The gym I go to has a steam room in the locker room. There’s a relatively short (4 or 5 foot) hose attached to a spigot on the wall.
What’s its purpose? It can’t be to spray the sensor plate to turn the steam on before its scheduled start, since the rules posted outside the steam room expressly forbid doing this. It can’t be to hose down the seating areas because it’s too short to reach all of them.
The only reason I can come up with is for people to rinse themselves at the beginning or in the middle of their steam bath. (Not at the end, because the steam room is just a few feet from the showers, where you can set the temperature to whatever you like.)
If this is the purpose for the hose, why would someone want to do this?
You made a good guess. The classical way to use a sauna is to cool yourself off in the middle, as well as at the end. But yes, everywhere I went, people just used it to abuse the sensor. But then again, they put the hose right next to the sensor, wadda they 'spect to happen?
Washing off the bench between users is what I’ve seen done at the local Y. (When they’re not shooting it at the temperature sensor.) Even if the hose is short you can put your thumb over the end and aim a fan of water pretty far across the room to reach any seating area.