how to properly heat a sauna with a metal stove

For beginners in the art of bathing, any business is a wonder. Many people ask the question of how to properly heat a sauna so that it has long-lasting heat and excellent steam. Let's find out!

The stove in the bathhouse is the main ruler! The entire heating process depends on what kind of stove is built in your bathhouse.

After all, in order to heat the bathhouse, you need to heat the stove correctly, add a new portion of firewood in time, keep an eye on the coals and firebrands, and not miss that important moment when you can close the bathhouse for heat.

Stoves in baths are made of brick and metal. Each of them has its own approach, each is heated differently. The choice of firewood plays an important role, because traditionally the Russian bathhouse is heated only with wood.

The heating time of the stove, its heating, heating of the heater and water depend on good, high-quality firewood. Only high-quality firewood creates this unique bath spirit and aroma in the steam room. How the bathhouse will be heated and what the heat and bathhouse spirit will be depends on the quality and quantity of firewood!

How to properly heat a sauna with a metal stove?

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Heating a metal stove is fundamentally different from heating brick stoves. Brick stoves have many different types, but metal stoves have only one - direct-flow.

Before we learn how to properly heat a sauna with a metal stove, let’s figure out what the essence of direct-flow stoves is. In direct-flow furnaces, flue gases are almost directly directed into the chimney. There is a “labyrinth” inside the thermal unit and, thanks to the circulation of smoke, flue gases pass through it and exit into the chimney. And the longer this “labyrinth” is, the more significant amounts of heat will remain in the furnace, and only a small part will escape into the chimney. In direct-flow bath installations consisting of metal, smoke circulation is formed thanks to plates or other structural dividers are used.

The draft in the stove must be properly adjusted. If it is excessive, then the unit will hum, and if it is not enough, then smoke will go into the room. How to achieve optimal balance? For this purpose, there is a gate located on the pipe or a blower door. The more the gate and door are open, the more intense the thrust will be.

In addition to draft, which must deliver a sufficient amount of oxygen to the stove for efficient combustion of fuel, a supply of secondary air is also needed. It is necessary to extract maximum heat from the flue gases that are sent into the chimney. Therefore, additional air is supplied to the upper part of the stove for deep combustion of residual volatile compounds.

Shall we flood the bathhouse?

Bath procedures represent a whole ritual for which you need to carefully prepare. Every steam fan should know how to properly heat a sauna. To do this, you will have to understand some of the intricacies of this art.

Before carrying out the procedures, of course, it is necessary to heat the room well. Modern people use various equipment: electric or gas boilers. But real lovers only value wood heating. After all, it is the smell of firewood that gives that unusual atmosphere, the bathhouse spirit. How to heat a Russian bathhouse? This is an entire art that can be mastered with some effort. Well, practice will help you quickly master all the tricks.

How to properly heat a sauna with a metal stove. Lighting up the stove.

The first thing you need to know is that you should light the stove with finely chopped absolutely dry firewood, birch bark, and paper. It is highly not recommended to use lighter fluid when lighting. First, you need to completely open the blower door and the damper. Thanks to this, maximum traction will be generated. However, if the weather is warm, this may not be enough. Then, if smoking occurs, then before refueling the stove, it is worth burning a little paper in it, which will warm up the chimney, which will improve the draft.

After the stove flares up, close the ash door. How tightly to close it can be determined by the flame - the combustion should not be too intense, but stable. If you do not close the vent on time, the wood will burn out quickly, and most of the heat will escape with smoke through the chimney.

It is also important to consider that you cannot refuel the stove entirely, because this will negatively affect fuel combustion and significantly shorten the service life of the stove. Firewood needs to be loaded in stages - when the first batch has burned down to coals, you can load the second.

Selecting fuel for kindling

The degree of heating, the microclimate in the steam room and the consumption of firewood depend on the correct choice. Not all wood is suitable for this purpose. This applies to the following categories:

Old boards or logs. They give off heavy steam and smell bad.
Rotten raw materials - minimum heat, a lot of waste.
Painted logs. This is dangerous for the body.
Knotty firewood is characterized by uneven burning. The wood burns before the knots, and they have to be removed from the stove or chips added.
Young trees and their branches. They have low heat transfer.

Trees growing near the house are more often used. In steppe areas these are usually branches of bushes. Spruce, pine and birch are taken for kindling in areas where there is forest. Such firewood emits a pleasant aroma of the forest.

What kind of wood is better to burn?

The best option for kindling is dry wood with a minimum of knots. Its preparation is carried out in the middle of winter. Frozen logs are easier to split and contain little moisture. Hardwoods are used more often. A hot sauna is obtained using logs made from birch, ash, alder or when using wood from fruit varieties. Coniferous firewood is used less often - the resin contributes to the abundant formation of soot.

