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A 45 year engineer clears up electric sauna ventilation
- kken 3y agoWhy is the age of any relevance here?
- _nalply 3y ago[flagged]
- lmpdev 3y ago45 year not 45 years old
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- because_789 3y agoIs he 45, or has he been an engineer for 45 years? Either way, I wish I had this guy’s sauna.
- vikaveri 3y agoIf his sauna is the one in the picture, it has a flaw. Benches are placed too low. Your feet should be approximately at the level of the top of the stones. The sauna looks similar to a barrel sauna and they often are too low due to curvature to allow placing benches high enough
- givemeethekeys 3y agoBecause, he's FORTY FIVE! He's FRAIL with one foot LITERALLY in the GRAVE!! j/k. Someone mentioned that he has 45 years of experience. That makes him closer to 65. If he's still doing cool shit, thats pretty cool. I wish they'd explain the problem in a short sentence before diving right in. Maybe this blog is for people who already know what the issues with an electric sauna are... bad ventilation, I assume.
- gifvenut 3y agoIf you read the article, the problem is explained quite well: > In my simple mind, the Finnish Sauna is just a type of Heat Treat Furnace or Oven that you load humans into and try to provide them with three characteristics. (1) not oversaturate their lungs with their own Carbon Dioxide waste products from being enclosed in a sauna with poor ventilation and limited fresh air volume changes (called Air Mixing in the study), (2) create an enjoyable Temperature distribution within the sauna environment (called Temperatures in the study) and lastly (3) provide a well distributed Ladled Steam Humidity cloud throughout the Sauna (called Air Condition in the study). Basically, everything you would expect for a good Finnish Sauna experience. The rest of the article explains the ventilation needed for this.
- jaktet 3y agoThat’s not an explanation of the problem though, those are just characteristics of a good sauna. I don’t see the problem defined well in the article, but it can mostly be surmised from the intro: > Malcolm has analyzed the Finnish 1992 sauna ventilation study profile, applied his knowledge and experience as a 45 year engineer to test and better understand sauna ventilation in his own backyard sauna. They wanted to test and understand the sauna ventilation in his backyard sauna and used a 1992 research paper as a reference. I can only assume this venture started because they were dissatisfied with the ventilation in their backyard sauna.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago45 year engineer, not 45 year old engineer. It's not about their age but their experience. The relevance is that someone spent 45 years, as a trained adult engineer no less, not 45 years merely breathing, aware of a problem and only after than much experience, solved it. It would also be interesting if they had been a 1 year engineer or not an engineer at all, just for different reasons.
- 2-718-281-828 3y agowhat kind of engineer? software engineer? ;D
- djmips 3y agoNo a real engineer.
- 2-718-281-828 3y agoyou're tryin to make friends? i'd be a little careful around here
- djmips 3y agoI'm not to worried. ;-) My friends don't have ego problems.
- 2-718-281-828 3y agodude, I'm just trying to help you
- djmips 3y agodude, thanks.
- OJFord 3y agoFwiw it didn't read naturally to me either. I suppose I'd say 'an engineer of [or 'for'] 45 years'. Or 'Malcolm, 45 years an engineer, [...]'.
- rrr_oh_man 3y ago[flagged]
- mecsred 3y agoThat's how you know it's written by a career engineer.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agoWhen writing technical articles it is probably best to write as simply as possible, especially as you might have to have many technical terms in the article which will limit understanding for non experts, also English is not this guy's first language I'm guessing?
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoParaphrasing, if you can't explain it to a fourth grader, you don't understand what you're talking about yourself.
- Benanov 3y agoI enjoy reading articles (even if this one felt like it had been translated slightly clumsily) where scientific rigor has been applied to something mundane. I've gained an understanding, at least.
- adrianN 3y agoAm I reading this right? Is there no heat exchanger in the ventilation? That seems like an obvious improvement.
- vesinisa 3y agoThe ventilation within the sauna is actually more effective the greater the temperature gradient between the entering low-CO2, cold air and the stale, hot air in the sauna. You want the entering air "falling" on the stove because it's colder i.e. denser than the surrounding air. It then heats up and mixes with the hot air in the sauna. That being said, almost any real implementation in a cold climate place like Finland would have a heat exchanger at the building level for a mechanized ventilation system. It's of course still not 100% efficient so the circulation system within the sauna still works.
- Ekaros 3y agoAlso to remember is that amount of moisture added in usual sauna session is not insignificant. Throwing at least couple of litres of water on stove is entirely normal in addition to whatever is perspired. Handling this level of possible condensation might need additional considerations.
- Thorrez 3y agoWhat does "at the building level" mean? Is the sauna only part of the building and not the whole building? The article says it's a backyard sauna, which to me sounds like the sauna is the whole building.
- distances 3y agoCan't speak for this article, but an electric sauna in Finland is almost always inside the building/apartment, accessed via the bathroom. A separate sauna building would have a wood heated stove.
