Bespoke sauna installation: Kingwell Road, Hadley Wood, Barnet, London

The setting

This stunning bespoke sauna installation is situated in a loft space next to a gym room in a recently built property in Hadley Wood, London. The upper and lower bench set up has ample room to seat four adults and is a simple, classic and highly effective design because it places the client at the optimum height in order to enjoy the soft heat and steam rising from the heater. Importantly, it’s also a set up which gives a sense of delightful solitude and serenity. Our client has since commented that they particularly like being able to escape into such a luxurious and heavenly space.

Privacy and natural light

Mounting the benches on the two side walls it allowed for a cost-effective ‘floating’ construction with no unsightly framing underneath. A large bronze-tinted glass wall at the front of the sauna adds to the sense of privacy and also helps to allow natural light to enter the room imbuing a sense of space.

Materials

We used beautiful thermo aspen which is handmade in Finland and FSC certified. Like all our thermo timbers, it is created by heat-treating.During the process, steam is used as a protective gas which helps to prevent the wood from splitting and becoming damaged. The intense heating process also deeply dries the aspen to its core as moisture is removed. The finished product doesn’t react to humidity changes as prominently as untreated aspen and the risk of shrinkage, swelling and/or cracking is reduced.

An impressive löyly

The chosen heater is the elegant Narvi NC 9kW Electric Domestic Sauna Heater which is ideal for the 11.4m3 room. The Finnish made product has a large stone capacity meaning it creates a hugely impressive löyly for a heater of its size. It also comes with a control unit which is used for accurate temperature and timing adjustments.

Health benefits

Creating the right conditions to enhance your löyly experience is central to our Finnish sauna building ethos and it has the potential to amplify the numerous well-sourced sauna health benefits associated with the practice. Unlike infrared saunas which have seen a growth in popularity in recent times, traditional Finnish saunas have the added bonus of improving arterial stiffness and protecting against Alzheimer’s, dementia, pneumonia and respiratory diseases.

Insulation

For the insulation we used Kingspan Sauna-Satu which is designed specifically for the job. It’s made of a lightweight thermally stable polyurethane board and it has exceptional insulation properties. Significantly, the thickness of Kingspan Sauna-Satu insulation needed in a stone wall is half of the amount needed compared to Rockwool. Also, its aluminium paper surface reflects back some heat radiation improving the overall insulation capacity of the sauna structure.

Authenticity and durability

We only stock products we have tested and have found to meet our brand promise of quality, authenticity, and durability. We understand that value for money is not about buying cheap, but about having a durable and hard-wearing product. It is our belief that the products we sell should be sold once, and at a fair price. Many of our products, if correctly cared for, can be used and treasured for a lifetime and our endurance ethos is inspired by Nordic practical thinking.

Ventilation

Good air circulation is crucial to achieving the optimum sauna experience so we made sure to design a powerful ventilation system in this installation which does the job excellently. Without fresh oxygenated air, a sauna can be stifling and some users even report feeling nauseous. Fresh room temperature air is brought into this particular space near the base of the heater and from under the glass door. Once heated, it then rises and circulates around the room before being drawn out of the space in the opposite corner, under the bench. We also included an additional vent near the ceiling in the same corner which aids in the drying out process of the room after a sauna session.