2 Weeks for the price of 1

Things got a little bit hectic here. Ari, he had one more week with me, so it was imperative that we finished putting the internal walls in place, before he left for pastures new, it was just coming up to the Finnish festival for midsummer, or Juhannus as it is called here, this is when everyone celebrates, usually with copious amounts of beer, sausage, trips into the countryside and lazing by one of the numerous lakes, being bitten by mosquitoes is just an occupational hazard.

One of my old army friends, Tony, decided to take a break from his normal routine, he came over on Midsummer's eve, accompanied by his brother, Barry, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I was only too willing to recruit a couple of slaves for the week, putting them to work was very easy for me, I could watch people work all day.


Internal wall, insulation fitted for soundproofing.


Kitchen wall, battens fitted, to support cupboards.



Shower pipes fitted, normally they are horizontal, as we have a corner unit cabinet they must be fitted vertically.

Bedroom wall, light switch and socket box fitted.



Components for a tap fitting, corner box, brass pipe connector. sorry about picture quality.


Start by pushing water pipes through corner box.Connect brass pipe fittings, this is using compression washer system. insert pipe into fitting, tighten the nut onto the compression washer, push fitting into the box, pull pipes through until the protective pipes slip into the box and lock them in place.


Drill a couple of holes in the wall where you want the fitting to project, place fitting in situ, put a support batten behind fitting to hold in place, that's it, easy as pie.

How it looks from the other side.integrated vacuum cleaner box in place.

Living room and hallway walls, waiting on the art directors appearance.



Waiting on Harri to fit the fuse box.

Framework for the fusebox, starting to look a lot tidier.





Tarja, The art director at work.

The pattern for the kitchen tiles, that should keep me off the streets for a few days.


Bathroom walls, these are made from a different type of board, stone based, similar to asbestos, with none of the properties of asbestos, it withstands water, therefor will not go soft or rot, we still put waterproofing on top of it anyway.
That took care of all the internal walls, after this, it was time to put Tony and Barry to work, Tony waterproofed some walls and Barry was helping Tarja with the joint filling.
Tony, putting vapour sealant on the utility rooms wall, this wall is where the water heater will be situated, also the connection for the water pipes, washing machine/dryer, and ventilation systems machine.
Barry. Giving Tarja a helping hand with the joint filling.

We switched over to fit the ventilation system.
This system is really quite straightforward, air is inducted to the machine from the outside, put through a heat exchanger then expelled into the living room and bedrooms, air is extracted via the bathrooms, toilets, kitchen and boxroom, there is also a recycling facility on the machine, whereby it extracts air from the heat magazine in the fireplace, this air is mixed with the fresh air from outside and pumped back into the house, if it works correctly, then the heat exchanger does not have to work so hard to heat cold air, therefor reducing our heating costs, believe me, heating the outside air when it is 30 below is not very economical.

Ventilation machine, this is its final position, glad I don't have to lift it, it is quite a heavy appliance.

Tony, cutting a hole in the wall enabling the pipe to pass from the sauna into the bathroom.

Silencer fitted to pipes, there is some insulation between the box and the frame to cut down on any resonance.

Pipework in the bathroom, these pipes are hidden between the lowered ceiling and the attic, no need to be insulated.

Pipework in the attic, these must be insulated, this averts any condensation build up, preventing dripping ventilators.

Induction and extraction pipes

Induction pipe to living room.

It took a couple of days to fit the system, 1st day was the extraction side of things, 2nd day was the induction, I could not have done this job on my own, the pipes are just push fits, but it takes a great deal of effort, requiring 2 guys at least, the pipes are plastic, it is easier to work with than the metal ones, no need to rivet joints, tape around them, just to prevent any leakage, Barry assisted us by cutting all the pipes to length, averting the necessity of climbing up and down all the time.

Tony, after his first visit here, was very keen on the idea of building a Sauna back in UK, well the best way to learn is if someone shows you and lets you assist.saunas are very common in Finland, almost every house has one, even apartment blocks have saunas in the basements, it goes way back in their history, the three main types are, Electric, = convenient, wood burning, very popular and hot, requiring a chimney and lots of time, best of all is a smoke sauna, same as wood burning, but without the chimney, (the smoke is let out of the sauna before using it) these are more common in the countryside and very popular.

First comes the insulation, in this case 10 cm rockwool, application courtesy of Tony.

Ceiling insulated.

Then a special, paper backed tinfoil is attached to the frame.


All the joints are taped with aluminium foil tape, purpose being, it provides a reflector for the heat, secondly, acts as a vapour seal, preventing steam to penetrate into the wooden frame. After everything is taped, battens are nailed onto the frame, these are to provide an air gap between the tinfoil reflector allowing the sauna panels to dry out properly, the sauna panels are nailed onto these battens.
Support battens, these are for the benches to be screwed firmly to the walls, or for any other heavy item to be screwed to the wall, the sauna oven for instance, in our case we have a free standing one. the hanging cables are the fibre optic lights.
Basically, that is the preparation work for the sauna, all that remains is panelling and building the benches, Tony is now looking at his options, tooled himself up with a small nail gun,(amazing the souveniers some people pick up) this will help him make a better job of it.

The Art director instructed me to make special frame to hold her latest creation, this will be fitted onto the centre of the sauna ceiling, this is where the fibre optic lights will come into play.
While all this was going on Barry assisted me by putting all the supports for the light boxes on the ceiling,

Barry, measuring where the light box will be positioned.
Cutting a support batten for the light box.

I'm happy to say the lads did rather well, they left the workplace intact, no spare fingers lying about for me to pick up later.

Say what you like, ARMY friends have to be the best in the world, after 30 years they are still willing to come over at their own expense and help on this project, THANKS GUYS.