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How to build a bath with your own hands

We tell you how to build a bath with your own hands, what you need for this and how much mon­ey you have to spend
How to build a bath with your own hands
How to build a bath with your own hands. Pho­to: pixabay.com

Many peo­ple like to go to the bath, but not every­one wants to spend mon­ey on vis­it­ing it. For­tu­nate­ly, this is not nec­es­sary. You can build a place for soul and relax­ation your­self. Togeth­er with bathing expert Vera Petrakovich we tell you how to build a bath­house with your own hands, and how much effort and mon­ey it will take.

Step-by-step instructions for building a bath

To build a bath your­self, you need to pre­pare for this process. Devel­op a plan, bud­get and strict­ly fol­low it.

1. Layout

First of all, you need to think about the design of your bath. She may be:

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  • Detached — with a steam room, wash­ing and dress­ing room. If there is an oppor­tu­ni­ty and a place, then it is real­is­tic to add addi­tion­al rooms and a sec­ond floor here;
  • On the ground floor of the house — here you just need to allo­cate a room for a steam room. The rest of the rooms — a wash­ing room, a dress­ing room — are already there;
  • An exten­sion to the house — a bath­house can occu­py the ter­ri­to­ry of the veran­da, or it will have to make a sep­a­rate foun­da­tion for it. It is advis­able to make an exten­sion to a brick house, it is safer;
  • A bath on wheels and a bath-bar­rel are mod­ern options, which are a minia­ture steam room with a min­i­mum set of bath com­po­nents. They can be mobile and sta­t­ic. In the lat­ter case, it is not even nec­es­sary to estab­lish a foun­da­tion.

- The min­i­mum set of baths — a steam room, a wash­ing room and a dress­ing room. If there is space, you can orga­nize a rest room, but this is not nec­es­sary for those who make a bath, for exam­ple, in a sum­mer cot­tage, says Vera.

Accord­ing to the expert, it is desir­able to locate such a room near a reser­voir or a source of water sup­ply — a well or a well — then there will be no prob­lems with com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

2. Schema design

It is bet­ter to think over the loca­tion of the premis­es and the dimen­sions of the struc­tures in advance. To do this, you need to pre­pare the appro­pri­ate draw­ings. The main rule is to make cal­cu­la­tions tak­ing into account the aver­age height of the vis­i­tor.

The height of the ceil­ings in the aver­age bath usu­al­ly starts from 2 meters and above. At least 1 sq. meters should be allo­cat­ed in the steam room per per­son. Dress­ing room — at least 2 square meters. meters, wash­ing — 1.5 square meters. meters. The more, the bet­ter, espe­cial­ly in the steam room, because this is the most impor­tant place in the bath.

All fig­ures and indi­ca­tors must be entered in a spe­cial scheme. It should reflect:

  • build­ing plan;
  • depart­ment plan;
  • schemat­ic lay­out of the foun­da­tion with all dimen­sions;
  • roof scheme;
  • inte­ri­or lay­out — ceil­ing, floor, divid­ing struc­tures;
  • wiring dia­grams, instal­la­tion of the fur­nace, water com­mu­ni­ca­tions and shelves.

Ready-made draw­ings are avail­able on the Inter­net, or they can be ordered from a spe­cial­ist. Some crafts­men are able to draw a scheme for build­ing a bath with their own hands.

3. The choice of materials for the bath

The base of the bath can be made not only of wood, but also of oth­er mate­ri­als. Each has its pros and cons. The choice is up to the own­ers.

Wood

Tra­di­tion­al Russ­ian baths are made from this mate­r­i­al. Pleas­ant aro­ma, nat­ur­al ingre­di­ents — this is what peo­ple know and love. The down­side is reli­a­bil­i­ty. Wood dete­ri­o­rates from water, is flam­ma­ble, “loved” by insects. In this regard, it needs spe­cial treat­ment with anti­sep­tics.

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  • Logs. Most often it is pine, oak, larch. The prin­ci­ple of lay­ing — thorn-groove. It is impor­tant to con­sid­er that the logs are quite heavy, one can­not cope with the instal­la­tion;
  • Bar. Frame struc­ture that is easy to erect. If you need to make a sol­id foun­da­tion for the logs, then a light­weight one is enough here. It is advis­able to take a beam from pine, lin­den (only for inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion) or aspen, it is the most expen­sive, but retains heat well;
  • Car­riage. These are the same logs, only due to pro­cess­ing they are not round, but rec­tan­gu­lar. They are con­nect­ed accord­ing to the prin­ci­ple of the “Nor­we­gian cas­tle”, where, thanks to the cor­ner con­nec­tion and the process of self-jam­ming when dry­ing, the wood is very close to each oth­er, retain­ing heat and ensur­ing reli­a­bil­i­ty. The car­riage can be from clas­sic breeds, cedar is also pop­u­lar. Among the minus­es — an expen­sive price;
  • Boards. The sim­plest baths are assem­bled from ready-made pal­lets or indi­vid­ual boards. They are fixed with spe­cial fas­ten­ers, self-tap­ping screws, wood­en dow­els.