- vesinisa 3y agoDepending on configuration, either on the apartment unit, single-family house or apartment building level. As the other commenter said, nowadays sauna in Finland is usually inside your house and the mechanized ventilation is connected to the overall ventilation system of your house. Hence the original article[1] explored the optimal positioning for mechanized air in/outlets in a sauna. The current Finnish building code incorporates the recommendations from this study (as document RT 91-11260). I guess you could apply the same principles to an electric sauna in a separate building. Just use two fans (one pulling, one pushing) instead of an AC system. Most often a separate sauna building in Finland however has a wood-fired stove, which doesn't need as much consideration for ventilation as an electric sauna. My understanding is that the wood-fired stove itself creates a strong continuous draft which takes care of ventilation in the sauna room (pulling fresh air from outside through the stove and by combustion into the chimney). [1]: https://publications.vtt.fi/pdf/tiedotteet/1992/T1431.pdf https://publications.vtt.fi/pdf/tiedotteet/1992/T1431.pdf
- xenonite 3y agotldr: place air inlet above the heat (B); air outlet on the other side at the floor (D). See figure: https://www.saunatimes.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_6556-1-560x640.jpeg https://www.saunatimes.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_6556-1-560... This ensures: 1) quick heat up of fresh air 2) vertically uniform heat 3) creation of better steam
- Maxion 3y agoI wonder if this holds true for a wood burning sauna too? An active fire in the stove creates a massive draft that'll pull air through the stove and out the chimney.
- falserum 3y agoWhere I live, saunas have the stove’s inlet outside the sauna itself.
- mikeyouse 3y agoYeah the only way for wood stoves to work ~decently in a small room like that is to be direct vented.
- jmilloy 3y agoNo it's different for wood burning when inside the space because they act as an effective exhaust on their own. http://localmile.org/proper-ventilation-for-electrically-heated-sauna-part-i/ http://localmile.org/proper-ventilation-for-electrically-hea...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- FionnMc 3y agoSome additional discussion on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Sauna/comments/1b2skn6/a_45_year_engineer_clears_up_electric_sauna/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Sauna/comments/1b2skn6/a_45_year_en...
- jmacd 3y agoThe sauna design rabbit hole is a very deep one. If anyone is interested in more information about sauna design in general, Trumpkin's Notes are by far the most referred to guide out there. [1] There are also new products [2] which help improve saunas which are not ideally designed or where there are constraints (ceiling height mostly) to deal with. 1: https://localmile.org/trumpkins-notes-on-building-a-sauna/ https://localmile.org/trumpkins-notes-on-building-a-sauna/ 2: https://saunum.com/en/ https://saunum.com/en/
- 2-718-281-828 3y agowhat is some crazy sauna fact?
- Permik 3y agoIn Finland sometimes we take advantage of the heat and we cook sausages on our sauna stove by wrapping them in aluminum foil and placing them on the hot rocks. You can still take a sauna normally and afterwards you have a cooked sausage to eat!
- Moru 3y agoOur relatives always had a nice big piece of meat in there when we visited. Ofcourse they had at least three different saunas on the yard. The smoky sauna was mostly used for the cooking.
- 2-718-281-828 3y ago> Our relatives always had a nice big piece of meat in there when we visited seems like you and your relatives had a good time ;)
- dzhiurgis 3y agoIn Korea they cook soy-sauce-marinated eggs
- 3y ago
- hoseja 3y agoThought it would be about heat exchangers.
- dharma1 3y agoI am actually typing this from a sauna with less than ideal ventilation (slightly ajar glass door) - need to cut vent holes to the sauna/house walls but haven’t gotten around to it - so the timing is good. The main use of the ventilation is to not end up with too high CO2 concentration
- Aerroon 3y agoOff-topic but I've been curious: how well do phones handle saunas? I thought the heat and moisture would pretty much be the worst environment for electronics. Is that not the case?
- throwaway11460 3y agoNot the one you asked, but I like to sauna in perfectly dry air more than in humidity. Also slightly lower temperature. As there is no humidity, the heat doesn't transfer as quickly. The phone doesn't get hotter than it does on a sunny day outside.
- vanattab 3y agoAt least in our sauna even in dry air my phone overheats and shuts down.
- renewiltord 3y agoI read on my iphone’s kindle app in saunas and steam rooms frequently. No problem.
- yeknoda 3y ago[flagged]
- nolroz 3y agoI prefer the steam room at my gym over the sauna because it's much less crowded. I'm convinced the sauna gets more traffic in part because you can use your phone in the less humid environment.
- distances 3y agoI don't know how phones are tolerated in a sauna where people are naked. Or are people naked in gym saunas over there?
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
- SoftTalker 3y agoI have not noticed any venting in the sauna at my gym, but perhaps it's not obvious. It's a pretty big sauna, it will easily seat over a dozen people and people are coming in and out often enough that the door opening probably provides adequate air exchange.
- golem14 3y agoWouldn't it be more practical to have a prominent CO2 monitor and only exchange the air (maybe by opening the door for a few seconds) if it CO2 gets too high ? Maybe it's hard keeping a co2 monitor operating in humid sauna conditions, I dunno. Also, given that many saunas are not airtight, I wonder what a steady state CO2 concentration would be. It may be high, but not dangerous.