Smoke sauna

Smoke sauna

The savusauna (smoke sauna) is a special type of sauna without a chimney. Wood is burned in a particularly large stove and the smoke fills the room. When the sauna is hot enough, the fire is allowed to die and the smoke is ventilated out. The residual heat of the stove is enough for the duration of the sauna. This represents the ancestral type of sauna, since chimneys are a later addition. Smoke saunas have experienced great revival in recent years since they are considered superior by the connoisseurs.^[6] They are not, however, likely to replace all or even most of the regular saunas because more skill, effort, and time (usually most of the day) are needed for the heating process.^[7]

Smoke saunas are still extant not only in Finland but also in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. They are considered to be cheap, simple to build, and durable (if measures of fire prevention are taken while building the sauna). The longevity is warranted by disinfectant features of smoke.

One specific and rarely seen curiosity is use of a wood pellet burner to heat a smoke sauna stove, typically the actual burner installed into a room adjacent to the actual sauna room and the kiuas. A wood pellet burner, quite similar to an oil burner, is then used to heat a smoke sauna stove – practically a big pile of rocks. As the burning process is much cleaner than with a conventional smoke stove the smoke aroma is much less pungent and soothy, while the moisture produced by the burning the pellets makes the air more pleasant than with continuously warmed stoves.

Source: Wiki