Vertical and horizontal stove for a bath from a pipe - do it yourself

It is difficult to imagine a bathhouse without a stove, because in addition to heating the room, it is also the key to comfort and pleasure from the bathing procedure.

It is easy to make a stove for a bathhouse with your own hands; it will function well and will not require a lot of money and time investment. The simplest model is a sauna stove made from a pipe with a large diameter. Its production does not require special experience and knowledge in this area.

Pros and cons of such ovens

The required properties for the material used in the manufacture of the furnace are heat resistance, strength, durability, and corrosion resistance. In addition, it must withstand sudden temperature changes and have good thermal conductivity.

The ferrous metal from which a thick-walled pipe with a diameter of 500-600 mm is made cannot be called completely corrosion-resistant. But it is precisely this type that is optimally suited for the independent production of a sauna stove, as it meets almost all of the requirements listed above.

Having a wall thickness of at least 8 mm, it makes the stove in the bathhouse quite heat-intensive, in which heat is retained when the fuel has already burned out. And the round cross-section inside it allows heat to spread efficiently.

The use of a round-shaped pipe for a stove in a bathhouse reduces the length of welding seams - these are the very first places for corrosion to form , and it is through them that carbon monoxide escapes. In addition, this option remains the cheapest, although prices for ferrous metal are rising.

Video instructions: how to weld a metal sauna stove with your own hands

Calculation of tank volume for a sauna stove

The volume of a water tank is calculated by taking from seven to ten liters of water with a temperature of at least fifty degrees per person. So, if you plan to visit a steam room with 3-4 people at the same time, you should choose a tank with a volume of at least 40 liters.

How to calculate the volume of the steam room and firebox of the stove?

It is not enough to measure the dimensions of the room. You also need to take into account the material of the surfaces. If the room has windows, a glass door, surfaces made of tiles, bricks, concrete, their area should be measured. For each square meter of area of ​​such surfaces, add one and a half cubic meters to the volume of the room, which will be taken into account when choosing the size of the stove. The minimum power of a sauna stove is 8-10 kW.

Oven requirements

A sauna stove must be safe (both in terms of fires and for human health - not cause burns if accidentally touched and prevent smoke from entering the room), the temperature must be regulated, and the dimensions must correspond to the volume of the room.

Types of furnaces - horizontal and vertical, features of choice, pros and cons

A self-assembled stove for a bathhouse made from a pipe, although it looks unpretentious, does an excellent job of heating the steam room. Available in vertical or horizontal form. The choice directly depends on the area of ​​the steam room and on the desires of the owner.

Vertical

Externally, such a stove resembles a common potbelly stove, but differs in its design features. In addition to the firebox and the compartment where the stones are placed, there is a special tank where the water is heated. This type is ideal for a small bath.

The firebox and grate are located one above the other in steps, which makes it possible to save space. Therefore, this model is gaining popularity for installation in bathhouses.

However, it is worth noting that it is less effective, since the heat goes up and the walls do not have time to warm up. In addition, fuel burns faster in a vertical design. And the main disadvantage is the presence of a firebox and a compartment to enhance traction in the steam room of the bath.

Horizontal

The horizontal shape is recommended for bath rooms with a large area. Equipped with a compartment where stones are placed and a water tank. The firebox is more voluminous, and its doors and the vent are located at the end of the pipe; they often open into the room in front of the steam room, which speeds up the heating process. In addition, this arrangement is more convenient, since when lighting, there is no need to enter the steam room, and it does not cool down.

Unlike the vertical type, this type of heater requires more space, but since the firebox is longer and located at the bottom, this significantly increases the heating area and improves the natural exchange of warm air in the bathhouse. Therefore, experts recommend this particular model, if the bath area allows.

No. 8. Heater type

Furnaces can be:

• with open heater. Flue gases heat the walls of the stove and the buried stones. You can start steaming literally immediately, but cooling down occurs quickly. These are safe stoves; soot does not accumulate on the stones; however, more fuel is consumed here than in stoves with a closed heater, but you can stay in the steam room as long as you like.

• with a closed heater. In such furnaces, the stones are heated not by the metal, but directly. To obtain the desired temperature, the oven must be heated for several hours, but then it itself maintains heat for 10-12 hours. Such stoves were previously used in public baths, but now they are rarely used. The efficiency here is much higher, but you won’t be able to steam until the stones are completely warmed up. Soot collects on the stones, and safety is somewhat lower.

