming, but you can’t press it in any way: for the sake of simplicity of design, there is no cleaning/loading hatch in the heater. Therefore, with frequent use, this stove will not last long. This stove is made like this: they place it directly on the ground. concrete slab, or fill a mini pit with concrete. Then a cube is laid out from ordinary red brick; At the top, reinforcement bars are built into the masonry, forming the grille of the heater. A metal barrel without bottoms is placed on this pedestal and lined from the inside with fireclay on clay. You can simply coat the inside with a layer of very thick (the consistency of plasticine) fatty clay solution of 50-60 mm. It will also take a little fireclay bricks; they are placed upright with a spoon. Finally, the top of the barrel is welded with a sheet of 2-4 mm steel with the first chimney elbow welded into it - a piece of 100 mm pipe - and the sauna is ready.

Fast

This stove is also for a country house, or for a hunting lodge. It is made entirely from a barrel and can be installed directly on the ground. The heater grate is made of welded reinforcement bars. The internal lining is the same as the previous one. The stove heats the sauna-room with 10-12 cubes in 15-20 minutes. and cools down just as quickly. Therefore, without flooding, it is designed for single washing with a little steaming, or quickly for two people. But at this speed bath procedures There is no danger that the water in the boiler will boil, and here it is constructed on the principle of titanium, covering the chimney. The boiler capacity is 15-20 liters, which is enough for one or two people.

Video: a simple homemade metal stove for a bathhouse

About brick cases

You can come across advice to cover the outside of metal stoves with bricks, this supposedly improves their properties. In fact, the outer lining does not improve anything, but only worsens it. The metal of the furnace, unable to give off heat, heats up to orange and quickly burns out even with a thickness of 8-10 mm. And the heat transfer to the heater, whether solid or flow-through, hardly improves. The outer lining simply does not release infrared, and such a furnace most often produces heavy steam.

Pipe stove

Here in the picture is a stove for a large diameter sauna.

Rarely does anyone have pieces of 525 mm pipes lying around in the trash, but if you find one, it’s a godsend:

• No foundation is needed, only heat insulation from the floor and walls.
• Heats a bathhouse up to 35 cubic meters.
• A deep double-heated solid heater allows you to add heat to the firebox at any time.
• The mouth of the firebox with the blower, extended forward, easily opens into the dressing room.
• The round cross-sectional shape gives optimal combination radiation with convection, which is why such a stove heats a bathhouse almost twice as much as a “bourgeois” one with almost the same thermal power.
• The heater tray in the smoke circulation is covered by a U-shaped hot water register without the slightest loss of stove quality.

Note: The water heater must not be placed flat. It is necessary to tilt it slightly across so that the hot water supply pipe is higher than the return pipe.

About hot water boilers

Not every sauna stove can have a water heating circuit installed so easily. But heating water for a bath in the kitchen and carrying it in buckets is nonsense. And it’s not always possible, because the bathhouse can be located on the outskirts. But you can attach a ring-shaped hot water boiler to any sauna stove by placing it on the chimney pipe. The degree and time of heating can be adjusted by moving the boiler up and down.

From waste materials, in order not to master or order complex welding and tinsmithing work, a reliable and durable boiler can be easily obtained from two unusable car wheel rims and a piece of pipe of a suitable diameter, see fig. Excess holes are welded without much care using any suitable pieces of metal. The boiler is attached to the chimney by the protruding ends of the axial pipe with clamps.

Purchased

If you have sufficient funds, buying a stove for a bathhouse is not a problem. As already mentioned, there are many models available. The world's leading producers are Finland and Russia. The Finns make Helo, Kastor, Harvia, Narvi, Iki, Upo, Tulikivi, etc. Kastor is called a “stove Mercedes”, and, it must be said, the Finns do not take money “for an asterisk”. Among the Russian ones on the market, Termofor, Teplodar, Ermak, Inzhkomtsentr VVD, Vulcan, Sukhovey are known, but special mention can be made, firstly, of Troika. These are high-quality, expensive stoves for wealthy customers or commercial bathing establishments. In Finland itself, in saunas you can often find “Troikas”, which, with equal quality, reliability and durability, are much cheaper than Mercedes from the stove. "Troek" is available in a wide range the lineup, see fig., of different power and configuration. There is only one drawback, and that is a conditional one: it is heavy compared to analogues from other manufacturers. The installation of Troika, designed for a company, requires a strong, reliable foundation and a whole team of workers.

Bath stoves “Troika”

This is explained by the fact that the company, without further ado, achieves ideal bath heating technology using the “oak” method: increasing the thickness of the material and the weight of the stones. In Troikas, the filling required by the specifications can exceed 250 kg, and the entire furnace weighs more than a ton. Cast iron ATBs have long been popular among a wide range of consumers, see Fig. Below, they have proven themselves to be excellent for small private baths and are affordable. Of the commercially available models, only ATB2 had a serious defect: water boiled in the boiler before the heater warmed up. But craftsmen quickly found a way out: they turned the firebox cover over with its “horns” facing forward, opposite to the standard installation. At the same time, the path of the flue gases in the heat exchanger was shortened, and at the cost of a slight decrease in efficiency, which is not significant for a bath that is heated infrequently, the water was heated just in time.

But the stove had to “turn its horns” before its installation, because the chimney hole was moving back from the firebox, and then why not break the ceiling, attic and roof? Therefore, they soon came up with another method: they placed something under the legs of the tank (it simply stands on the body of the stove) to lift it from the firebox. This method of adjusting the water temperature in the boiler is applicable to almost all ATB models.

Camping sauna

The camp bathhouse was invented by tourists. But not those who buy tours to Thailand, but those who go anywhere at any time of the year and in any weather. In the Sayan Mountains, during the spring thaw, on a day trip to the bathhouse, oh, how I want to... my whole body aches, and from the mud and at the back of my neck I squelch... It will be a good thing if there is a hollow next to a flat place for a tent with rather steep walls for a fire. Then - aluminum tubes from a tent frame or easel backpacks; in winter - from ski poles. Connect the pipe sections with socks washed in the snow, they will dry so quickly, tied with laces from the vibrams. All that remains is to make a fire, place the end of the pipe with an upward slope into the tent, and put its other end into the flame, but so that the mouth is away from the fire and fresh air enters it, see fig.

Such a bathhouse saved not only from dirt and fatigue. The author knows of a case where, thanks to her, a group survived a critical situation. One winter night, a tree fell on the tent. After that, only one could move, but going for help was out of the question. Then he built a hut from spruce branches, dragged his comrades there, then built a stove from a fire with a chimney, and heated it until the deadline passed and the rescuers came. Everyone then spent a month to six months in the hospital, two received disabilities - but all survived. And without a shelter with heating at minus 15-20, they would freeze in an hour or two.

And after the bathhouse?

The author once had an acquaintance – a Finn. And in Finland then there was prohibition, and the valiant representative of Scandinavia regularly came to Leningrad on weekends to drink himself to death, to the point of being a green serpent. One day he caught himself at the beginning of a drinking binge, decided to quit and asked to arrange a bath for him. Russian, with a broom, from which the birch spirit penetrates to the marrow of the bones. Having steamed thoroughly, I concluded: “You know, your bathhouse is still different” - “Why?” - “After yours, I’d like some tea.” Strong. With jam” - “And after yours?” - “Vodka.” A lot of. A woman. Rarely". However, this difference is most likely explained not by the actual difference between Russian and Finnish baths, but by Eino’s individual characteristics and a series of previous sprees.