Arbolit

The con­crete blocks from which the bath­house is built are made from saw­dust mixed with cement. Such mate­r­i­al is inex­pen­sive, it is con­ve­nient to assem­ble it and it weighs light­ly. How­ev­er, this mate­r­i­al con­ducts heat poor­ly and is unsta­ble to mois­ture.

Arbo­lite blocks. Pho­to: wikipedia.org

Brick

A bath made of stone has a long ser­vice life. Build­ings made of ceram­ic or clink­er bricks do not require addi­tion­al cladding, they are safe and can be used fre­quent­ly with­out much dam­age.

Brick baths must have a sol­id foun­da­tion. The most reli­able is a mono­lith­ic tape. It is not so easy to install, but there will be big prob­lems with it. The stone is expen­sive, does not pass air well and requires insu­la­tion from the inside.

Also, cheap­er alter­na­tives to brick can be used as mate­ri­als: foam blocks, cin­der blocks, gas blocks and expand­ed clay blocks.

A bath made of stone has a long ser­vice life. Pho­to: shutterstock.com

4. Choice of location

This item can be attrib­uted to the lay­out, but still it is bet­ter to say about it sep­a­rate­ly. Experts rec­om­mend mak­ing the front door in the bath on the south side, so that in win­ter it would be eas­i­er to enter it. It is bet­ter to put win­dows on the sun­ny side so that the room is well lit with­out elec­tric­i­ty.

- Do not for­get about fire safe­ty rules. It is advis­able to place such a build­ing at a dis­tance of at least 10–15 meters from the house, Petrakovich shares.

More­over, the rules for the loca­tion of the bath are pre­scribed in the leg­is­la­tion:

  • the dis­tance to the neigh­bor­ing fence is more than a meter;
  • to a wood­en build­ing built in the neigh­bor­hood — from 15 meters;
  • to the house on the site — more than 8 meters;
  • from 5 meters and above — dis­tance from the road and the street;
  • from 6 to 11 meters — dis­tance to struc­tures made of non-com­bustible mate­ri­als;
  • 5 meters — the dis­tance to the near­est reser­voir;
  • 15 meters — dis­tance to the for­est;
  • with­in one meter there should be no shrubs;
  • there should be no tall trees with­in 4 meters;
  • at least 12 meters should be indent­ed from the well or well.

5. Interior arrangement

The choice of mate­ri­als must be con­sid­ered not only for the exter­nal arrange­ment of the bath, but also for the inter­nal one. In par­tic­u­lar, it is impor­tant to take care of ther­mal insu­la­tion. If the bath is under the same roof as the house, then the out­side is used. When this is a sep­a­rate build­ing, then inter­nal insu­la­tion is suf­fi­cient.

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Ther­mal insu­la­tion in the bath must be hygro­scop­ic, do not con­tain tox­ins, have low ther­mal con­duc­tiv­i­ty, com­ply with fire safe­ty stan­dards and retain its shape. For those who make a bath with their own hands, such qual­i­ty as ease of fas­ten­ing is also impor­tant.

Anoth­er nec­es­sary point is vapor bar­ri­er. The fol­low­ing ele­ments are used for it:

  • film with a rein­forc­ing coat­ing;
  • non-woven fab­ric mem­brane;
  • foil-coat­ed sheets.

You should also con­sid­er the issue of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. If the bath is attached to the house, then this will be eas­i­er to deal with. In par­tic­u­lar, this applies to water sup­ply.

- In order for the bath to be dry, it is nec­es­sary to prop­er­ly debug the depar­ture and flow of water in it, — our inter­locu­tor notes. — Drainage, sew­er­age, every­thing must be done cor­rect­ly.

To sup­ply water from a well or reser­voir, it will be nec­es­sary to pur­chase a spe­cial pump for this pur­pose. Water enters through a pipe, which must be sealed. It is also nec­es­sary to take care of water­proof­ing.

By the way, if you do not plan to use the bath often, then it is not nec­es­sary to car­ry water there. You can bring the required amount of it with you in bot­tles or oth­er con­tain­ers.

