Steam Showers for Dummies

Commercial steam shower

If you've never used a steam shower, we strongly suggest you try one out some day: they combine the therapeutic advantages of a steam room with a regular shower, all in the space of an overgrown shower stall, Now that the advertising's done, though, we suggest that you don't ask eHow.com's Jan Goldfield for help installing one, at least based on the mess she made of her post "How to Build a Steam Shower."¹ For one thing, you don't build a steam shower, you install one...

We suggest you avoid this rubbish and go straight to someone who's actually seen, nay, sold and installed steam showers. The answers may not all agree with each other, but at least you'll have the benefit of experience – not from some clueless freelancer who claims that...

"A steam shower is very difficult to make. There is so much liability involved that most contractors will not bother with them."

Well, actually, your contractor will probably subcontract with a company that will "bother with them," so no problemo. FWIW, if you're looking at eHow for help, shouldn't you be hiring a pro instead?

Anyway... among Goldfield's weird and wonderful prose, we found these tidbits: Find a cross laminated virgin polyethylene vapor barrier... ...someone has to hold the vapor barrier tight to the ceiling while the other person begins to nail it... Cover all wall and ceiling surfaces with tile... ...Use clear 100 percent silicone caulk to attach the cultured marble to the cement board...

Now we have to be realistic here: if you're going to "build a steam shower" -- by which we guess someone wants to build a steam shower enclosure -- there are a few things you need, among them a floor drain and a door; not to mention the vents and the plumbing electrical hookups. So let's be straightforward here: Jan, in the absence of any idea what she was talking about, found some now-defunct website that had a few things to say about building the enclosure... and screwed it up.

Besides, why not just buy a prefabricated steam shower unit and install it, huh?

Goldfield's rush to collect her stipend, combined with the content editor's total lack of knowledge, yielded an article that borders on completely worthless: it contains nonsensical instructions while leaving out much of the most basic information. Is that enough to acknowledge with Dumbass of the Day award? We say, "Yup."

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_4461065_build-steam-shower.html

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