I am in the “thinking” phase of finishing my walkout basement. The first step will be building a bath (stool / sink / shwer). My wife sometimes has migraines and she finds that the steam from the hot shower in our current master bath helps a lot. So she asked me about installing (building) a “steam shower” in the new bath. I havn’t done a LOT of research yet but it appears a REAL steam shower contains a unit that actually produces steam, and so is more than I want to takle or pay for.
My thought is a regular shower with glass doors that totally enclose / seal the shower. There is one pictured in the current issue of FHB. My question is:
1) I know it’s possible to built a fully encloseable shower and I suspect that running a hot shower will produce / capture a ton of steam. That would meet her needs / wants. But how about when I want to take a regular shower and not get lost in the fog? I can’t imaging a vent fan inside the shower….. is that’s how it’s done?????
Those of you who do baths for a living – have you seen / built such a shower? What kind of venting is done ?
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Dick J
Replies
I built a steam shower for an back injury victim about 4 years ago. To vent steam from my walk in unit I put a glass transom over the hinged door and a big a**ed exhaust fan (panasonic) on a timer right above the transom. Also remember it you are building a steam shower from scratch to tilt the ceiling about an inch towards the back wall. This way condensing steam will not rain on you(very cold) but run to the back wall by adhesion and then down the wall
I didn't do the installation myself, but I worked on a bath where they had installed a steam unit. The unit was located remotely, and then steam was fed by a copper line to a outlet in the wall of the shower. The unit required a 220v line.
Steam unit was easy to install, especially if you won't have to go through heroics to get a 220v line to it.
Shower had a tiled bench inside, and a special door that was sealed more than a regular shower door. Higher than usual cfm vent was located on the ceiling of the bath just outside the shower. Pretty sure it was a Panasonic.
I talked to the guy about two months after everything was done, and he raved about how great it was.
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"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
you should get one of these:
http://www.maax.com/en/Products/ProductInfo.aspx?Brand=2&CodeCategory=B&ProductType=32&Product=1338
we put one of these in last year for a customer and they love it.
they are very reasonably priced and are not difficult to install.
also comes in a 60" model in case you want to join her.
carpenter in transition