Charles wrote:

"Redneckbikerjedi" wrote:

I was at a massage therapist several years ago, and I was asked if I
wanted a sauna prior to. (I have crippling arthritis in my back and
knees) I was put in an enclosed shower on a bench with some towels -
it was enclosed wall to floor with glass walls and doors. There was a
spigot at the floor that was turned on and it was piping in very hot
and very humid air into the shower. In short time it was nice and
toasty and my pain eased up.

Sounds like steam, vs a dry sauna...

I have been thinking about hiring a contractor to build a sauna for me
to help with my pain, but if I can just enclose my shower and do it
that way, I can save a fortune. A plumber for a couple hours beats
shelling out thousands for a sauna right now...

I made a steam generator to bend wood from a $20 1500 watt coffee urn,
bypassing the thermostat and adding a tube to the top. Autofill would be
nice, eg a toilet or stock tank float valve on a cold water bucket that
connects with a tube to the urn spigot. You might push the steam output
tube into a downsloping hole in the drainpipe above the trap.

Keeping a shower enclosure 120 F with a thermostat controlling the steam
generator in a 70 F room with 1500x3.41 = 5.1K Btu/h makes the enclosure
conductance 102 Btu/h-F max. If it's 2'x6'x8', its 152 ft^2 of surface
needs needs an R152/102 = R1.5 R-value, not much. I'd go higher, eg R15,
like 2" of foil-faced polyiso foamboard with fiberglass facing, to lower
the average power to 150 watts.

Does a long soak in a really hot tub offer any relief? I have similar
problems and just use that... I refresh the hot water often (every 10 min.)
... one hour is the minimum time to get lasting relief.

A remote bulb hot tub thermostat might bubble steam into the tub water
from a non-conductive tube over the side to keep it 105 F, adding less
than 5 lb/h of water.

Nick