A bathhouse is the best remedy for bad mood and colds. It saves both from the blues and from dirt, gives a feeling of vivacity of spirit and body, brings people together, and becomes a serious hobby. One problem is the lack of space for its construction.
Do you dream of becoming the proud owner of a “bath establishment”, but the area of the plot does not allow you to realize all your fantasies? Stop sighing! A true fan of cleanliness and a connoisseur of light steam will not give up so easily! There is a barrel sauna especially for such people.
What kind of miracle device is this? Despite its non-standard appearance and small dimensions, in all respects it is a full-fledged alternative to the classic version. Of course, there are pros and cons to the barrel
. Let's take a closer look at them.
Advantages of a barrel sauna
Are you “confused” by the compact size of the structure and its non-standard appearance? So these are advantages! You can install a neat, beautiful bathhouse on a few square meters, and its original design will attract not only family members. Of course, dimensions and design are not a complete list of advantages.
A barrel sauna is:
— a spacious steam room (it can easily accommodate an average family or a small group of 4 adults);
— significant savings in money (its cost is much lower than the cost of constructing a standard building);
— good thermal insulation, thanks to which the rooms will remain warm and cozy for a long time after heating;
— greater ease of use (heats up quickly, does not require any special care);
— mobile design, which, if necessary, can be easily moved from place to place;
— original design that promotes relaxation and better recovery;
— possibility of operation immediately after purchase and connecting communications to it;
— quick cleaning due to the design features;
- environmental friendliness;
— aesthetics;
- safety;
— no need to register the building;
A significant advantage of a barrel sauna is that it is not at all difficult to improve the area around it. The compact design will organically fit into the surrounding design, becoming an effective decoration and functional design element of the site.
Despite the obvious advantages, the barrel bath also has disadvantages. Although, if you look closely, what are these disadvantages?
RusCamping - exchange of experiences and opinions
Starting this topic: “ Barrel bathhouse. Review. Pros/cons. Experience of use from a real owner “I was prompted by the fact that on the Internet, despite the abundance of offers for barrel saunas, oddly enough, there are very few reviews about its operation... For example, when purchasing such a masterpiece of house building as a barrel sauna, I was very interested in the reviews of the owners... And so you need to know its advantages and disadvantages...
And so I bought it and will tell you about everything without embellishment. I think this article will not be the last, because I will also need to write how it works in winter - in severe and not very cold weather; whether it will dry out or rot in another year, so that it wouldn’t interfere with some extra work and much more... but that’s in the future. And now about first impressions.
my barrel sauna looks like this after six months of use
The first thing, of course, that immediately bought me and what really is the advantage of this barrel-shaped bathhouse is its appearance . She is definitely unusual and beautiful in her own way! Needless to say, you get positive emotions as soon as you approach this bathhouse. In a word, you have EXCLUSIVE! The attention of guests and neighbors is guaranteed. And this is already worth a lot, as they say: “A good show off is worth more than money!” It is not without reason that over time, the owners of barrel baths, having gotten used to their original appearance, begin to stylize them as a submarine, a wine barrel or Diogenes’ home, adding individuality and charm to them.
barrel sauna side view
The minus that you will have to face at the very first time smoothly follows from its very first plus. This bathhouse is not spacious , but the abundance of friends and acquaintances who want to take advantage of your miracle will be great... To move around this bathhouse you will need to master some logistics. That is, you will need to move along the corridor in it either when the others are sitting, or sideways. The same applies to washing - one rinses, the others wait. But this applies to a company of more than 2-3 people steaming at the same time (and in cramped spaces, no offense, even 6 people can bask freely).
The benches are comfortable, sit comfortably
The lack of space is perhaps its biggest disadvantage - which personally forced me to weigh the pros and cons . Small capacity - you can’t put a font in it, you can’t fence off a separate corner with a shower, you can’t play “catch-up” in the “relaxation room”... In general, not a bath complex... But in the end I thought that its main purpose would be to relax with a small group or family after fishing or digging in the garden, quickly heating it, and at such events, as a rule, there are not many people. I made my choice...
But as in the previous example, this disadvantage leads to its huge advantage, in that it heats up quickly . Economical - there are only eight logs (comparable to one layer of coals for a barbecue) and after 20-30 minutes you can take bath procedures! The absence of corners and compact dimensions are the merit of this. Steam and heat spread quickly and evenly in it. During this time, the bathhouse will warm up to about 70 - 80 degrees, which is enough for most people. And they say this is the most correct and healthy temperature for vaping. If you need a higher temperature, heat it about the same amount, bringing it to 100-110 degrees, then you can go higher, but I personally haven’t tried it, and most manufacturers of such baths do not recommend heating it above 120 degrees.
And again, a minus - after a couple of hours of “slamming the doors,” the bathhouse begins to cool down relatively quickly and needs to be heated a little. Although it is very rare for small companies that bath procedures last longer. In addition, there are tricks in the form of increasing the number of steaming stones or building a wall of brick or stone around the stove, which, when heated, significantly increases the time of heat transfer. For example, like in this video about a barrel sauna with a stove “reinforced” with ordinary bricks. Cheap and effective!
heat the barrel sauna
firebox mode for myself optimally : I do a couple of tosses with the chimney damper open, then toss in the firewood again and wait a couple of minutes until it dries and when it flares up, it stops smoking. After which I almost close the pipe, leaving about 1/3 of the hole for the chimney and close the ash pan, the firewood begins to burn more slowly, but still effectively gives off heat. You can steam. If necessary, I add more firewood, again temporarily, opening the chimney and vent. I light the stove with a gas burner on a cylinder, by the way, I recently bought an adapter here to refill these disposable gas cans - I’m happy, they are not reusable, and now, having bought a large cylinder, I can refill them for pennies.
The next plus of the barrel bath is, of course, mobility . This bathhouse can be placed absolutely anywhere on the site or even placed on a trailer or raft. Tired of it here, we move it to another place, like furniture in the house. It will not in any way damage your landscape design that has been formed over the years. We decided to make ourselves a huge bath complex - sell it for export... On the Internet you can find many photos where tourists carry baths = barrels, of course, smaller than mine, with them on a regular passenger trailer behind the car, placing it at a campsite right next to the river, where taking a steam bath and swimming. And recently I witnessed how two men manually rolled a bathhouse barrel from one end of the garden to the other, simply with the help of sticks of leverage... That is, this is very liquid and “movable” real estate
