The stoveroom or heated room is the heart of the sauna complex. When most people hear the word sauna, this is what they are thinking of. Essentially, the stoveroom is a well insulated, wood-lined room with a simple, peaceful and efficient design. A typical sauna is square or rectangular in shape, and contains only a stove, and two or three tiers of benches. The room is usually well ventilated and has flooring with slight gaps between the boards.

The dimensions of the stoveroom are integral to the sauna's performance. You want to find the proper balance between the total area available, the number of people who will use the sauna at a given time, the size of the stove you use for heating, the thickness if insulation and the size and positioning of the ventilation.

Stoveroom sizes

Stoverooms can be designed to accommodate anywhere from one or two people up to even a dozen or more bathers. A stoveroom for a single individual could be as small as 3 x 3 feet wide, easily fitting into a bedroom closet or small corner location. Stoverooms that are built to have many patrons such as a 10 foot by 14 foot model are the size of a large room and often found in freestanding buildings that are virtually miniature cottages and built apart from the home. A typical family sauna is eight feet by ten feet, easily seating 4 or 5 people, while still being small enough to fit inside a typical family home. Due to the not overly large size, this would not require a powerful stove like larger saunas. The smaller saunas are cheaper to build as they require less materials.

Typically experts recommend that a stoveroom should be at least 65 cubic feet per bather. This allows for stretching and breathing space. It also allows each bather their own personal space in a rather constricted area and helps to guarantee a relatively constant temperature. It is important to note that a stoveroom's ceiling should never be higher than 7 feet. Lower ceilings keep the heat down close to the bathers and prevent drafts which can occur when hot air has more space to circulate upwards. Some saunas incorporate a slanted roof design where the room slopes up from the stove to high benches where bathers can enjoy the hottest part of the room.

When designing a stoveroom, it is an important goal to attempt to maximize the amount of seating and reclining space per bather. As most individuals will simply sit in a sauna make sure that you minimize the floor space (they won't want to be walking around) while maximizing benches and seating. Most often benches will follow a multi tiered L-shape or U-shaped plan. The number of tiers depends on the variety you want people to have in choosing a temperature level that suits them. Lower tiers will have lower temperatures and allow bathers to escape the more intense heat found on the higher benches. Make sure that benches are designed to be quite wide as many patrons will prefer to recline rather than sit. Benches should be 1.5 to 2 feet in depth and provide approximately 2 feet per bather.