A fulfilling project that can add a little peace to your backyard is building your own sauna. Although it might seem like a difficult undertaking, putting in a sauna on screw piles is a simple and reliable technique that guarantees stability and longevity. You will be guided through every step of the process by this guide, which will make it easy and enjoyable.
For saunas, screw piles are a great foundation option because they provide a sturdy base without requiring a lot of excavation. They are especially helpful in places with difficult soil conditions, making sure your sauna stays stable and level. You will be able to build a strong foundation for your new relaxation retreat by adhering to these instructions.
Everything from choosing the appropriate materials to assembling your sauna will be covered in this post. Our methodical approach is made to assist both novices and seasoned do-it-yourselfers in achieving polished outcomes. Now grab a rag and let’s get started designing the sauna of your dreams.
- Pros and cons of pile-screw foundations
- Why choose screw supports for self-assembly??
- Site preparation and procurement of materials
- How to make it yourself?
- How to arrange the floor covering?
- Drain arrangement
- Construction price: do it yourself and turnkey
- Reviews and recommendations
- Video on the topic
- Bathhouse 4×6 made of profiled timber on screw piles. Shrinkable. With your own hands
- Installation of a sauna stove in a sauna on screw piles
- Well, very warm bath with your own hands! Ideal Bath: Insulation with Cotton Wool and Logicpir
- How I built a 4×4 frame bathhouse with a terrace 1.5 meters in 3 weeks in one tip
Pros and cons of pile-screw foundations
Metal screw piles provide a foundation structure with several benefits.
- Construction work can be carried out in almost any weather.
- Iron piles can be leveled by cutting off protruding parts. Before starting construction, there is no need to perform labor-intensive earthworks and level the site.
- Metal supports with good anti-corrosion treatment wear out much more slowly due to atmospheric influences and groundwater than concrete ones.
- Pile-screw foundations are repairable; defective structures can be easily replaced.
However, there are a few drawbacks that need to be considered as they may restrict the range of applications for screw structures:
- Piles cannot be screwed into soil that contains hard limestone layers. This may damage the tips of the products.
- The structures must be treated with an anti-corrosion coating over the entire surface. The presence of the slightest untreated area will lead to the rapid spread of corrosion.
- Screw supports are not designed for heavy loads. However, when building baths, this drawback becomes insignificant.
Why choose screw supports for self-assembly??
These kinds of constructions are ideal for do-it-yourself projects.
First off, using screw piles eliminates the need for costly specialized equipment that isn’t always able to be delivered to the site (for instance, because of transportation issues). With the help of one or two assistants, pile supports can be independently screwed into the ground using lever mechanisms.
Second, these designs are first offered for sale as ready-mades. Once the piles are delivered to the location, they can be installed right away.
In contrast, on-site creation occurs for bored pile and bored injection supports. This means that it will take longer for the concrete to strengthen and harden.
The process of installing a sauna on screw piles is simple and combines the satisfaction of building your own personal retreat with practicality. This post will walk you through every stage, from planning the site and choosing the appropriate screw piles to securely anchoring your sauna and guaranteeing stability. You can install your sauna safely and levelly and enjoy it for many years to come by following these easy instructions.
Site preparation and procurement of materials
The initial preparation of the construction site has a significant impact on the speed and caliber of pile-screw foundation installation.
The area needs to be cleared of any weeds, bushes, or trees that could get in the way of construction before any work can begin.
In the event that pile installation takes place during the winter, the bathhouse construction site’s snowfall should also be cleared.
It’s also essential to plan ahead for the supply of electricity and water. Electricity is needed for lighting and the operation of electrical equipment, and water is needed to prepare the cement-sand mixture.
You will need steel screw piles with a minimum diameter of 89 cm in order to construct the foundation. A metal thickness of 3.5–4 mm is ideal. Supports that meet these specifications can handle operational loads of up to five tons.
You will require an adequate quantity of concrete mixture grade M300 or higher when filling the interior cavities of pile supports. You should buy the crushed stone, cement, and sand in advance in order to prepare it. If you’d like, you can boost the solution’s ability to withstand frost in concrete by adding additional modifiers.
To tie the metal profiled pipe, channels, or pile-screw base, use a wooden board. If wood is used, special tools for treating it with antiseptics must be purchased along with the materials.
Any metal paint with the right qualities can be used to prevent corrosion in profiled pipes and channels.
Waterproofing is the last material on the list of necessities. You can therefore use hydrophobic paints and liquid rubber.