What work will need to be done when building a bath

When there is an under­stand­ing of how to build a bath­house with your own hands, a dia­gram has been drawn up, the nec­es­sary mate­ri­als have been pur­chased, then you need to get down to busi­ness. We tell you where to start.

Site preparation and foundation pouring

Under the bath you need a flat area — no grass, oth­er veg­e­ta­tion and debris. The top lay­er of soil is removed at the lev­el of 15–20 cm. You mark the perime­ter with pegs, on which you pull the rope.

Next, you have to dig a trench, holes for poles (if the bath is framed) or a foun­da­tion pit. It all depends on what type of struc­ture you will have and with what rea­son. For baths made of bricks or logs, it is bet­ter to make a mono­lith­ic con­crete tape with a small lev­el of pen­e­tra­tion. In such cas­es, use rein­force­ment before pour­ing the foun­da­tion.

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It is inter­est­ing

Step-by-step instruc­tions for build­ing a bath from a bar

Housing construction

As men­tioned above, a lot here depends on the mate­ri­als from which your bath will be. If you are mak­ing it from stone blocks or bricks, then you should first lev­el the base with cement and, after dry­ing, cov­er it with a roof­ing mate­r­i­al fold­ed in half, which will take over the func­tions of water­proof­ing.

Lay­ing walls should start from the cor­ners. It is impor­tant to observe the plane to ensure that the struc­tures are locat­ed on the same lev­el. The brick is laid on a mix­ture of cement and sand. Block struc­tures — on glue. At the places where the win­dows and the door will be locat­ed, jumpers are mount­ed. It is also nec­es­sary to cre­ate an armored belt that will tie all the walls of the build­ing into a sin­gle frame. Roof bolts are fixed on it. The roof is erect­ed when the solu­tions used in the fas­ten­ing of the ele­ments gain strength.

Logs are stacked accord­ing to the tenon-groove prin­ci­ple. Con­sid­er­ing their weight, you will need an assis­tant. It is bet­ter to take not bare untreat­ed logs, but round­ed ones, the same in cross sec­tion.

A light foun­da­tion is enough for a beam. The assem­bly from it is called frame, it is con­sid­ered one of the fastest. The walls are made accord­ing to the type of lat­tice. First, the low­er strap­ping of the beam is assem­bled, the ele­ments are fas­tened with screws or mount­ed end-to-end on met­al cor­ners, then the strap­ping board is mount­ed at the end, which is adja­cent to the floor logs, they are cut from the back side so that anoth­er end board for strap­ping is installed. The logs should be placed so that a heat insu­la­tor is placed between them, min­er­al wool is ide­al. For the low­er strap­ping of the tim­ber, dimen­sions of 100x100 mm are suit­able. Under the frame of the walls — 50x100 mm. For vapor bar­ri­er it is bet­ter to use a film. The out­er and inner lin­ing is usu­al­ly made from edged boards, lin­ing, OSB or sid­ing. Sheath­ing and ther­mal insu­la­tion in the frame bath is done after the instal­la­tion of the roof.

Easy to install and a bath of pal­lets and boards. They are fas­tened togeth­er with self-tap­ping screws or wood­en dow­els. The posi­tion can be either ver­ti­cal or hor­i­zon­tal.

Floor installation

Here the lay­ing goes accord­ing to the “puff” type. First come the logs, which can be met­al, wood, poly­mer or rein­forced con­crete. Then the sub­floor, vapor bar­ri­er tape, insu­la­tion, water­proof­ing and top deck­ing.

In a bath from a bar, the floor is eas­i­er to make. First comes the insu­la­tion lay­er, and then the fin­ish­ing board.

Vera Petrakovich is sure that the floor should be made of tiles. Under it, you can install a con­crete base. If we are not talk­ing about a steam room, then the floor can be left made of wood, but in a room where it is very hot, this is not rec­om­mend­ed.

Roof installation

The roof can be dou­ble-pitched or sin­gle-pitched. The first option is suit­able if your bath is locat­ed in a place where there is no strong wind. The sec­ond is for a bath attached to the house.

The con­struc­tion of the roof begins with the instal­la­tion of a mauer­lat, on which the roof truss sys­tem is fixed. Next, you need to lay a lay­er of water­proof­ing and fix the laths of the crate. The last step is lay­ing the roof. Suit­able slate, roof­ing mate­r­i­al, shin­gles and oth­er mate­ri­als at your dis­cre­tion. Often, for exam­ple, a pro­filed sheet is used. It is also rec­om­mend­ed to install a heat-insu­lat­ing lay­er on the ceil­ing for the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the bath.

