How to Build an Outdoor Sauna Base

OK, thanks for joining Cedarbrook today. We’re going to give you a little run-through on preparing the paver base. We’ve got the gravel, the three-quarter inch crushed. We’ve got the sand that goes on top of that. We’ve got the pavers, and we’ve got the treated wood that we’re going to make the surround. And we’re going to do a little work here. We’ve measured the frame, and we went one inch plus, which gets filled in with sand, so all these pavers will fit in. The idea is that you don’t need to cut pavers.

Give a pitch for landscape fabric prior to putting the gravel down. I mean, I spent $20 bucks on this roll. This little area has great drainage as it is, and we’re crazily putting this sauna under a tree, but it’s just the perfect spot in this yard, so we’re going to be okay with it. We’re using a metal roof, so that’s a good way to go when it’s under a tree. So this landscape fabric, though, cheap and cheerful. Get some.

It’s got a little more fines in it, but it does work too. You can use five eighths minus, three quarter minus, kind of what’s available. A lot of times you might need to buy in bulk if you’re doing a larger base, but we just got in bags this time to make it easier to get them in the back. They’re kind of easier to deal with too, but you’re just going to dump them down, hopefully get three to four inches of thickness, and then we’ll be putting the sand, we’ll pack

And then we’ll put the sand on top of that. Okay, so now we’re gonna wet this down before we pack it.

This landscape rock has a lot of fines in it so you don’t need quite as much sand. But you wet it down like so and then you come back with your packer and you pack it. Now what I want to show you is I made this little screed board. I forgot a long piece of wood so I craftily fashioned it up out of a 1×6 and some scraps. And I cut the depth of the paver in this screed board right here and this is what we’re gonna use when we get it filled up with sand to run across this is our screed board here so you’re gonna need to make one of those typically it’s one piece of wood but I use some scrappy bits to make it come together so you can see we used our screed board.

We just went back and forth and then you just keep moving material till you get it about flat and then you’re gonna wet it again before you put the pavers down.

But that’s really about what you want to do the more perfect you want to get it, the better your end results, but it’s not an exact science. You can always sweep some sand and even lift up a paver and put a little material under it in the end if you need to, but this is close enough for us. Okay, we’ve got it all screeded out to our satisfaction. Wet it and pack it a little bit more.

Next, we’re going to lay pavers in here. We lost light on the last little end of our other video, but we got our pad all set up and it’s beautiful. Swept all the sand between the cracks, wetted it down. And then I wanted to take time to show you what we’ve done here with this new hybridized base plate for those customers who want it. We use cedar base plates for the sauna walls for years and never, ever had a problem. But some people think that they want something more. And so this is a composite with cedar hybridized base plate for the walls of the sauna. You’ll see that on our site if you want to pay the extra. It’s not too expensive, but we wanted to add that up.

Thank you.