Our path towards sustainability

The idea for the solar sauna was then realised in a very short period of time. It was shown that no hot air was created during the HEF, but that it should only be created within a concrete project realisation of the solar sauna and then with a sustainable effect. For the first prototype, an old sauna barrel and a lot of old wood from an old barn in the Heuberge were recycled and converted into a small solar sauna prototype. Sunlight, which is captured and concentrated using mirrors, was used to heat the first sauna stones, which were previously attached as required using chicken fencing and wire mesh. In this way, Urs and Eerik generated the first steam in the sauna in February.The innovation team was thus able to demonstrate that the sauna can be operated with the mirrors of the Lytefire technology developed by Urs and Eerik.The technology, which was originally developed as an alternative to firewood stoves for developing countries in order to reduce the need for wood from increasingly scarce forests, has now been used in the wellness sector for the first time. Of course, they didn’t want to stop at the sauna with improvised fencing, so an upgrade was needed straight away. In collaboration with local timber and steel construction companies Georg Auer from Fideris and Markus Patt from TERNO in Küblis, the next version of the solar sauna was tinkered with. This was tested during the lockdown phase in the unspoilt snowy landscape of the Fideris Heuberge. The pictures of the first steaming solar sauna at 2000 metres above sea level, in the middle of the Swiss Alps, not only attracted the attention of the international sauna association, but also the Finnish press from Helsingin Sanomat.