A 45 year engineer clears up electric sauna ventilation

I enjoy reading articles (even if this one felt like it had been translated slightly clumsily) where scientific rigor has been applied to something mundane.<p>I&#x27;ve gained an understanding, at least.

The sauna design rabbit hole is a very deep one.<p>If anyone is interested in more information about sauna design in general, Trumpkin&#x27;s Notes are by far the most referred to guide out there. [1]<p>There are also new products [2] which help improve saunas which are not ideally designed or where there are constraints (ceiling height mostly) to deal with.<p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;localmile.org&#x2F;trumpkins-notes-on-building-a-sauna&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;localmile.org&#x2F;trumpkins-notes-on-building-a-sauna&#x2F;</a> 2: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;saunum.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;saunum.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;</a>

I am actually typing this from a sauna with less than ideal ventilation (slightly ajar glass door) - need to cut vent holes to the sauna&#x2F;house walls but haven’t gotten around to it - so the timing is good. The main use of the ventilation is to not end up with too high CO2 concentration

Wouldn&#x27;t it be more practical to have a prominent CO2 monitor and only exchange the air (maybe by opening the door for a few seconds) if it CO2 gets too high ?<p>Maybe it&#x27;s hard keeping a co2 monitor operating in humid sauna conditions, I dunno.<p>Also, given that many saunas are not airtight, I wonder what a steady state CO2 concentration would be. It may be high, but not dangerous.

Some additional discussion on Reddit <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;Sauna&#x2F;comments&#x2F;1b2skn6&#x2F;a_45_year_engineer_clears_up_electric_sauna&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;Sauna&#x2F;comments&#x2F;1b2skn6&#x2F;a_45_year_en...</a>

Am I reading this right? Is there no heat exchanger in the ventilation? That seems like an obvious improvement.

Off-topic but I&#x27;ve been curious: how well do phones handle saunas? I thought the heat and moisture would pretty much be the worst environment for electronics. Is that not the case?

Thought it would be about heat exchangers.

I have not noticed any venting in the sauna at my gym, but perhaps it&#x27;s not obvious. It&#x27;s a pretty big sauna, it will easily seat over a dozen people and people are coming in and out often enough that the door opening probably provides adequate air exchange.

Why is the age of any relevance here?

tldr: place air inlet above the heat (B); air outlet on the other side at the floor (D). See figure: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saunatimes.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;IMG_6556-1-560x640.jpeg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saunatimes.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;IMG_6556-1-560...</a><p>This ensures: 1) quick heat up of fresh air 2) vertically uniform heat 3) creation of better steam