Steam rooms in Makassar for homes, hotels and gyms

Steam room versus dry sauna: what is actually different

The difference is heat versus moisture. A timber sauna runs 70-90 degrees with dry air; a steam room holds 40-45 degrees with the air close to saturated, inside tile and glass. The milder temperature suits people who find a hot cabin hard, and the wet air is why hotels near Losari and gyms on Jalan Pengayoman like to place one next to the changing area.

• A 6-9 kW generator sized to the volume of the room, mounted in its own cupboard where it can be serviced easily.
• Full tanking across floor and walls before a single tile goes down, with the floor already falling toward the drain.
• A ceiling with enough slope that condensation runs to the walls rather than dripping straight onto the bench.
• Mosaic or large tiles, a formed bench, a tempered glass door and an outlet for aroma oil.

None of that is decoration. In a city already sitting at 80 per cent ambient humidity, a steam room that lets vapour into the surrounding wall will show it in the paintwork within a single season.

Why we build a steam room like an upside-down bathroom

While the room is hot, steam keeps trying to push out through the walls, not only when someone is showering. We therefore build it as a sealed tank: a membrane over the slab and up every wall, every pipe penetration sealed, a fall of at least one per cent to the drain, and glass seated in a channel instead of on a line of silicone. A slight slope in the ceiling sends condensation to the sides rather than onto your head.

The same logic drives most of our renovation work, which is a big share of what we do here. Older hotel and gym rooms around Panakkukang and Tanjung Bunga tend to fail in one of three spots: tanking under the seat, a scaled-up generator, or a ceiling with no slope at all. Rebuilding one runs an indicative IDR 15-50 million.

Power, water supply and drainage

A 6-9 kW steam generator needs 7,700-11,000 VA, so most houses need the same PLN upgrade as a dry sauna, at the owner's cost. It also needs a clean, ideally softened, water supply: Makassar mains water scales the element quickly, and scale is the most common reason an older steam room slowly stops producing steam. A trapped drain goes under the room, and the generator has its own breaker and ELCB.

Hotel and gym rooms get sized for a 12-16 hour duty cycle instead of one family evening, which pushes changes into the generator, the ventilation and even the tile adhesive we use. A commercial room from 3x2.4 m up starts at an indicative IDR 150 million across four to eight weeks, while houses in Tamalanrea, Hertasning and Sungguminasa usually take the standard 2x2 m turnkey version.

How the three-to-five-week build unfolds

Week one covers demolition and tanking. Week two brings the generator, pipework and electrical runs. Weeks three and four are tiling, the ceiling slope, the seat and the glass. The last few days are commissioning: we run the room up to temperature, check the drain, door seal and ELCB with you watching, and hand over a maintenance schedule that mostly comes down to descaling the generator every two to three months.

Still deciding? The dry sauna is the drier, quicker build, and the cold plunge is what most gyms end up installing next to a steam room anyway. Figures for all three sit on the price page.

What it costs

Figures are indicative in rupiah; work outside the enclosure itself gets its own line on the quote.