Customer Reviews

The Sauna: A Complete Guide to the Construction, Use, and Benefits of the Finnish Bath

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's important to know before you buy this book, or his book about Underground Homes, that they use the cordwood masonry building technique, more or less to exclusion. Roy has saved this technique from oblivion but he tries to pass off his books as "complete" in the sense of including various techniques. They don't. I'm not saying not to get them, but remember that caveat.

When I decided that an outdoor wood-burning sauna was in my future I sought a book that would contain detailed information on sauna construction, stove usage and evaluation, and the like. Instead, Roy's book, though enjoyable, was far less than a "..complete guide.."

An enormous amount of time is spent on cordwood construction (inappropriate for us living in hardwood areas) and virtually little or no space devoted to selecting, evaluating and using the many stove options that are available on the market.

I am certain that Mr. Roy could write such a book. His passion for and knowledge of the sauna is apparent throughout the book. It's a disappointment that this "complete guide" fell short of my expectations.

Though I don't feel that I wasted the book's purchase price (I am now more enthusiastic about my yet-to-be-built sauna than ever), I wish that Roy's book would have imparted more of his obvious knowledge about those matters that are of interest to us non-cordwood oriented neophytes.

I wouldn't feel compelled to write a review of this book, except for the low star rating of the only other reviewer of this book [at this writing anyhow]. This is an excellent book for building a free-standing sauna--as long as cordwood masonry building style works for you. Rob Roy is the master of this technique and written much about it in a number of books. He has an easy style and knows his material. But yes, if you're looking to build a wood-only sauna, look elsewhere.

We bought this book hoping it would give us the basic information we needed to build an outdoor sauna (ex. materials list, basic dementions, review of different types of stoves, etc). While there was some of this information, most of the book was dedicated to Cord Wood construction. This was interesting, but not the way we wanted to build. I wish there had been a more balanced amount of information on all the different types of sauna construction (log, cord wood, conventional framing, etc.)

I love ALL the books this author has written. Great pictures, easy instructions, clearly well thought out. My husband and I will use this book when we build our sauna this Spring. Glad I bought it.

A wonderful book! Some great ideas and designs in here, as well as in depth reasoning, by an experienced and knowledgable author, of how and why the sauna nay be built. Anyone interested in building a sauna needs this book!