How to make it yourself?
Installation work can begin as soon as a project is designed, preliminary work is completed, and building materials are acquired.
The process of marking the location is the first step. The locations of the screw supports must be marked out, with all angles and distances between them carefully measured.
At the designated spots, 15–30 cm shallow excavations are made. By doing this, the piles won’t move on their own when they first start to screw into the ground. Depending on their size, the bath area, and the soil’s bearing capacity, the spacing between the support points should be two to three meters.
Long metal crowbars are used as levers to manually screw in piles. It should take two or three people to complete this task. Mechanical installation can be done if special equipment can be transported to the location. You’ll be able to save time and effort by doing this.
A minimum of 1.5 meters of soil must be submerged in order for screw piles to function. Up until the tips of the structures reach the thick layers of earth, they are screwed into the ground. Simultaneously, the difficulty of manually rotating the piles increases significantly, indicating the support’s final immersion.
It is important to pay close attention to making sure the structures are positioned in a strictly vertical manner before beginning the screwing process. Deviations of no more than one or two degrees are permitted.
The supports are concreted from the inside out after they are all installed and leveled in height. Metal pipes are used to feed concrete mixture, which is best mixed right before pouring.
On the upper portions of the piles, caps are placed once the cement-sand mixture has completely solidified. The strapping installation comes next. A wooden structure would be the best option for a wooden bath.
A specific thickness of boards is fastened all around the foundation; these boards need to be securely fastened to one another in order to stop the pile supports from moving on their own.
The layout of the furnace’s foundation is a crucial detail. Fireboxes made of brick, cast iron, or steel cannot be built directly on the floor because they place a significant load on the base. There must be more foundation structures underneath them.
A concrete foundation must be equipped in addition to the primary pile-screw foundation. It doesn’t have to have a big area.
The width and length of the furnace that will be built on it are taken into consideration when choosing the additional foundation’s dimensions and area.
The first step in laying the foundation for a large furnace is to dig a pit in the chosen location based on calculations that have already been made. It should be as deep as the freezing point of the soil.
Onto the compacted bottom is poured a cushion made of sand and gravel. At least 15 centimeters of crushed stone and 20 centimeters of sand are required for each layer. You can add another layer of crushed stone, the same thickness as the sand layer, on top of it.
After that, a reinforcement frame is inserted into the wooden formwork that is erected around the furnace foundation’s perimeter. Pouring concrete is the following step. The base’s upper level should be roughly 5 to 6 cm below the bathhouse floor’s installed floor. After the concrete has completely set, you must take down the formwork and apply tar or another waterproofing material to the furnace foundation’s walls.
You can start installing the log house at the next step. Typically, a wooden bathhouse is constructed and then placed atop a metal grillage.
This design follows a straightforward plan: I-beams or stiff metal channels are fastened to the pile heads all the way around the foundation and in its central zones. Electric welding is used to connect these components to the heads.
Since the grillage will bear weight and provide a sturdy base for the bathhouse’s wooden components, metal structures with strong anti-corrosion treatments must be used in its construction.
How to arrange the floor covering?
Concrete flooring is used in log baths less frequently than wooden flooring. Prior to installing wood plank flooring, preliminary insulation is installed. The following order is followed when performing the work.
Skull boards are stitched beneath logs that are inserted into the lower crowns. The supporting elements are separated by heat-insulating material plates. On top of it, a wooden sheathing is constructed, which will eventually support the subfloor.
In order to keep moisture out of the lower wooden structures, a waterproofing layer is applied to the sheathing. The waterproofing layer is followed by subfloor boards that are screwed or nailed to the sheathing.
The next step is to build a concrete screed in the shape of a cone, with a drain hole in the middle to allow moisture to escape.
Boards are arranged around the room’s perimeter and inside the formwork at a slight angle (measured in centimeters; see photo below). The mixture for the concrete is then poured.
The concrete screed is then covered with the final wooden floor. In this instance, to guarantee the unimpeded passage of moisture through the pour-type flooring, the boards need to be installed with a gap of several millimeters.
In order to lay the floor in a bathhouse on screw piles, drain pipes must first be installed. These pipes will be positioned beneath the flooring. It will be very difficult to arrange the drain further if you skip this step.
The following video will demonstrate how to install bathroom flooring on screw piles:
Drain arrangement
The layout of the drainage system needs to be carefully considered when building a bathhouse. A wooden floor that has not been properly dried out may rot too soon, resulting in the growth of mold and bad smells.
