Dry sauna in Palembang: a cabin built to your room

What working conditions must a dry sauna in Palembang survive?

Ambient humidity of 75 to 89 per cent, essentially, which is the entire design brief in one number. Fix a cabin straight to bare brickwork and it traps its own moisture, and within two or three years the smell tells you exactly where that moisture went. Ours goes up in layers instead: a lining panel, 50 mm of rockwool, aluminium foil taped as a continuous vapour barrier, a 20 mm ventilation gap, then the visible cladding. Supply and extract vents sit on opposite walls so the room actually exchanges air instead of stewing in it.

The same logic decides the timber. Western red cedar and Scandinavian spruce line most rooms, thermowood steps in where budget allows since the heat-treatment process has already removed most of its movement, and benches are always aspen or abachi so nobody sits down onto something that burns. Ulin and bengkirai are genuinely excellent hardwoods, just not for this job - they stay outdoors on the decking, which is where their strengths actually apply.

The four sizes we install most often around the city

In the Talang Kelapa and Alang-Alang Lebar clusters, the usual move is a spare bedroom turned into a 2x2 m red cedar room for four on a 6 kW heater. Bigger houses around Bukit Besar and Demang Lebar Daun go up to a 2.4x2 m six-seat room on 8 kW, often with a glass door onto the terrace. Clubs and academies near Jakabaring want eight seats at 3x2.4 m, benches long enough to lie on, and a floor that can be hosed down between groups.

• Two seats, 1.5x1.2 m, pinewood, 3.6 kW - an indicative IDR 55-70 million.
• Four seats, 2x2 m, red cedar, 6 kW - an indicative IDR 75-95 million.
• Six seats, 2.4x2 m, thermowood, 8 kW - an indicative IDR 110-150 million.
• Eight seats, 3x2.4 m, 9 kW - an indicative IDR 150-200 million.

Regardless of size, the heater is always a Harvia, a Sawo or a Tylo, with matching elements and stones kept on our own shelf in Ilir Barat I.

Sizing the electrical supply for a dry sauna here

More than most houses come wired for. A two-person 3.6 kW heater needs 5,500 VA; four people at 6 kW needs 7,700 VA; 8-9 kW wants 11,000 VA; and the ten and twelve kilowatt club-sized cabins run on three phase. Heritage houses in Talang Semut and the older streets of Ilir Timur commonly sit at 2,200 to 4,400 VA, so a PLN application comes first, with the upgrade fee paid by the owner while we prepare the load calculation behind it.

Our part of that job is the circuit itself: heat-resistant SiHF cable run from the consumer unit, its own dedicated breaker, an ELCB, kept clear of the insulation. If raising the supply genuinely is not possible, we will say so upfront and suggest an infrared cabin at 1.7-2.4 kW rather than sell a heater the house cannot support. Running a finished sauna room costs an indicative IDR 200,000-500,000 a month at four or five sessions weekly.

Indicative pricing

These are planning numbers - the fixed price comes after a free look at the room.