Each breed has its own set of characteristics:

Oak is a prestigious and expensive fuel. Leader in heat transfer if the wood is chosen correctly. Oak logs should be from middle-aged trees. Then the steam will be tart and healing, and the warmth will last for a long time.
Alder burns quickly, contains almost no resins, so there is no smoke from it. It is distinguished by ardent heat. Its healing aroma invigorates and helps cope with colds. Alder wood dries quickly and can be stored for up to 3 years, while retaining its scent. Destroys soot deposits on the heater.
Birch – gives a disinfecting heat with light and fragrant steam, beneficial for the respiratory tract. They burn evenly and set quickly. They do not spark, they form a high flame. When birch logs burn, tar and resin are released, which settle on the chimney. This protects the bathhouse from fire, but you have to clean the chimney more often. In terms of heat output they are in second place after oak.

Birch firewood, known for its high heat output, produces an even flame without sparks

Fruit trees are not always available, and it is not profitable to burn poplar trees. It is best to use hardwood logs. Ash, oak, and birch wood are ideal. But the first two varieties are classified as valuable, and they are more often used for furniture production, which is why they are more expensive. Birch is more accessible and practical. It produces almost no soot and produces a lot of heat. The chimney will always be clean if you add aspen firewood at the end of the firebox.

Aspen flares up very slowly and does not burn for long, but it cleans the chimney perfectly, so it is recommended to combine it with other types of logs

Is it possible to heat a sauna with fuel briquettes or pellets?

Wood pellets are inconvenient to use in a conventional oven. Grate bars with smaller slots or special baskets should be provided for them. Then, when using pellets, the material itself burns first, and then the gases released. Fuel briquettes are much more convenient.

To heat a bathhouse, they will need five times less volume than conventional firewood. But they cost several times more. The heat from briquettes is almost the same, and they burn 25% longer than pure wood. There is a third less ash left after compressed fuel.

The raw material for the production of briquettes and pellets is waste from the woodworking industry. Most often this is dust left over from plywood production. In the process of its creation, phenol and urea are used. When burned, they release substances harmful to health. The smoke from them is corrosive, and there is a lot of soot. If you don’t have firewood on hand or have nowhere to store it, then compressed fuel can be used, but it is not recommended for regular use.

Pellets or fuel granules are made from wood waste and used in pellet stoves

Is it possible to use sleepers and painted boards?

Such materials are absolutely not suitable for sauna stoves. Sleepers most often contain traces of fuel, and due to prolonged contact with the environment, the wood deteriorates and becomes saturated with moisture. The flame from such firewood will be uneven, and they emit little heat and burn out quickly.

Rotten sleepers and painted boards emit an unpleasant odor when burning, as well as toxic substances. Breathing such vapor is harmful to health.

What kind of coal is suitable?

There are different types of fuel. Let's look at them in more detail:

Lignite. The youngest species, characterized by high friability. It has a fibrous structure. A common fuel in power plants and factories. It is used infrequently for heating homes, as it does not heat a conventional stove properly.
Brown. This fuel consists of peat and carbon. It has a low combustion temperature due to the large amount of water and other impurities. Can be used as local fuel.
Coal . It has a high combustion temperature due to the large amount of carbon in the composition. Has a high heat of combustion.
Anthracite. Contains up to 95 percent carbon. It has the highest degree of combustion heat. One disadvantage is poor ignition.

For heating stoves in households, coal and anthracite are usually used, as they have greater heat transfer. This type of coal for heating a home will be required several times less than brown coal or firewood. The only drawback is poor ignition.

This problem can be solved with the help of firewood: first put logs in the firebox, and after they burn out, add anthracite.

How to light a stove in a bathhouse

It all starts with the preparatory stage. He is the most labor intensive of all. Before starting work, it is advisable to find out how to heat a bathhouse if you have no experience in this matter. Firewood is prepared in advance. Dry logs are carefully placed in an accessible area, but not too close to the fuel door, so as not to provoke their spontaneous combustion.

Preparing the sauna stove

It needs to be put in order - open the stove, clean the ashpit, remove all the ash and coals from the combustion chamber. This waste does not need to be thrown away - it makes good fertilizer.

If the stove structure is equipped with a water tank, you should make sure that water is present there. Then the draft in the chimney is checked. All doors and dampers open. Next, a match or splinter is lit and placed in the combustion chamber. If the flame flutters and moves upward, then the draft is fine.

In its absence, it is dangerous to start kindling. All the smoke will go into the room, and then you can suffer from carbon monoxide.

