Do-it-yourself bathhouse
A tent on the bank of an unhurried beauty of the river in the shade of centuries-old trees, a starry sky and tea drinking by the fire, a fragrant ear of freshly caught fish – more and more people again prefer outdoor activities. Tourism is returning to fashion, because it is precisely such a pastime of a weekend or vacation that allows you to return to workplaces in stuffy rooms, having rested and discarded the burden of everyday worries. One of the problems that vacationers encounter is the inability to wash in normal conditions, and if the rest is also in the Altai mountains, then washing in raging ice rivers can be compared to extreme sports. There is a way out – this is a bathhouse. We will talk about them and their construction in this article..
Content
- The historical roots of the hiking baths
- Great option for summer residents
- Choose a place for a bath
- What industry offers
- Tarpaulin camping bathhouse
The historical roots of the hiking baths
The exact time of the appearance of the first camp baths cannot be indicated, but it is known for certain that structures already resembling Roman baths were erected during the military campaigns of the ancient Romans. In the descriptions of Russian military crossings of the 18th century, and even earlier periods, there are also mentions of camp baths, in which the role of a stone stove was played by cannonballs and firewood, and the walls of the room were constructed from dense fabric saturated with a special solution.
Great option for summer residents
Marching baths, despite its name, are a good option not only for people who prefer outdoor activities. Such a structure is ideal for suburban cottages and houses. Especially in the case when building materials are currently not affordable, and I really want to steam.
It is also an ideal option for construction crews, by the will of the employer abandoned at remote sites. In general, such baths will help fans to give the park in a variety of situations.
Choose a place for a bath
What can be compared with the pleasure received by lovers of light steam when dousing the steamed body with refreshing ice water! To get this pleasure, the place for the bathhouse should be selected near the pond. Ideally, it would be nice to build a structure over a small brook, then you always have cold water at hand.
It is better to build a camp bath near the water on stable, rather soft, but not viscous soil.
When choosing a place, the structure of the soil should be taken into account. You can not build a bathhouse on wet soil, in this case, the stakes can become loose and the whole structure will collapse. If the ground is too hard, it will cause some inconvenience when driving stakes..
What industry offers
A huge assortment of ready-made mobile baths is presented on the modern market. You can buy a design with a stove-stove or just an awning for covering. Some models are immediately equipped with a frame, while others imply an independent assembly of the base of the bath.
Ready-made hiking designs for baths can be purchased in specialized stores
Of course, if you purchase a completely ready-made kit that includes an oven, the problem with washing in the field will be completely solved, but it will be difficult to transport this rather massive structure. If you travel in groups on several cars, then this option is for you. Other travelers can be advised to purchase only an awning. Most likely, in the place where you will rest, there will certainly be some poles that can be used for the frame, and stones for the stove will not be a big problem, but these tents keep steam much better than polyethylene.
Tarpaulin camping bathhouse
A do-it-yourself sauna bathhouse can be easily assembled from an ordinary classic canvas tent of Soviet times. As a rule, they are highly waterproof, making them perfect for this purpose. In addition, in this case, you will not need to bring an additional tent with you. It’s enough, having done enough, to move the structure to the place of spending the night and it will again turn into a sleeping place.
Tip: do not use modern tents as a tent for a bath. As a rule, the material from which they are made does not withstand very high temperatures.
Instructions: the construction of a camp bath
So where to start?
We will prepare everything you need
First you need to prepare everything you need. We will need:
- Wireframe. It is best to use aluminum or carbon fiber racks. In order not to strain too much, you can take ready-made elements of a four-seater tent. Subject to all fire safety standards, they are able to withstand a fairly high temperature. If there’s nothing suitable for creating a frame with you, ordinary wooden stakes will do.
Tip: when using wooden materials, you must either treat them with special fire-fighting agents (which are unlikely to be in your camping backpack, but this advice may come in handy when building a temporary bath in your area), or carefully monitor their heating during operation in order to avoid tanning of the whole structure.
