When I had my house built I didn’t have the money for a steam room at the time. It looks like I will have the money available in the next few months to make this happen. I should point out that I had done a bit of planning for the future steam room, I did not have a tub put in and I made the shower stall fit in where the tub would have been. The shower stall is the area were I would make the steam room.
Do I start with a plumber or a builder or what?
There are lots of ways to build a steam room. The easiest is to remove your tub enclosure and buy an all-in-one steam bath. These are acrylic enclosures that are fully watertight so you don’t get humidity problems, and have steam generators built into them.
Another way is to build out a room, put a vapor barrier in it, buy a steam generator, and go nuts.
I built a sauna in our house from a kit for about $2,000. You can build a steam room for a similar amount of money if you’re willing to do the work yourself. The standalone steam bath enclosures will run at least that amount of money as well. Really nice ones from Fiat or Kohler can run 5 grand or more.
In any event, you’ll need to have an electrician wire up the steam generator. If you just want to hire professionals to do it all, call up a plumbing supply house that carries steam bath equipment and ask them for contractors in your area who can do the work.
I want to build out the space that I have, or rather I want someone else to do it for me. I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler, so I don’t want to try and tackle something that is going to affect the value of my home.
So, knowing that I want a space built out to be a steam room is my first call to a plumber or a builder?
We had an extra bathroom converted to a steam room. Absolutely love it.
We first did a lot of research on the web. There are many sites like this one with advice on what to do. Steamist – The Ultimate Luxury Steam Shower Experience
I can’t find the site now, but there was one with a picture of what we had in mind, and used that as a guideline when interviewing home builder/general contractors to bid on the project. One guy didn’t want to do it, since he hadn’t done one before, but the others had done similar jobs so we had several bids to pick from. They also had some ideas we hadn’t thought of, and ended up incorperating ideas from all we interviewed.
The process was to first completely gut the bathroom which the homebuilder guy did himself. He then had his electrical guy come map out where the steam unit would go. We had two benches built around the sides, so it fit under the bench. Then he had the plumber come and put some pipes in and map out where the shower head would go. Then the homebuilder guy had one employee help him and tiled everything top to bottom in one day. The electical guy and plumber came back to hook everything up, and it was done.
We originally weren’t thinking we would have a shower head put in, we already had two showers in our home. But we are so glad we did. It is great to steam for 20 minutes, then just turn the shower on. The shower head just comes out of the wall directly across from the benches. We kept the existing window but replaced it with opaque glass, so we have natural light coming in, which is very nice.
Two things I wish we had done differently. I wish the benches were sloped a bit more, sometimes water pools on them. And the pattern of the tile on the ceiling really wasn’t the best design for the water to run down the walls. We used smaller tiles there, but now think larger ones would have been better. But neither of these are real problems, just things that should have been done a bit differently.
Botttom line, it was the best home improvement we have made. We use it everyday. Even if we don’t have time to steam first, we still love using the large shower room.
So back to your original question. I would line up several recommended home builders who specialize in bathroom remodeling. You may find several that have already done something similar to what you are wanting, and may give you some ideas you hadn’t thought of. Once you pick one, he acts as general contractor and uses plumbers, electrical people, and workers he knows.
The biggest price differences came from the cost of the actual stream unit, and what tile would be used. The guy we picked didn’t see a need to jack the price of either of those two things up. We gave him websites of companies that made the stream units, and when he found what he needed, we just paid for it directly. Some of the other general contractors were going to charge us much more than the actual cost. Same with the tile. He recommended where we go, what kind it needed to be and how much to order, and we just bought. That put his bid about $4,000 less than the others, and made the actual cost comparable to just buying a full unit and placing it the space we had.
Good luck! I am sure you will love it once it was done.
Thanks for that reply Grits and Hard Toast. That is what sort of information I was looking for.
My father has had a steam room in all the houses he has lived in since I’ve been alive. I know I’ll love it, because I already do.