Sauna and bathhouse in a country house – preparation for the summer season

Recommendation points

• Cleaning and disinfection
• Dealing with mold on the walls
• Minor repairs and maintenance
• Stove maintenance and correct kindling
• Possible plumbing problems
• What else needs to be done before using the bath

Early spring is the best time to go to the country house to tidy up your sauna or bathhouse after a long winter. We will tell you about the necessary steps to prepare the premises, put in order the stove, water supply system, as well as some of the intricacies of preparing for the bathing season..

In winter, country houses often remain uninhabited, and the bathhouse is idle. Therefore, in the spring, it is best to carry out a general cleaning, minor repairs in the sauna and prepare it for the next bathing season, because, as you know, winter reveals many shortcomings.

Cleaning and disinfection

Immediately heat the stove and turn on the heating. Do not rush to start cleaning, you need to let the room warm up for 4-5 hours. Examine the windows and doors to see if mold has appeared at the junctions to the walls during the winter. In general, cleaning the rest room and dressing room is no different from cleaning a country house after winter. But the shower and the steam room will have to pay special attention..

First treat the walls, floor and ceiling of the shower room with a chlorine disinfectant, leave it for 30-40 minutes, then rinse with water. After that, you need to thoroughly wash all surfaces with ordinary detergents, thoroughly brush the seams and joints of the coating.

All utensils must be removed from the steam room: tubs, brooms, hanging herbs. Sweep debris well, especially under shelves and sun loungers. Remember that even one leaf left behind can cause rotting and an unpleasant smell. Treat shelves, sun beds and wooden walls with white, then wash them with plenty of water. The loungers need to be cleaned with sandpaper, then all surfaces in the steam room should be washed with a brush and a strong solution of laundry soap.

If an unpleasant smell develops in the steam room, melt the stove, plug the drain hole and pour water on the floor. Evaporating, it will take away odors, but do not forget to ventilate the room well from time to time.

Dealing with mold on the walls

Mold and mildew are a real scourge of any room that hibernated without heating and normal ventilation. In baths and saunas, where the walls are usually sheathed with wooden clapboard, this problem is especially relevant.

The fight against mold begins with eliminating the causes of its appearance: make ventilation vents, ventilate and dry the room. Depending on the degree of spread, it will take from a week to several months to dry the walls..

After the room is dry, the damaged layer of wood must be removed with a grinder. Then the wood is treated with an antiseptic and bleached. The best effect in removing mold is demonstrated by such products as Sarus and Teknos Rensa..

After getting rid of the mold, the boards need to be covered with a special water-based bath varnish containing a special wax.

Minor repairs and maintenance

Winter does not spare the type-setting finishing coatings, therefore, the wooden lining is very bursting, waves appear, some runs can completely fall off. Remove the behavioral elements of the coating and process the edges so that the gap inside the seam is at least 1-1.5 mm, only then install the planks in place.

Doors and frames made of wood usually dry out and do not close well, they must be removed from their hinges and excess wood removed with a plane. At the same time, make a revision and lubricate the latches with latches, metal parts in them corrode quickly. Pay attention to the windows too: in plastic ones adjust the fittings, on wooden ones check the fastening of the glazing beads.

Heating systems after wintering must be carefully checked. Water heating needs to be filled, turn on the boiler and the circulation pump, bypass the pipeline and make sure that there are no leaks, develop taps on radiators and Mayevsky taps. If the heating is electric, take the time to tighten the contacts and all connections, especially if the sauna is electrically heated.

Stove maintenance and correct kindling

For a furnace or electric furnace, annual maintenance is required, in the springtime, the following must be done:

1. Heat a stone or brick oven with small portions of firewood for 8-10 hours. Heating should be very slow, 7-10 degrees per hour, so that all moisture slowly comes out of the oven masonry.
2. For heating the furnace, it is advisable to use raw materials with a high calorific value, the ideal option is pellets from coke dust.
3. After 2–3 hours of intensive heating, add special additives to clean the furnace from soot, tar and tar. If there is no suitable chemistry at hand, throw several plastic bottles wrapped in 5–7 layers of paper onto the dead coals and bolt the firebox door. The temperature will expand the air inside and the light cotton will break the dense soot deposits.
4. When the stove cools down, clean the chimney from above with a brush with a weight, make sure that the chimney is not blocked by a foreign object.
5. Remove all combustion products from the completely cooled firebox and ash pan, clean the walls and check for cracks in the grate, remove the scale from the metal walls.
6. Remove stones from the chamber or pallet and sort them out, replacing the cracked ones.
7. Inspect the stove for defects in the case or masonry, restore them. Remove rust from the walls of the stove and place the stones back.

The maintenance of the electric sauna stove consists of breaking the stones, cleaning the container and tightening the electrical connections. Also, do not be lazy to check the condition of the heating elements..

Possible plumbing problems

In winter, the water supply to a free-standing bath is turned off, but even this sometimes does not save fittings and valves from depressurization. Turn on the water supply and inspect all pipes for leaks.

The most vulnerable places are quick-release and threaded connections, in which seals or sealant can become unusable due to temperature differences. Plastic cages of ball valves and cuffs in valves may suffer, replace faulty valves or repair them.

Outdoor plumbing also does not tolerate frost and frost accumulation, especially flexible hoses, the integrity of which must be checked first. Do not calm down in the absence of a leak, because the rubber tube could dry out, which means that it can burst at any time, so replace it at the slightest suspicion of a malfunction. Pay special attention to the repair of flexible metal-plastic pipeline: as practice shows, there are not enough such systems for more than one frosty winter.

What else needs to be done before using the bath

After cleaning and repairing the bath, you can use it. But what makes the bath really real? Of course, a complete assortment of bath accessories and, first of all, brooms. If last year’s ones are over or have become unusable – buy new ones, or even better – plan a trip to the forest for the first weeks of summer to harvest fresh bath brooms. At the same time, do not be too lazy to collect field herbs to tie them in bunches and hang them in the steam room.

Bath procedures will be much more pleasant and useful with the use of cosmetic, massage and essential oils, purchase them in advance. And if you have everything ready for the bath: slippers, hats, towels, bathrobes, then rather go to relax and tone your body, because there is still a lot of work at the dacha!