Burnt cable, baked timber: what's behind the walls matters.
This one isn't really about maintenance. It's about making sure the right products go into your sauna build in the first place.
Use heat-resistant cable.
Most importantly, use heat-resistant cable. Even then, we prefer to run it in a conduit, with the conduit behind the insulation.
This three-phase cable burnt right through, down to the bare wires. It's from a five-star hotel here in Auckland. We won't name and shame; it wasn't their fault.
Not burnt. Baked.
The next one is from a regular home sauna where standard cable was used. This piece of timber hasn't burnt. It's been baked, because there was no vapour barrier.
A proper vapour barrier, imported from Finland.
Since day one, I've tried to find a proper sauna vapour barrier here in New Zealand. The main merchants (PlaceMakers, Mitre 10, Bunnings) don't carry one. So we import our own from Finland. There are other importers too.
The lighter test
An easy way to check your vapour barrier is the right stuff: take a small piece and hold a lighter to it.
Drips black and disappears
It's plastic. Not good.
Paper burns off, foil stays
You're left with a thin sheet of aluminium. You're good to go.
What we found, photographed.