- Material for coating. If it is not possible to purchase a special tent or use the covering material of a tent, ordinary large-sized polyethylene will do. The optimum canvas size is 6×6 m. In a bathhouse constructed from a piece of polyethylene of this size, up to 6 people can soar at the same time.
Interesting: quite often recently there are hiking baths built from old banners that hold heat and steam very well and are highly resistant to high temperatures.
- Water. Without water, the bath loses all its meaning, so you need to arrange it on the shore of at least a small reservoir.
- The stones. It is necessary in advance to prepare a number of large rounded boulders. Please note that in one run you will need at least a bucket of stones. Chipped and heterogeneous stones, as well as layered and flat, are not suitable. They can crack when heated, and flying fragments can cause serious injury to vacationers. You should not use granite, which when heated to a certain temperature simply crumbles into sand.
- It is better to collect plenty of firewood than to experience their lack in the process of steaming. Dry trees should be taken with a diameter not exceeding 15 cm.
We describe step by step how to make a camping bath.
Camping stove
First you need to make a stove in which the stones will heat up. If you already have a finished furnace frame, it should be covered with large stones from two opposite sides, if possible without gaps. The two sides are left open to maintain traction during a bonfire. Next, cover the oven from two sides and on top with smaller stones. This will be the basis of our steam room.
This is how the oven should turn out, if you already have a ready frame
After that, you can light a fire. First, we put small slivers into the resulting structure and achieve smooth, constant burning. Now the cavity is completely filled with firewood. Combustion is maintained for a minimum of 2-2.5 hours, ideally from morning to evening. The flame must be strong and not fade for a minute.
But such a furnace should work if there is no metal frame
If there is no finished frame, then instead of it a base of large firewood is laid, and stones are laid out evenly with small gaps from above. The bonfire is set on fire and during the burning process, the procedure for laying firewood and stones is repeated many times until all boulders are covered by dense fire. Such a bonfire can burn up to 4 hours.
We build a frame for an awning
Pre-prepared racks are connected to each other in such a way that a design resembling a cube without a bottom is obtained. For ligaments, you can use any suitable material:
- insulating tape;
- Scotch;
- rope.
The ends of wooden stakes must be carefully wrapped with a cloth so that they do not tear the tent material.
Wooden stakes frame for camping bath
Tip: For greater stability of the structure, you can connect the diagonals of the roof with the help of poles.
Our bath sauna with a stove is almost ready, it remains to cover the frame and you can steam. Two options for further construction are possible: black and white.
The bathhouse is hiking in black
In this case, all the coals and ash are scrubbed out of the stove, and the entire space around it is carefully filled with water. The finished frame, together with an awning or polyethylene worn on it, is installed above the hot stones. Tanks with cold and hot water are brought in there (water can be heated in a pot over the same fire).
Tip: it’s better not to enter such a bathhouse without shoes, since when sweeping the firebox, small hot stones can remain on the ground and cause burns.
Wishing to soar in white
This bath is distinguished by the fact that the fireplace remains in the same place, but the hot boulders are quickly rolled with a shovel along a specially prepared path under the frame. The track also needs to be thoroughly watered with cold water. Now, very carefully, we put a tent on the frame, while it is important that there is a person inside, making sure that the canvas does not fall on hot boulders.
The main difference between the hiking baths in black and white is the location of the frame. In black baths it is located above the bonfire site, and in white baths it is separate, and hot stones roll into it
To make the bath hotter and stay functional for a long time, in both cases the ends of the shelter should be pressed to the ground with stones, pebbles or just sprinkled with sand.
What else can you need for a camping bath
Firstly, what bath without brooms? Therefore, a couple of these attributes should be taken with you from home. In field conditions such a broom is steamed just in cold water.
Secondly, when heating water for pouring stones, it is worth adding some fragrant grass, for example, lingonberry leaves, needles or juniper. In addition to the inhalation healing effect, you will also get great pleasure from inhaling an invigorating aroma.
Lung you a couple!
