I have a deck that is covered and screened in. The walls are paneled about 48 inches tall then screened the rest of the way up to the ceiling. Can i use an indoor model sauna since the deck is somewhat enclosed?
Using an indoor infrared sauna in an outdoor application: is an indoor sauna weatherproof enough? Or do you really need a true outdoor infrared sauna, with double pane windows, insulated walls, weatherproof roof and walls, etc…
Video Transcript
Alright, welcome back to another infrared sauna question of the day. Today’s question comes from Leonard. It’s on indoor versus outdoor saunas. He says, I have a deck that is covered and screened in.
The walls are paneled about 48 inches tall and then screened the rest of the way up to the ceiling. Can I use the indoor model since the deck is somewhat enclosed? Well, Leonard, it’s probably going to depend on a few things. There’s a couple details that you left out that I really wish you would have included.
The first thing that comes to mind is if you live in the north and it’s going to be cold out there, a screened in lanai or patio probably doesn’t provide any weather protection. I’m guessing that you’ve kind of already thought about all that stuff though and you probably wouldn’t be doing this if that was the case.
So how can I make a diagram? I’m thinking, let me grab one little thing real quick. This is kind of like a weird prop, but let’s just say this is your wall or let’s do it this way. Let’s just say that this is your wall, right?
And you want to put the sauna, we’ve got a roof here. This is your four foot section. And then from here to the ceiling, it’s screened in. What it’s really going to depend on is how much of an overhang you have.
So if you guys can, if you can see this, if you have like a one foot overhang and you can get sleet or wind or rain, or I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that you might not be able to hear me blowing in on top of that, then that’s going to be an issue because the sauna is just going to get pummeled with either sun rain or whatever.
But if you have say like a four foot overhang, right? So this is your wall and you have a gigantic overhang that’s going to dramatically increase the wind protection and the rain protection and the sun protection that the sauna gets right there. So I probably should have like sheets of paper in here so that I could draw a diagram, but I think you can understand what I’m saying.
It just has to do with like, I’m picturing.
a screened in patio coming off the back of the house and then I’m not sure if your little four foot section is metal or if it’s framed in or whatever and then the screen frame goes on top of that. But it’s really what happens outside of that, like on the overhang.
Are there shrubs there? Is there wind protection? Is there a climate issue? Any of those things?
So that said, if right now, all the sauna companies are gonna tell you not to do this, right? So this goes, I can’t speak for them, this goes against what they would recommend, blah, blah, blah. But here’s the deal, at the end of the day, the real answer to this is right now, the space that you use that you’re gonna put the sauna in, is it ever wet?
Does rain ever blow in? Do you ever get any issues there? Is the sun so intense that it wears the screen out if it’s not metal, like if it’s the polyurethane screen material? Is any of that stuff an issue?
If it’s not, you’re probably fine. The only difference between putting an outdoor sauna right there versus an indoor is the outside of the outdoor sauna is gonna be sealed and they also have insulated walls. So if the climate thing is an issue, you have to go with an outdoor sauna because the indoor sauna is never gonna perform.
There’s just no way around that. Well, I shouldn’t say that. For this application, there’s probably not a way around it. Other people, what they’ve done is they’ve built an insulated two by four framed enclosure, basically like a shed or something, or they framed out a wall in their lanai.
Then they stick an indoor sauna in there because they can frame out a wall and put insulation in it for pretty cheap. The only thing is you have to have the right setup for that to look good, right? Like a lot of people, they’re not gonna wanna go to spend three to $5,000 on a beautiful sauna and then build like insulated shed walls around it, make it look like crap.
But it can, I’ve seen it tastefully done. It can actually be pretty cool. If you do like an eight by eight room and then you put a four foot by four foot sauna inside of it and you put a couple of windows in.
You actually have a walk around space to hang up towels outside of the sauna. It’s pretty cool. You can have like a changing room. Some people might put a shower in there and they just weatherproof between the shower and the sauna.
Then they have an exhaust fan installed for any humidity or things like that, which is pretty cool. But it just depends on how far you want to take it. So if you’re just looking for something that’s plug and play, if there’s no issue with the climate and you don’t think it’s going to get pummeled by wind and rain, I think you’d be fine.
I really think you’d be fine. How else do I say that? We’ve had some applications where there’s like a 60 foot wide, like the entire back of the house is a lanai and it’s covered. It’s not enclosed.
It’s just covered. And so it’s like, I don’t know, 12 feet by 60 and it’s just like a porch on the back. There’s been some applications where people have put them back there and they just place the sauna at least six feet in from the edge because they don’t have like that four foot stem wall section like you have that’s completely open.
And they don’t have any issue because they only get rain that blows in. They’ve got four foot overhangs. They only get rain that blows in about two and a half feet. So then there’s another two feet or so that stays completely dry so the rain doesn’t blow in at an angle and then bounce up and hit the sauna wall.
That’s really what you want to be careful of. If it gets wet all the time, that’ll kind of ruin it. It will cause it to crack and split over time. The sun raises hell with it too.
Just all the normal stuff. If you can contend with that or your particular space where you’re thinking of installing it is good to go, I think you’d be fine. So hope that helps. We’ll see you in tomorrow’s video.