Light the stove and add wood

First, the seed is made. Tree bark or crumpled newspaper is placed on the grates in the stove opening. Wood chips and finely chopped logs are placed on top. Gaps must be left between them so as not to interfere with the free circulation of air. Do not use gasoline for ignition. This is fraught with the risk of a fire, and the released steam will lose its healing properties due to the presence of chemicals in it.

First of all, wood bark or paper is placed in the oven, and only wood chips are placed on top

The order of kindling is as follows:

We ignite the seed from below. We close the firebox door so that no smoke comes into the dressing room and the flame flares up well.
If a steady sound comes from there, there is combustion. If it is absent, the procedure is repeated again.
You need to close the ashpit and open the valve.
Firewood is added at intervals of 5-15 minutes. It all depends on the degree of dryness and heating of the stove.
After the first batch has burned out, the firebox door is opened, the coals are leveled with a poker and logs are laid.
Firewood must be placed so that the distance between it and the top of the firebox is at least 25 cm. Fuel is placed closer to the door, away from the chimney.
During the combustion process, you need to monitor the water level in the boiler and add it as needed.

To heat the sauna faster, it is not advisable to water the heater during the heating process. It is better to wait until the bath procedures begin.

How much to heat?

Certain factors indicate the readiness of the bath:

The temperature in the steam room is not lower than 60 C⁰;
In the boiler, the water reaches its boiling point;
The last portion of firewood burned down to red coals;
The stones were well heated.

For the convenience of determining the temperature in the steam room, it is recommended to use special bath thermometers

In winter, this takes 5-6 hours, and in the warm season, 3-4 hours is enough. As soon as the required temperature is established in the bath, the firebox can be finished. If there are no blue flames above the coals, which is considered a sign of the presence of carbon monoxide, the vent, firebox and smoke damper are completely closed.

Preparatory stage

So, how to properly heat a stove in a bathhouse? First, the steam room must be in perfect order. All items that are not used during the steaming process should be removed from the sauna, all debris should be removed and the floor should be thoroughly washed. The shelves must be washed with an antiseptic using a brush. It is also necessary to wash the walls and ceilings of the premises. Then you should open all the windows and doors and let the room ventilate.

After cleaning, you can start heating the stove. All furnaces have their own characteristic features, so the heating will also have its own characteristics. But there are basic points that are the same for all types of stoves. Failure to follow the rules of kindling can lead to tragic consequences, such as fumes, heat stroke, and fire. Let's look at how to properly heat a stove in a bathhouse with wood.

This process consists of the following steps:

Preparation.
Kindling.
Loading firewood.
Completion of the heating of the bath.

Next, we will consider step by step how to properly heat a sauna with an iron stove.

After opening the firebox door, you need to assess the condition of the firewood and firebrands.

If the following symptoms occur, it is necessary to fully open the valves and close the blower half-door tightly:

the firewood is burnt out;
gray ash formed;
the coals turned red;
no flame;
the stones turned red;
water boils in the boiler;
in the steam room the temperature rose to 60 – 90°C.

Next, windows and doors open. If soot forms on the stones during heating, it must be washed off with water. Then carefully and quickly water all surfaces of the steam room. After this procedure it will not become colder.

The first step is to take care of the cleanliness inside the bathhouse and in the oven. The bathhouse should be cleaned after each use. Residues of leaves, sweat and soap should be swept and washed off the shelves. If it is not known whether the bathhouse was cleaned after use or not, you should play it safe and carry out cleaning procedures.

It's also worth checking the stove. Soot and wood combustion residues can clog the air passages, leading to reduced draft. Carbon smoke can enter the room, and steaming will become uncomfortable and dangerous.

If you neglect cleaning, the bathhouse will become dirty and uncomfortable. High humidity increases the risk of mold and mildew. This can negatively affect not only the condition of the premises, but also the health of the person who is in it.

Bathhouse with brick stove

The sauna stove, made of red brick, heats up quickly and does not cool down for a long time. Due to this, a high temperature is maintained in the steam room even after the end of the fire, if the chimney was closed in time. The algorithm for kindling and adding firewood remains unchanged, the only difference is that firewood can be placed in a large volume in a brick stove.

A few large stacks of logs are enough to bring the room to operating temperature. Therefore, when lighting a brick stove, it is better to use wood with good heat transfer - oak, birch or ash. They are laid so that there are small gaps for air between them. If you do this closely, the flame may go out. After 1-2 hours you can go to the steam room.