What we need - tools and materials

Before you start making your own sauna stove from a 530 pipe, you should prepare a place to work and stock up on the necessary tools:

• welding machine;

• grinder with different attachments;
• electric drill;
• metalworking tools;
• door handles;
• mortise tap;
• asbestos cord.

In addition to tools, you will need the following material:

1. Thick-walled metal pipes for fireboxes and water tanks, having a diameter of 500 to 650, a wall thickness of 8-16 mm, and a length of 1.2 to 1.5 meters. Also the pipe through which carbon monoxide will escape, its diameter is 120 - 150, and the wall thickness is 2 - 4 mm.

1. A steel pipe where the stones will be placed. The thickness of its walls is 5-8 mm, and the diameter is 350.
2. Sheet metal, size 600 by 800 mm, having a thickness of 8 - 12.
3. Hinged steel hinges.
4. Water pipe - a small piece, suitable diameter ½ or ¾ inch, length 50 - 80 mm, and a ball valve with a similar thread.
5. Metal reinforcing bars - 500 mm, diameter 12 - 18.
6. Cement.
7. Brick.
8. Sand.

Drying the bath

There are two components to quickly drying wet rooms: heating and ventilation. They should not be considered separately, because together they work most effectively. You just need to combine them in a specific case.

How to dry: ventilation methods

The ventilation system is laid at the stage of construction of the bathhouse (see here about the diagrams and design of the bathhouse ventilation). Therefore, if something is forgotten, it may be too late to redo everything.

For example, vents are usually made in the foundation - these are through holes lined with sewer (most often) pipes that lead to the underground space. They have plugs on the outside that allow you to open and close them at the right time.

For more details about the scheme, see

Such vents are opened only after procedures. And they serve for better ventilation and drying of the bath.

Also, another through hole is usually made in the wall of the steam room under the shelves, leading to the street. On the inside it has an adjustable plug. This hole is also used to speed up the drying of the steam room.

You can dry the bathhouse in winter with the help of ventilation by opening the windows and doors wide - after all, the air inside is much more saturated with water vapor. But you shouldn’t think that all the moisture will leave the bathhouse only thanks to open doors and windows.

In addition to ways to create a draft simply by opening holes, there is also a method where ventilation actively cooperates with heating and works when the stove is on - this is bastu, which you can read about.

Well, don’t forget that even if natural ventilation is not installed correctly or its power is not enough to ventilate the bathhouse, you can always install fans in the air ducts. Forced ventilation, although noisy, is still effective.

BY THE WAY! Heat guns can help here too.

For those who believe that heating alone is enough, and ventilation becomes optional, we recommend watching the video by Konstantin Bely:

After washing: methods of heating

Heating is just as necessary for drying as ventilation. You understand the mechanism: by heating water molecules, you make them more mobile, transform the water into a gaseous state (steam), and it is easily carried away by the breeze. What will the breeze do if the water is cold? Nothing. And if there is no breeze, the steam will cool over time and calmly settle as condensation.

So, the easiest way to dry a bathhouse after washing in winter is to put one or two logs in the firebox and let them burn out. All ventilation openings must be open.

This is for an iron stove. A brick stove is a heat-storage stove, so its heat is enough to dry the bathhouse after the procedures (together with open ventilation).

***

Well, as you can see, you have to invest some money and make an effort in order to use a large bathhouse in the winter. The smaller it is, the easier it is to warm it up even in cold weather. The power of the sauna stove is calculated for the steam room; it is difficult to fit other things into its responsibilities, because there is summer when all this is not needed. So it is better to use autonomous heaters.

Schemes and dimensions of vertical and horizontal furnaces

After choosing a model, before making a sauna stove with your own hands, a drawing is drawn; it must reflect all the parameters and configuration of the stove. A correctly drawn up drawing will not only facilitate the installation process, but also eliminate operational problems.

The diagram should show the main parts of the furnace. If this is your first time making a stove for a bathhouse, then it is better to use a ready-made diagram.

Horizontal model diagrams

It is the model in which the horizontal pipe is most often installed in bathhouses, if space allows.

Vertical furnace diagrams

As with a horizontal stove, a pipe with a diameter of 530 is also ideal for a vertical model.

An example of a drawing of a stove for a vertical bathhouse, which is easy to install yourself.

Warm floor system

This option for heating a bathhouse is one of the modern methods, which has been used frequently in recent years. It is quite difficult to install special equipment without the appropriate experience.

