8 Fantastic Reasons to Build a Steam Room in Your Home

Steam Rooms Aren't Just for Gyms and Spas Anymore

You can spend as little as $1000 or as much as $20,000 to create a steam room in your home.  If you're like me, you want to have a pretty good reason to spend even a $1000.  So why would I spend around a $1000 to add a steam room to my current tub/shower, $2000 or so for a prefab steam room, or $5000 or more for a steam room as part of a built in remodel?  Here's ten pretty good reasons.

 1) Increase the value of your home — bathroom remodeling projects return an average of 102% on their investment – Generally only kitchen and bathroom home improvement projects return more than they cost.  And 102% might even be conservative.  Turning an old bathroom into a stylish, state-of-the-art bathroom could easily add $25,000 to the value of a $400,000 house, and $50,000 to the value of a $1,500,000 home.   A steam room component alone should add $10,000 to the value of a $400,000 house and $15,000 to the value of a $1,500,000 home.

2)  A home steam room makes you happier —  Being able to hop into a steam room is a simple pleasure that you will enjoy every day of your life.  And you can find surveys that show that the the Swedes and the Finns are some of the happiest folks on earth.  They know the value of steam baths.

3)  Look better — There are some scientific studies showing the benefits of steam that indicate that it’s good for your skin.  One is stress reduction, because stress is proven to cause breakouts.  Another is cleaning out your pores.  Another study, conducted in Italy, indicated that individuals who steam reduced the # of visibly clogged pores by 40% after just 7 steaming sessions in a two week period.

4)  Impress your friends — I’m not sure how much of a benefit this really is, but it’s a fact:  your friends will be impressed (and a bit jealous) when they see that you have a steam room in your house.
So you can make your house better, improve your quality of life, and make money at the same time.

5)  Health benefits - As noted in and earlier post here, studies indicated that steam is very helpful in fighting off colds and reducing symptoms. 

6)  Relief for sore muscles - Of this we have no doubt.  Every coach or physical therapist will recommend heat for some injuries or sore muscle situations.  And if you've ever tried steam as a way to speed up the recovery time after heavy use of your muscles, you already knew this.

7)  Sell your house faster - There are a few things that just make a house super appealing.  A built in outdoor bbq for the husband, an amazing modern kitchen for the wife.  A steam bath, especially a steam bath in a beautiful master bath, could tip the scales on your home time after time.

8)  And best of all, add Eucalyptus Oil for Aromatherapy - You can dramatically increase all of the above benefits, plus add even more by adding some pure eucalyptus oil to the steam in your home steam bath.

Steam Room Benefits to Your Health and Well Being

Sauna benches (Photo credit: Matti Mattila)

Steam Rooms Promote Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Wellness...Even Before You Add Eucalyptus

There may be some who will argue whether or not there are therapeutic benefits to steam rooms.  There are even a few who might try to prove that there may be some dangers with steam rooms.  After exhausting just about every well written (if not necessarily research based) article about steam baths available, and throwing in humidifiers to boot, here is the conclusion:

Steam Rooms May Provide benefits to circulation, detoxification, muscle relaxation, and respiration, or, maybe not.  Here's the dope.

Humans have believed for at least hundreds if not thousands of years that steam is good for the respiratory system, skin, and muscles.  We lay people have observed that dry whether causes chapping of lips, skin, the inside of our noses and even our throats.  We use steam baths, hot showers, facial saunas, and humidifiers (both room and whole-house) in our attempt to balance out nature's dry climates or seasons. 

While science seems to be having difficulty proving one way or the other whether steam might help with chapping, including the chapping of our throats that leads to sore throats and colds, lay observation seems to confirm for us enough relief or benefit to continue to use these methods. 

Open those pores - When we sweat, and sweating is the main activity in a steam room, our pores open wide and we sweat out water.  This process is widely touted as a way to sweat out unwanted toxins and just plain dirt that we don't want clogging up our pores.  Science is mixed on this.  But one might conclude that we would all stop doing it if there was no evidence of effectiveness.

Soothe Aching Muscles - Heating our skin, increases blood circulation.  The body's response is to direct more blood to the skin's surface and the muscles.  With more blood flow, the build up of lactic acid from a muscle that has been worked will be expelled more quickly.  The blood also bring oxygen and nutrients needed to help the muscle heal. 

Clean Out Your Nasal Passages - If you need scientific proof of this effect, you've never been in a steam room.  Your nose will run, and your nasal passages will be clean afterwords.  Does this help prevent colds, reduce cold symptoms, or speed recovery.  Many websites point to a study at the University of Munich that makes multiple claims as to possible benefits related to respiratory issues.  If you can find that original study, please send me an email or give me a link in the comments.  I can find no evidence that the study exists.

One study that is showing up online is here:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15106160 - General conclusion that steam helps common cold.  "MAIN RESULTS:  The results of a systematic review of six trials with 319 participants, support the use of warm vapour inhalations in the common cold in terms of relief of symptoms"

What do you think?  I personally think that Steam Rooms are great.  And if you want to be sure you are getting some of those therapeutic benefits, make sure your steam room has 100% pure, pharmaceutical grade eucalyptus oil in the steam.  There are plenty of studies to show the benefit of the eucalyptus oil, and what a great way to administer this aromatic essential oil, than while relaxing in a steam room.

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