Firewood storage

It is necessary to prepare firewood in advance, because after chopping and subsequent drying, it dries completely after a year. Before heating the sauna, you need to thoroughly check all the firewood; it must be absolutely dry. When wet logs are burned, heat transfer is minimal, and a lot of wet steam is formed, which immediately cools the channels in the stove, and condensation settles on the cold walls. This can render the entire chimney unusable.

The operation of the stove and its efficiency depend entirely on the quality of the firewood. They must be dry and also have the same size, their thickness should be approximately 6-8 cm. At the very beginning, it is better to use small dry pieces for kindling; shavings, wood chips, birch bark or paper are suitable for initial ignition. Never use kerosene or gasoline.

Firewood should be stored in dry, ventilated areas or under sheds. In the cold season, before lighting the bathhouse, it is best to bring firewood into the room to warm it up.

Bathhouse with a metal stove

In order for the firebox to be effective, the operating features of the iron stove should be taken into account:

It heats up quickly. After 15-20 minutes from the moment of kindling, the optimal combustion mode is achieved.
It is better to lay out the seed for the stove in the shape of a well, leaving a palm-width of free space between the kindling materials. The structure must be stable and located near the door. Crumpled paper is placed between the logs.
Storing firewood should be frequent, but in small batches.
If the stove overheats, it will need time to cool down, which is equal to the interval between the formation of coals from the previous load and the ignition of a new portion of wood.
Do not touch the door with wood; its heat can cause it to catch fire, and this will cause a burn.
Fuel consumption will be greater than for a brick stove.

If you are not completely sure that there are no carbon monoxide gases, it is better to leave the pipe valve slightly open.

If there is good draft and to save wood, the chimney damper can be closed halfway an hour after the start of the fire. But then you will have to carefully ensure that smoke and carbon monoxide do not get into the dressing room.

Anyone can learn how to properly heat a sauna stove if they take into account all the recommendations. The main thing is that the firewood gives off heat well and warms up the room. This effect is achieved due to slow burning. If the wood is fresh, you can enjoy the fragrant steam, and the time spent in the steam room will benefit the body.

Most commonly used types of wood

Each type of wood has its own density and calorific value. These indicators affect the amount of fuel burned that is necessary to achieve the desired temperature in the room.

If we compare tree species growing in Russia in terms of heat release, then the hornbeam has the highest value, and the poplar has the lowest. Consequently, to warm up the steam room to the required temperature, less hornbeam firewood will be required, and more poplar wood. From this we conclude that the best firewood for a bathhouse is hornbeam.

However, it does not grow everywhere. Therefore, you should pay attention to what kind of wood is common in the area where the bathhouse is located. Let's give an example: hornbeam has the highest calorific value. But if the bathhouse is built in a place where it does not grow, then a lot of money will be spent on purchasing hornbeam firewood.

You can heat a sauna with the following types of wood:

Hornbeam has the highest calorific value. Burning takes a long time and no smoke is produced.
Linden, aspen and poplar have a relatively low density. What is the reason for their fairly rapid combustion without the formation of coals, they have a low calorific value.
Acacia - has a good calorific value and maintains a constant temperature in the combustion chamber.
Oak is a good fuel for a sauna. As it burns, the steam room is filled with a pleasant forest aroma. Harvesting firewood from oak begins in late spring (others - at the end of winter or early spring). It has a high heat transfer rate, but its cost is also high. Such firewood can be stored for quite a long time without changing its quality and performance.
Spruce, pine, thuja - grow everywhere, their price is low, and are used only if it is not possible to use other species. The main disadvantage of conifers is their resin content. They do not burn completely and fall on the walls of the chimney, as a result of which it becomes clogged.
Birch flares up quickly, combustion occurs evenly and for a long time, while substances are released that clean and disinfect the steam room, and also fill the air with a pleasant aroma. The best firewood is one that has been recently dried, as the aroma is significantly reduced 3 years after the tree is cut down. When using birch firewood, the air dosage must be observed. If smoke is generated, tar will begin to be released, resulting in the chimney becoming clogged.

How to properly heat a metal stove in a bathhouse

The most correct way to fire a metal sauna stove is to add small and frequent firewood. Otherwise, you will have a local overheating of the sauna stove, and then its cooling, which will last until the next fire starts.

At the same time, you can immediately put a large load of firewood into a brick oven and leave it to heat up. Literally two large stacks of firewood in a brick sauna stove can heat a steam room to operating temperature at which you can already steam.

Temperature maintenance

Loading firewood into the stove should be repeated several times. Also, special attention should be paid to the temperature in the oven. The firewood should not completely burn out before the next stacking, otherwise the stove will begin to cool down and the whole process will have to be repeated again.

In summer, it takes approximately 3 hours to kindle, in winter up to 2 times more - 5, 6 hours, no less.