It is much easier to install an electric floor system and you can do this work yourself:

1. First of all, a waterproofing material is laid, on which a layer of mortar is placed.
2. Next comes the installation of thermal insulation.
3. An electrical cable is mounted on top of the thermal protection layer and the screed is refilled.

The technology for creating a floor with water heating is similar, but in this case they do not use a cable, but rather lay pipes to circulate the hot coolant.

Assembling a horizontal model

The stove is made from a horizontal pipe for a bath, has a heater located on the outside, and the tank is mounted. The advantage of this device is that it has a compact size and a large firebox depth. In it, the fuel burns completely and, therefore, more heat enters the bathhouse.

The instructions for independently producing a horizontal stove for a bathhouse are as follows:

• You will need a 2-meter pipe with a diameter of 500 mm, which has thick walls; marks must be placed on it. To do this, it lies on a flat surface on its side, is fixed and, making an indentation of 1/3 of the diameter from the bottom, two lines are drawn on it in the horizontal direction, located parallel.

• A base for a round firebox is cut out of metal, the size equal to the length of the pipe, and the width corresponding to the distance between the lines.

A rectangular or square window is made in the middle of the circle, into which a grate must be mounted. Perhaps you can simply weld reinforcing bars in the form of a lattice to the bottom of the window.

• The base is inserted into the main pipe of the stove strictly according to the marks and fixed by welding inside it.

• Two blanks are made from a metal sheet with thick walls, so that their lower part serves as the legs of the device. And the width of the walls should be 20 mm greater than the diameter of the pipe. To give an aesthetic appearance, the front wall is rounded, but the back wall remains rectangular; a water tank will be mounted to it.
• On the front wall of the stove there is a window for the firebox and a compartment to enhance draft. The lower level of the firebox opening is located 0.03 meters up from the base of the firebox. And the upper edge of the blower is 0.01 meters lower than the container with stones.

• Doors are made from cut parts. They are welded to the front side of the stove with loops near the openings. Handles and latches are attached to them.
• Each end strip is attached to the base of the pipe and fixed with a weld seam over the entire area.

• To increase the heat transfer of the stove, it is recommended to install an additional chamber between the firebox windows and the chimney, in which the accumulated heat is transferred to the stone. You will need a 350 mm pipe, with a length of 0.35 - 0.45 meters. It needs to be cut in half horizontally. One edge is welded with a plug shaped like a semicircle.
• A hole is cut in the upper part of this device, slightly offset from the middle. The size of the opening should be equal to the diameter of the chimney. A 0.1 meter pipe is inserted into it to connect the chimney.

• At the top of the main structure, not far from the rear wall, a round hole measuring 150 mm is made. Next, the prepared dome is installed in the furnace pipe so that both openings are slightly offset in relation to each other. It is then welded to the main pipe.
• The final stage is a metal basket made from welded reinforcing bars around the additional chamber; it will hold the stones. And a water tank is attached to the wall at the back, and you can begin to test a sauna stove from a pipe that you assembled with your own hands.

Advice! Since the firebox and the window to enhance draft are brought into the room in front of the steam room, it is recommended to decorate the wall around the door with metal plates for protection.

Watch the video

eternal sauna stove

Conclusion

In the video presented in this article you will find additional information on this topic. Also, based on the text presented above, we can conclude that the principle of making metal stoves is quite simple. At the same time, there are a lot of different designs that have their own specific features and characteristics (see also the article “Drawings of a metal stove for a bath with your own hands: how to build a heater in a steam room with high efficiency”).

Special attention should be paid to some factory products, which are presented in the form of doors, chimneys and grilles. They will significantly simplify the manufacturing process, which means it is worth developing drawings on their basis.

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Brick or metal

The choice of furnace material matters only from the point of view of individual preferences and conditions:

• Price. Based on the cost of the final product, purchasing a metal furnace will be cheaper than purchasing material and paying workers to build a brick furnace. If you do the masonry yourself, the final cost will decrease due to the deduction of payments to hired workers, which will significantly affect the price.
• Bath area. Metal stoves take up less space, so if the area is small, the choice is definitely in favor of a metal product.
• Difficult to install. A brick stove requires a separate foundation, which lengthens the installation period; a metal stove is installed on a lighter base. The wood-burning sauna stove is quite popular and is practical.
• Sometimes the decisive factor is a photo of a factory-made metal stove - the range of modern manufacturers is distinguished by functionality and attractive design.

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