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Furnace installation

As the expert points out, the stove must be select­ed accord­ing to the vol­ume of the steam room. A full-fledged brick oven will be an inte­gral part of the struc­ture and a sep­a­rate foun­da­tion will need to be laid under it. Such a stove retains heat for a long time and warms up the steam room bet­ter. When build­ing a brick oven, refrac­to­ry clay is used.

If you have a small steam room, then you can pur­chase a met­al stove. They come with heat exchang­ers, they heat both the bath and the water. Such struc­tures can be lined with nat­ur­al stone — it gives a soft, radi­ant warmth. But this device is unsafe and, as a rule, sheets of met­al are laid next to the stove.

Iron stoves are closed, where the fire­box is at the bot­tom, the heater is in the mid­dle, and the water tank is on top, and open — with stones laid out­side.

The pipe at the fur­nace must be with a direct out­let so that it does not become clogged.

Interior decoration

The insu­la­tion is placed between the bars, which are attached to the inside of the walls at a dis­tance of 40–50 cm from each oth­er. Experts rec­om­mend the use of min­er­al wool. It is closed with a vapor bar­ri­er film, which, in turn, is closed with a fin­ish­ing mate­r­i­al. For the last lay­er, take boards up to 2–4 cm from aspen, lin­den or alder. In no case should conifers be used in a steam room, as they release resin when heat­ed. Lum­ber from OSB and fiber­board is also pro­hib­it­ed.

Installation of partitions and shelves

Par­ti­tions in the bath are also made of spe­cial wood­en bars. Their task is to sep­a­rate sep­a­rate rooms. Already in the floor joists, a place should be pro­vid­ed for its instal­la­tion and fix­ing.

Shelves in the steam room should be as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble. It is desir­able to do it in 2 or even 3 tiers — in the form of large steps. The dis­tance to the ceil­ing is at least 100–120 cm. From the floor to the first shelf, the dis­tance should be at least 30–45 cm. The gap between the tiers is 50 cm. The shelves should be wide for sit­ting and lying, 80–90 cm should be enough. Length, prefer­ably at least 180 cm, so that you can stretch your legs.

The frame of the shelf is assem­bled from tim­ber. An edged pol­ished board is mount­ed to it.

Ventilation installation

Ven­ti­la­tion in the bath is of two types — nat­ur­al and forced. Win­dows pro­vide the first — cold air enters through one, hot air leaves through the sec­ond. The sec­ond implies a built-in device pow­ered by elec­tric­i­ty.

Expert advice

  • Install heat­ed ceram­ic tiles to warm up the room faster.
  • If the area allows, make wash­ing and steam rooms sep­a­rate­ly from each oth­er.
  • Build a bath­house near a pond.
  • The main thing in the bath is good stones that give radi­ant heat. Tal­cochlo­rite is con­sid­ered not the most ide­al option — it has an unpleas­ant odor. Jade and jadeite are per­fect for a stove in a bath, but they are very expen­sive.
  • Where there is good steam, you do not need a lot of water, it itself per­forms cleans­ing func­tions. For wash­ing, a few egg­plants with water are enough.
  • For exte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion of the bath, sid­ing, paint­ing, dec­o­ra­tive ele­ments, facade tiles, lin­ing, lined bricks and wall pan­els are used.

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Popular questions and answers

How to reduce the cost of building a bath?

A smart selec­tion of items will help reduce costs. So, when build­ing a frame from logs, it is bet­ter to choose pine, and not oak or larch. If the moment is not fun­da­men­tal, then in gen­er­al it is bet­ter to choose a dif­fer­ent type of struc­ture — frame baths from tim­ber will be cheap­er. Even cheap­er is a sim­pli­fied bath made of pal­lets or boards. If you want to build a bath from blocks, then wood con­crete looks the most afford­able. For vapor bar­ri­er, the cheap­est option is a film. For insu­la­tion — cot­ton wool.

You can save mon­ey if you make a bath­house as an exten­sion to the house. Then there will be no need to pur­chase an abun­dance of build­ing mate­ri­als.

What is better to entrust to specialists?

If you want to build a brick sep­a­rate bath, then it is bet­ter to entrust this to peo­ple who have mason­ry expe­ri­ence — from pour­ing the foun­da­tion to installing the roof. It is also desir­able to hand over to pro­fes­sion­als the con­duct of com­mu­ni­ca­tions and the instal­la­tion of water­proof­ing.

Do I need to legalize the bath on the site?

Not nec­es­sary. It is nec­es­sary to legal­ize the use of wells, where there are cer­tain restric­tions on tar­iffs. But not every­one uses them for their bath.

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