The tips given above will help with the issue of how to properly heat a bathhouse. And the effect of visiting a properly heated bathhouse is an emotional and physical charge for the body.

The difference between a metal and brick stove in a bathhouse

A metal stove warms up very quickly during combustion and can reach operating combustion mode within 15-20 minutes from the start of combustion. This allows you to heat the room as efficiently and quickly as possible. But this also brings with it some inconveniences.

For example, the consumption of firewood for long-term heating will be greater in a metal stove than in a brick stove. Let the brick oven warm up much longer and reach the operating combustion mode. But after the brick stove has warmed up, it can maintain a very stable temperature not only in the firebox, but also in the chimney.

How to level out these differences and add the positive aspects of a brick stove to the advantages of a metal stove? The simplest option is to use a brick shield with a metal stove, as well as install a brick chimney with a sleeve for a metal sauna stove.

In this case, more firewood can be added and the burning time will be extended. The process of heating the steam room in the bath will take a little longer, but the heating will be more uniform. Not only will the area of the room next to the stove warm up, but the farthest corners will immediately warm up as well.

Preparing the steam room for bath procedures

To start heating the bathhouse, you need to clean it thoroughly. We don't mean to say that everyone leaves a mess behind.

In a bathhouse, as in an auxiliary and non-residential premises, many things are left for storage, so putting things in order means removing from the room everything unnecessary and not related to bath procedures.

Check the floors of the room for wood chips left over from the firewood after the last visit to the steam room. The wood chips themselves are not harmful, but they can cause injury.

Please ensure that there are no soap residues on the floor. When water hits a soapy area, it turns it into a skating rink

Covering the stove in the bathhouse with bricks

To increase the time of heat transfer from a metal stove, you can line such a stove with bricks. It is not necessary to completely wall up a metal stove, turning it into a kind of firebox. It will be enough to cover it with bricks on two or three sides, leaving holes for free convection of air flows.

Also, as mentioned above, you can use a brick shield in conjunction with a cast iron or steel sauna stove, through which flue gases will pass before entering the chimney.

The brick stove in the bathhouse produces softer and more stable heat. With the help of a brick shield and brick walls, you can get heat of comparable “quality” from a steel stove.

If you add a concrete base at least 15-20 centimeters thick to the base of the stove, you will get an additional battery, which will first be saturated with heat from the steel stove, and then release it into the steam room.

Preparing the walls

Above, we determined what the distance to the flammable wall should be, and there we came to the conclusion that it is much more practical to decorate them with refractory materials, so as not to waste the space of the steam room. Now it's time to talk about how this is done.

Budget-friendly, but not the best option, a sheet of galvanized sheet nailed to the wall

So, we have three and a half options:

We attach the refractory sheet to the wall;
plastering the wall;
we make a brick casing for the stove;
replacing part of a wooden wall with brick.

Let's explain why 3.5 - often they hang the refractory on the wall and build the casing. Moreover, the latter is installed not only for the purpose of fire safety, but also simply for safety, as well as for heat redistribution. You will learn more about why it is needed and how to make it in this article.

As for refractory, you can use mineralite - these are sheets of cement with fillers, reinforced with fibers. Excellent fire resistance. You just need to attach it correctly.

If the stove is located almost flush against the wall, then you will need two layers of mineralite with an air gap between them, which you will create using 3-centimeter ceramic bushings. The first layer is directly adjacent to the wooden wall, then there are bushings and a second layer of mineralite.

If the distance is larger, you can limit yourself to one layer, but it should not touch the wall - the same bushings are used to attach it to the tree.

Note! In a new log bathhouse, the refractory cannot be rigidly attached. Due to shrinkage that lasts for years, rigid fastening can cause the refractory material to rupture

Therefore, make grooves for the fastening to slide. Over time, the shrinkage will be completed, then secure it tightly).

You can put, for example, heat-resistant tiles on top of the mineralite (it is placed on heat-resistant mastic) or come up with another decorative design. As an option - mirror stainless steel. Its sheets perfectly reflect heat, but at the same time heat up themselves. Therefore, stainless steel is attached to a layer of any refractory - mineral wool, ceramic fiber, superisol, etc.

In principle, you can plaster a flammable wall (a layer of at least 2.5 cm) or use fire-resistant plasterboard.

Those who decide to bring the firebox into the dressing room either immediately put up a brick wall, or then cut out part of the log house or timber. In the brickwork, space is left for the combustion tunnel with a reserve, where a heat insulator, for example, mineral wool, is then clogged. The heat insulator is also used in places where the brickwork contacts the wooden wall. If you don’t want to replace the entire wall, make a portal - at least a meter long.