Installing a sewer pipeline beneath the bathhouse, which drains water into a septic tank or cesspool, is the best option.
Even before the log house is set up on the grillage, trenches for pipelines need to be dug. They have to be brought into the building at the locations of the washing room’s drains, sinks, and toilets (should a separate bathroom be added to the bathhouse).
To ensure that the pipes are positioned at an angle and that moisture is removed by gravity, the trenches should have a small slope.
The following video will demonstrate how to install a drain on screw piles in a bathroom:
Construction price: do it yourself and turnkey
Many suburban property owners construct their own wooden bathhouses on screw foundations to save money.
In this instance, the primary cash outlays will be:
- Purchase of pile supports, the cost of which is 1500-3500 rubles, depending on the size.
- Purchase of waterproofing materials, insulation materials, raw materials for preparing concrete mixture (sand, cement, crushed stone).
- Ordering reinforcement for the arrangement of grillages on screw stilts, channels and a trimming boards for strapping supports.
- Transportation of the listed materials with your own vehicles or delivery service.
Contacting a specialized construction company will result in slightly higher costs. The final sum includes the listed items as well as the cost of services for drawing up project documentation and performing geodetic research on the site.
The entire cost of purchasing building materials is typically comparable to the cost of hiring a professional builder.
The average cost to self-build a screw foundation for a 3 x 3 m small bathhouse is 20–25 thousand rubles. In turnkey construction, the sum can rise by about two times.
Reviews and recommendations
Building baths on pile-screw foundations is a highly popular technology. Owners of private sections attest to the fact that, when compared to monolithic, tape, and other foundations, the construction of such structures requires significantly less time, money, and effort.
Expert users advise using piles with galvanized surfaces and cast screws because these products are extremely dependable and do not wear out quickly.
Self-taught builders often make the mistake of installing extra blocks under partitions to reinforce pile-screw foundations. This approach is risky in addition to being ineffectual.
The soil beneath the blocks may swell due to seasonal temperature variations, which could result in the bathhouse floor starting to "play" and deform. Screw pile foundations constructed in accordance with technology don’t need to be strengthened using such questionable techniques. The forum is where this topic is discussed.
This site contains all of the information you require regarding the layout and building of a pile foundation.
Step | Description |
1. Plan and Design | Determine the size and location of your sauna, and create a detailed design plan. |
2. Obtain Permits | Check with local authorities and obtain necessary building permits for your sauna installation. |
3. Prepare the Site | Clear the area of any debris, level the ground, and mark the positions for the screw piles. |
4. Install Screw Piles | Using a hydraulic drive or manual tool, install the screw piles according to the marked positions and ensure they are level. |
5. Build the Foundation | Attach the foundation beams to the tops of the screw piles, ensuring a stable and level base for the sauna. |
6. Construct the Frame | Build the sauna frame using the chosen materials, following your design plan closely. |
7. Insulate and Install Walls | Insulate the frame and install the interior and exterior walls, ensuring proper thermal protection. |
8. Add Roof and Flooring | Install the roof structure and lay down the flooring, making sure everything is securely attached. |
9. Install Sauna Heater | Install the sauna heater according to the manufacturer"s instructions and ensure proper ventilation. |
10. Final Touches | Finish with interior furnishings, lighting, and any additional features such as benches or windows. |
A sensible and effective technique to guarantee a solid and long-lasting foundation is to install a sauna on screw piles. Even if you’re a do-it-yourself enthusiast, you can produce a professional-looking result by following these detailed instructions. Planning thoroughly, taking precise measurements, and using the appropriate equipment and supplies are essential.
Always keep in mind how crucial accuracy and preparation are to the process. Every stage, from leveling the site to screwing in the piles, builds on the one before it to ensure a sturdy, final structure. It can prevent future problems if you take the time to proofread your work.
Compared to traditional foundations, screw piles are a less intrusive and more environmentally friendly method of laying a foundation. This method reduces disturbance to the ground and can be readily modified if necessary. Furthermore, it has a high load-bearing capacity, which makes it ideal for supporting your brand-new sauna.
You can build the sauna itself with confidence once the foundation is in place. Your sauna will be a dependable and fun addition to your home for many years to come if it has a strong foundation. Enjoy the process, and before you know it, you’ll be unwinding in your very own sauna, knowing that it is built on a sturdy and well-designed foundation.