The checks behind the most thorough sauna and steam room installer in Cairo
Thorough means every part of the room that meets water, heat or damp air gets designed before anything is built. Each point below can be checked before you sign.
- The room gets assessed first. You hear whether the room can take a sauna, a steam room or a jacuzzi before any figure comes up.
- Engineers on our own staff. Structural, hydraulic and MEP engineering sit inside the company, so the slab, the drainage, the wiring and the air come from one side of the table.
- Our own site teams. The people laying the membrane and fixing the benches are our employees, on our payroll.
- Waterproofing with a name on it. Steam rooms and jacuzzi shells get a Sika or BASF Master Builders Solutions system, and the system is named on the quote.
- Equipment you can look up. Pumps, filters and fittings for the jacuzzi come from Hayward, Pentair, AstralPool and Aqua Water Systems, with Schneider Electric on the automation.
- One accountable team. The same company carries the wet zone from the first drawing through to maintenance after handover.
- Extra work priced in writing first. Anything beyond the agreed scope gets a written price before it starts.
Twenty five years of water and concrete, run from Nasr City
We have worked on pools, and the water around them, in Egypt since 2001. Twenty five years under one name. The office is at 15 El-Lewaa Mahmoud Samy Basha, Al Mintaqah as Sādisah, Nasr City, Cairo Governorate 10506, Egypt. Office hours are Saturday to Thursday, 9am to 5pm. Closed Friday.
A steam room puts water against its walls every time it runs, for years. The company that sealed it should still pick up the phone when the first decade is over.
Five things a room needs before it takes a sauna or a steam room
The cabin is the easy part. The room it goes into decides whether a wet zone lasts.
- A floor drain on a proper waste run. A steam room and a jacuzzi room each need one, with a trap that keeps its water seal. A sauna needs one for washing down.
- Its own electrical circuit. A sauna heater and a steam generator each get a dedicated, protected circuit from the board, sized by our MEP engineers.
- A route for air to the outside. Damp air from a steam room or from open water has to leave the building, through an outside wall, a riser or the roof.
- A floor that can be built up. Falls to the drain, a membrane, an adhesive bed and tile all add height.
- Ceiling height left over. A top bench still needs headroom once the floor is built up.
Of the five, the drain and the air route most often decide the answer, because both are hard to add once a room is finished.
A room planned at shell stage, and a room already finished
When the wet zone goes on the drawings while the villa or the club is still a concrete frame, the drain goes in before the slab is finished, the riser is left open and the supply is sized at the board. In a finished room, every pipe, duct and cable has to be cut or chased through finished work, and in some rooms there is no route at all. Which of the two you have changes the job, the programme and the price.
Saunas, steam rooms and jacuzzis are three different builds
Each one puts a different load on the room.
| Sauna | Steam room | Jacuzzi and spa | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conditions in the room | Hot and very dry | Cooler and fully saturated | Warm water, all the time |
| Inside surface | Timber | Tile on a sealed, waterproofed shell | Tile or mosaic on a waterproofed shell |
| Heat source | Heater and stones inside the cabin | Generator outside the room | Heater on the circulation |
| Main trades | Joinery and electrics | Waterproofing and tiling | Structure, waterproofing and plant |
| Water to get rid of | Floor washing | Constant condensation | Backwash, overflow and emptying |
Saunas
A sauna asks for a dedicated circuit for the heater, clearances around the heater set by its maker, air coming in low and leaving high, and a door that opens outward and never locks.
Timber and heater can be changed later. The drain and the air route stay where they were built.
Steam rooms, sealed like the inside of a pool
Every surface in a steam room is wet whenever it runs. So the room gets built as a water-holding structure: a continuous membrane across floor, walls and ceiling, taken around every pipe and light fitting, falls to a trapped drain, and a ceiling sloped so the drips run to the walls instead of onto the bench.
The steam generator sits outside the room, in a dry, ventilated space with power, a water supply, a drain and space for someone to descale it.
A jacuzzi or spa beside the pool
A jacuzzi is a small pool with heated water and massage jets, so it gets a pool's engineering: a structural shell, a waterproofing system, and pumps, filters and heating in a plant space. Upstairs or on a roof, our structural engineers check its weight first. Indoors, the open water keeps putting moisture into the air, so the ventilation gets sized to the water surface.
One design for the pool, the jacuzzi and the wet zone
Pieces added one at a time by different contractors end up competing for the same drain and the same air, so we design the whole zone once.
A pool with a jacuzzi on one side and a sauna and steam room on the other shares its drainage, its power and its air. Our MEP engineers size the ventilation and the dehumidification against the steam room and the open water of the pool and the jacuzzi together. The plant room, the drainage runs and the air routes then serve the whole zone, with Schneider Electric automation bringing the pumps, the heating and the lighting onto one set of controls.
Wet zones for gyms, clubs and hotels
If you run a gym, a club or a hotel, a closed steam room is a complaint at reception for every day it stays shut.
Commercial wet zones get designed with your architects and consultants, with the structural, hydraulic and MEP engineering kept in house. Drawings and site questions come back from one company. Steam generators, pumps and controls go where your maintenance staff can service them from outside the room.
After handover, a maintenance contract leaves one contractor answering for the pool, the jacuzzi and the steam room together.
