Want to Put a Sauna On the Roof?

Like many New Yorkers before him, a condo owner in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, stepped onto his building’s unfinished roof deck and saw...an amenity. “Would it violate any New York City buildings codes to install a sauna there?” the owner asked the Ask Real Estate column in the New York Times.

That depends. Just because your roof deck has plenty of space doesn’t mean that the rooftop can support the added weight of a sauna, which is a consideration if you don’t want the sauna to wind up in the living room of the building’s top-floor apartment.

“Determine if the underlying roof structure can handle the additional load,” advises Michael Larkin, a senior structural engineer with RAND Engineering & Architecture. The best way to do this is to hire an architect or structural engineer to examine the roof deck and determine if the addition is legal and in compliance with all permitting requirements, including fire and building codes.

Once the condo board has signed off on the sauna – assuming it’s permitting in the building’s governing documents – it will have to amend the Certificate of Occupancy to reflect the new use for the roof deck, which requires approval of the city Department of Buildings.

Once you’ve cleared all this red tape, you’ll be ready for – and entitled to – a nice long shvitz in the new sauna.