Carbon Monoxide & Asphyxiation Questions

[moonlitnarwhal]

Hello!

I’m getting excited about the possibility of building a wood-fired sauna, but even after plenty of internet research I still have lingering concerns about things like carbon monoxide and asphyxiation. I understand that all properly built wood-fired saunas have some level of ventilation incorporated into the design, but when a fire is actively raging in a stove in a small, confined space, how does this not consume dangerous levels of oxygen and create asphyxiation risks and/or produce harmful monoxide or other fumes in the hot room? I have seen designs where the stove appears to be directly vented through a wall to the exterior (which seems like an excellent idea), but most sauna set-ups I’ve seen don’t appear to have this.

Any thoughts or suggestions from well-experienced sauna users?

Rich

[lampmfg]

If you feed the sauna stove from inside the hot-room, it’s a good idea to leave the main hot-room entry door up from the floor approximately 1″ so you have roughly 30 square inches of space to allow air to get in to supply fresh air to the Hot-room. The stove itself (set with the air control set to full open) only uses 4 square inches of air. The rest would be to provide plenty air for users to breath. Some people even have a floor or wall vent that’s adjustable to provide more air.

If you load from outside, then you don’t need as much space under the main entry door.
Daryl

[Author]

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