Where we build saunas, steam rooms and wet zones across Greater Cairo
Our teams leave the Nasr City office six days a week. Ask any swimming pool company Cairo has to offer who designs the drain, the air and the power for a wet zone, and whether those people are on its staff.
| Part of the city | Areas |
|---|---|
| East of the city | Nasr City, Heliopolis, El Shorouk, Al Rehab, Madinaty |
| New Cairo | Fifth Settlement, Katameya, Mostakbal City, New Administrative Capital |
| West of the city | Sheikh Zayed, 6th of October |
| South of the city | Maadi, Mokattam, Uptown Cairo |
| Beyond Greater Cairo | North Coast, Ain Sokhna, El Gouna and Hurghada, the Delta, Upper Egypt |
We take on sauna, steam room and jacuzzi work in villas across New Cairo and the Fifth Settlement, in independently owned villas in El Shorouk off the Suez road, and on villa plots in Sheikh Zayed on the west side of the city.
The five stages, applied to a wet zone
Every project we take on goes through the same five stages. On a wet zone, the first two carry most of the weight.
| Stage | On a sauna, steam room or jacuzzi |
|---|---|
| 1. Consultation | The room on site: drain, power, air route, floor and headroom. |
| 2. Design and engineering | Falls, waterproofing, drainage, air, electrics and plant position. |
| 3. Construction | Drainage, the floor build-up, the Sika or BASF waterproofing system, conduits and duct routes. |
| 4. Equipment and finishing | Heater, generator, pumps, filters and controls, then tile, timber and glass. |
| 5. Commissioning and handover | The room run up, the air balanced, the drain tested and the controls set. |
A 90-day programme for a standard residential build, written into the quotation. Larger, rooftop, indoor and custom pools are scheduled individually. A wet zone gets its own programme, set at the design stage.
Measured against a cabin from a catalogue
The cheapest offer for a sauna or a steam room is a cabin delivered and plugged into the nearest socket, with nobody checking the drain, the circuit or where the damp air goes.
Against that you get the room assessed first, engineers on our staff, a named waterproofing system, and the scope, the price and the programme on paper.
Who should call another company
If you want a cabin plugged in this week, with nobody looking at the room, we are the wrong people to call.
And if the room has no drain, no route to the outside and no way to make one, we will tell you, with the reason. Usually there is a better answer: a room with an outside wall, or a sauna in place of the steam room, because dry heat is far easier on a building.
How the price is set, after a free site visit
Five things set the figure, and each one has to be seen in the room.
- The room. How much of the drain, power, air route and floor has to be created.
- What goes in it. A sauna, a steam room, a jacuzzi, or all three sharing one plant space.
- The waterproofing. How much of the room needs a full Sika or BASF Master Builders Solutions system.
- The air. Ventilation and dehumidification sized to the steam and to any open water.
- The finish. Timber, tile, mosaic, glass and benches.
A wet zone has no honest price until the room has been seen, so we come and look first. The site visit costs you nothing, and the consultation is free with no obligation. Every figure on the quote comes from our own rate book.
Milestone payments, or a deposit and six monthly instalments against post-dated cheques. On milestone terms, each instalment falls due when a construction stage is finished and inspected.
On pools we build: 25 years on the structure, 10 on the waterproofing, 5 on the electromechanical works, in writing. On a repair to another company's pool, the term is agreed per job and written on the quote. For the sauna and the steam room, ask for the warranty term in writing on the quote.
Call or WhatsApp +20 102 626 1818 and pick a day for us to see the room.
Six answers to have ready for the site visit
None of these needs a builder.
- Where the room is. Basement, ground floor, upper floor or roof, and what sits underneath it.
- The nearest drain. Or the bathroom closest to the room.
- The electrical board. Where it is, and whether it has spare capacity.
- A way out for the air. An outside wall, a riser or a roof the ventilation could reach.
- The height of the room. Floor to ceiling, as it stands today.
- How it will be used. A family a few times a week, or a gym, club or hotel all day.
Frequently asked questions about saunas, steam rooms and wet zones
Can a sauna go into a room that already exists? Often, yes. The room needs a drain or a route to one, its own circuit, a path for air to the outside and enough headroom after the floor build-up. Of the three, a sauna is the easiest to add to a finished room.
What is the difference between a sauna and a steam room? A sauna is hot and very dry, lined in timber, with the heater inside. A steam room runs cooler and fully saturated, tiled onto a waterproofed shell, with the generator outside the room.
Can you build the sauna, steam room and jacuzzi together with a new pool? Yes, and that is the easiest time to do it. The drains, the plant room and the air routes go onto the same drawings as the pool we design and build for you, before any concrete is poured.
Which equipment do you fit in the jacuzzi and the plant room? Pumps, filters and fittings from Hayward, Pentair, AstralPool and Aqua Water Systems, with Schneider Electric on the automation. The range is set out under our pump, filter and automation work.
How much does a sauna or a steam room cost? The figure depends on what the room needs before the cabin goes in, so it follows a site visit. The visit and the quote are both free, with no obligation.
Do you work outside Cairo? Yes. On the North Coast, in Ain Sokhna, the Delta and Upper Egypt, a job is confirmed after a site visit.
Book the site visit for your sauna, steam room or wet zone
Tell us which room you have in mind and what sits under it. After the visit you get what the room can take, what it needs first and what it costs, in writing. If you decide against it, you owe us nothing.
Call or WhatsApp +20 102 626 1818, email info@arcgroup-eg.com, or ask for your free quote online. The office is at 15 El-Lewaa Mahmoud Samy Basha, Al Mintaqah as Sādisah, Nasr City, Cairo Governorate 10506, Egypt. Office hours are Saturday to Thursday, 9am to 5pm. Closed Friday.