A Treehouse with sauna
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Have you ever thought of having a treehouse with a sauna in your garden? Mr Herbison built it, just read what he told us!
“I live in Pittsford , NY a suburb of Rochester. My home is at the entrance of Powder Mill Park. The tree house is in an apple tree that I planted 35 years ago in bears quite a lot of apples. The project was started at the request of one of my grandchildren. I took a lot of books out of the local library on treehouse construction and construction in general. This is the first time I have ever built a structure, but have done a lot of remodeling projects both at my home and at my dental office. I just completed the deck around the tree house Spring 2013. What is unique about this tree house, is the sauna. With the trap door closed, it is no problem heating the sauna up to 140F. With the trap door open, the sauna acts as a tree house heater. The sauna floor is fairly flat so I decided to use brick pavers for the floor. I didn’t like the feel of the cold sauna floor so I installed electric radiant heat under the bricks. I wasn’t sure if this would work, but it really works great. It is thermostatically controlled with a sensor, the type of heat pad used under ceramic floor tile. The electricity used is equivalent to a 100W light bulb, so we leave the heat on all the time during the Winter. The tree house is very well insulated, so the radiant heat from the floor of the sauna takes the edge off the interior tree house temperature during our cold Rochester winters. I was concerned about the weight of the pressure treated wood used to construct the tree house, so I placed 4×6 support beams at the corners of the tree house. These post go below the frost line in the ground and are not connected to the tree house. The photos show that at the top of the support beams are 3/4” bolts that are adjustable, and are only for support. Engineering the junction between the upper and lower section of the tree house was somewhat complicated as there is really no direct physical connection between the two. When the deck was added, I wanted it to be at the level of the upper section of the tree house, in needed to be supported from below, so the framework of the deck is attached to the upper section and supported at the perimeter by posts with adjusting bolts as shown by the photos. There is a large llimb that passes through the sauna. This is boxed out and very well insulated..
Some of the unique features of the tree house include, oak hardwood floor, coal burning pot belly stove, large slide, rock climbing wall, climbing rope, zip line, rock climb passage from sauna to 2nd floor (interior rock climbing wall), skylight, full electric, cedar plank walls in the sauna, heated paver brick sauna floor”. Richard Herbison Thank you Mr. Herbison, enjoy your treehouse-sauna for me too! More pics in the gallery below. Pics by Richard Herbison |
