The ceiling in the bath: which height is optimal?

Many fans of the bath during its construction are concerned about the optimum ceiling height. What height should be the ceiling in the bath? According to experts, it is difficult to find an unambiguous answer to this question - different points of view should be considered. The height of the ceiling of the bath depends largely on the type of bath complex. For example, for a Russian bath there are standards, and for a Finnish sauna - their own.

Sauna

When building a sauna, it is best to provide a ceiling just above human growth. The sauna should be comfortable. The distance from the top shelf to the ceiling should range from 100-120 cm so that the person sitting on it does not hurt his head. The Finnish sauna is not a Russian bath. The ceiling height here can be small (from 210 to 230 cm). After all, in the sauna it is not accepted to wave a broom - you just have to sit on the shelf and bask.

Russian sauna

According to historical data, at the beginning of the 20th century Russian baths were impressive in size. For example, the recommendations of the engineer Priorov say that along with a large area should be high and the ceiling in the bath. The size of the rooms in the Russian bath of that time can be compared with the current large-sized houses (the locker room - 7.3 cubic meters per person, the steam room and washing room - 19.5 cubic meters, the height of the bath ceiling - 310 cm).

Today, experienced builders say: "The smaller the volume of the steam room, the faster and easier it warms up." But this does not mean that the heat will stay in the small steam room for a long time.

In the middle of the twentieth century, the ceiling in the bath was often made low - about 170 cm The reason for this engineering trick was the banal savings of firewood.

Modern building technologies (furnaces, heaters, vapor barrier) allow you to quickly warm up sufficiently large steam rooms and keep them warm for a long time. And considering that today you can buy any construction and finishing materials, a steam room needs to be done according to the rules.

And the rules are as follows: in a Russian bath steam should accumulate under the ceiling. In this case, the temperature difference in the lower and upper layers can be quite large, up to 50 degrees. In order to ensure a different degree of warming up, the shelves are arranged in several levels.

It is known that the bath procedure (without cooling the steam room) will take longer if the bath has high ceilings. Therefore, those three meters recommended by Priorov are not a luxury, but rather a necessity. If the ceiling in the bath is low, the steam will quickly dissipate at the first swings with a broom. The owner of such a bath can long search for the reason for the rapid cooling of the steam room - check the vapor barrier, look for cracks and constructive punctures - but never find it. And you just had to increase the height of the bath ceiling by 30-40 cm!

Additional circumstances

From what has been said it is clear that there is no strict regulation on the height of the ceiling of the bath. But they should not be too low. There is one more reason for this.

During bath procedures, the steam room is not ventilated. Therefore, the more its volume, the more air it contains with oxygen. This is very important for obtaining a health benefit from visiting a Russian bath.