The Finnish Sauna Explained. Part 1: The Fundamentals 

Really glad you liked it, good luck with your construction project!

Thanks for the nice words. If you come to Helsinki without a boat, may I recommend that you visit Kuusijärvi in Vantaa, they have perhaps the best saunaexperience in the capital region with a real savusauna + "regular" ones. Just Google Kuusijärvi for more info.

It’s great there🇫🇮

You definitely qualify as a sauna connoisseur, thanks for your feedback!

In general birch, pine and fir are considered "quality" wood. Personally I think that any wood that is chopped (ie not small branches, sticks etc) and well dried after felling will work very well. If the wood feels very light and "papery" then it has probably been outside rotting for too long and will not work very well.

Thanks, if you want to see sweat, check out the second video in the series 😅. And indeed, the savusaunas are known to burn quite often, that is why they typically are placed a bit away from other buildings.

Kiitos, todella mukavaa jos pidit asiallisena.

Good luck with the project! Having the sauna as a separate building has many benefits so sound good!

And he wasn't cheap 😜

Hi, really good question. I don't have absolute facts, but a few observations. Traditionally, because the emphasis has been on cleaning, people have enjoyed the sauna when back from (dirty) work. There is a rather rowdy Finnish song describing a workers Saturday (this when we still had a 6-day working week) "viideltä saunaan ja kuudelta putkaan" meaning "going to sauna at 5 pm and being arrested - for drunken behavior 🙂- at 6pm." Also for instance in our block of flats, there is a communal sauna that you can book and there are times available Thursday thru Saturday 6pm - 10pm if I remember correctly. But ofcourse this is just part of the story. An other important sauna tradition are saunas connected with various festivities such as "christmas-sauna", "midsummer-sauna" etc. These would have been more mid day events, so that you then had time for the actual party/festivity afterwards. And if you will tour the marinas (or Finnish hotels), you will find perhaps a more modern concept, that of "morning-sauna" (aamusauna in Finnish) which could be perhaps 8am - 10am:ish. Overall this still get's back to my main tenet in the video: the sauna is about enjoying oneself, so whatever floats you (sauna)boat, that's what you should do.

@@SailInFinland Good answer. I'd like to add a short reply: When it's convenient. Ideally you'd have the rest of the evening for to just relax.

@@companyjoe indeed, good point!

I don't understand how people clean themselves otherwise.

Nowadays there are perhaps alternatives but in the olden days not so much.