And you can wear what you like if you’ve got your own sauna at home
A sauna in your house – it’s the dream, right? And for increasing numbers of us, a reality. Skotlanti, maker of hand-crafted saunas, is busier than ever building Finnish-style dry saunas from its workshop in Glasgow. “We don’t import prefabricated saunas – we looked at doing that at one point, but the quality wasn’t what we wanted it to be,” explains Maria Pikon, Skotlanti’s founder. “And making them bespoke means we can be a lot more flexible. Some people ask for them in open-space areas such as gyms or spare rooms, but we’ve also converted walk-in wardrobes into saunas.”
The saunas aren’t plumbed in, so all that’s needed is access to electricity (most require their own circuit) and sufficient ventilation. “All areas are different, so we’ll come out to survey the walls and establish whether or not we can go through the ceiling and duct into existing ventilation,” says Maria. “And if it’s an indoor sauna that we’re installing [Skotlanti builds standalone outdoor saunas too], we’ll ask the client to make sure the space has a waterproof floor in place prior to installation, for safety and hygiene reasons.”
Consider how the sauna will fit into your daily routine when deciding where you’d like it to go. One Skotlanti client is installing theirs in a former walk-in wardrobe near their bedroom’s en-suite, and will tile the walkway between the spaces so they can go between the shower and sauna without stepping on the carpet. “They also have easy access to a small balcony in that part of the house, so it’s an ideal set-up.”
Maria says a lot of her clients like the sauna to be heated to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but for her, the optimal temperature sits between 70 and 80. “That means you can enjoy the session rather than it being a dry, tiring experience,” she says.
“All our saunas have heated stones, and the more stones you have, the more steam they generate. I always recommend having a lower temperature and letting the stones do the rest of the work.”
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