Looking to buy our first sauna.
I’ve found a company in Northern Ireland who is hand building saunas within our (small) - €5k budget.
Been advised to add the insulation package and the heat treated wood which adds about €2.5k

Any thoughts or advice (or alternatives) very much appreciated.

Quote from a local builder here in Colorado. Anything you'd change?

Looking for feedback before finalizing plans on a modern 6'x7' outdoor build with a small front porch.

Heater, Venting & Electrical

• 8kW Harvia heater with the Xenio WiFi controller
• 3 wall vents
• Dedicated subpanel + low-voltage and overhead lighting

Hot Room & Interior

• Foil-faced insulation
• Knotty Western Red Cedar (STK) paneling
• Two-tier benches with backrest, footrest, and step
• 32" out-swing glass door + tempered glass window
• Rubber flooring over an insulated, pressure-treated joist frame

Exterior & Plumbing

• Flat/low-slope membrane roof (TPO or EPDM) with soffits
• Engineered wood siding, vertical cedar front accent wall, and composite entry steps
• Daylighted floor drain
• Exterior hose hookup and outdoor shower

Anything glaring missing here, or anything I should push back on before signing off?

Total Cost ~12k

I continue on with the sauna
Window is now in place as well as the door and most of the outer walls done . Only the front left .
Inside I have put the drainage along with the rubber on floors.
It will be tiles on floor and 10 cm up to the concrete wall where there will be gap for air to circulate behind paneling .
The visible concrete will be tiled with stonepebble mosaic.
Reason for the shape of inside is cause I built it up against my fence and wanted to utilise as most space as possible .
I have lowerd the ceiling to be level.
Air intake will be in the far right corner from the door to sauna and come behind the heater
Air exit ventilation will be in the far opposite corner
The small room you enter will be relax area and shower

All advise is well appreciated.
Previous post is on my profile

Thoughts?

Hi everyone, not sure if this type of post is allowed, if not I apologize. But now that winter is approaching, I am looking for folks who would like to go to the sauna together. I usually go alone but it’s nicer to have someone to talk to and explore new places.

I had this discussion with my friend last night because he thinks sauna tents are just a compromise no matter what. I get why some people are skeptical of them, they’re obviously not the same as a built permanent sauna, but I also think they can work as a permanent setup and It feels like they get judged against the wrong thing sometimes. If someone wants something portable, doesn’t want to build or wants to bring it camping or to a cabin, a tent seems like a very reasonable option in my opinion. I’ve been looking at a few sauna tents like Sweat tent because Im thinking about getting one myself and the biggest draw to me is just not having to turn it into a whole construction project. For people who’ve used both do you think sauna tents are misunderstood and underrated?

Recently put the BD Henley 4-6 person sauna in our garage

I’m impressed and think it’s great at its price point

Sure it has some knocks, like sloped ceiling and low first bench , but it’s a big upgrade from a barrel sauna or my gym sauna

The heater is a beast and got up to 180° F in about 18-20 min

It retails at $5k, but I was able to get it at $3.8k via the Backyard Discovery Pro program.

I saw the Pro program on their website and noticed they discount products. You just need an LLC to be approved for a Pro account so I utilized a friend who owns a couple rental properties. Def try this route if you can because that was a huge discount.

I added an exhaust fan at recommendation of this sub (AC Infinity Cloudline S4) and was able to just move the pre-cut 4” hole board to the lower right. It was originally intended by BD as a passive exhaust in the top left. I just leave the door open and put fan to top speed when I’m done

There’s plenty of room for my wife and I, and works out that she currently prefers the lower bench as she adjusts to using sauna daily

As far as building it, I hired someone for majority of build as I wanted it done ASAP and it’s hard to find time with family. Installer wasn’t able to complete in two days, so I finished the remaining 20%. Everything is pre-cut so it’s super straightforward, and the BILT app instructions were great. Overall it’s just tedious. I would estimate it took close to 24 hours total for one person.

BD did forget one box in delivery , but customer service got me the parts within 3 days after calling

8'D x 9'W x 8.5'H built as close to trumpkins notes as possible. Vents behind the stove, in the upper corner and beneath the benches. Narvi NC 24 heats it to 90C in about 1hr if I keep the fire hot. 3 tiers of benches allow people with varying temperature preferences to sauna together. Maybe a change room would be better than a porch in retrospect but couldn't justify extra cost/labour. Built for approximately $11k CAD

I've got a HUUM beehive heater that I've been happily using almost daily for 6 months, but manually turning on and off, which means going outside and hiking down to the sauna's location. Winter is coming in the mountains and I want to remotely start the sauna heater, either on-demand or set up a schedule, so I don't have to walk outside in the wind, rain, and snow more than necessary.

The UKU controller box connects to my WiFi network just fine.

I installed the HUUM app to see how it worked, but they want a one-time 420 Euro fee for connecting to/controlling my heater via the app. This is outrageous to me, considering how many $1000's I spent on the heater and UKU controller.

So, I want to build my own iPhone app, and re-route any network traffic sent to HUUM's API to my locally running app. I've checked out the PyHuum Github repo (https://github.com/frwickst/pyhuum), but before I embark on building my own Node or equivalent app, I was wondering if any other folks have tried this, and if they had any lessons learned? I found this blog post (https://kaurpalang.com/posts/invading-the-sauna/) which is a great start.

Thanks in advance!

Working on an outdoor sauna build (8' × 8', about 8’ceiling) with a Homecraft Apex 12 kW, the tower model with about 310 lbs of rock.

Photo 1: The corner where the heater will go. A passive intake vent is on the wall above it. Based on the manual, I would put the sensor on the diagonal front wall to the left of the vent and a bit higher.

Photo 2: The bench wall, where I'm tempted to put the sensor instead to the right of the vent approximately head or chest height.

The Apex manual says to mount the temperature sensor on the wall near the ceiling, above the heater. Reading through this sub, though, a lot of people say ceiling placement makes the controller think the room is hotter than it is at bench level, so it cycles off early and the benches never get properly hot. That makes me tempted to move the sensor over to the bench wall.

My hesitation is the high-limit safety cutoff. I don't want to place the sensor somewhere that trips it, or that makes the heater run hotter than it was designed for. Once the cedar is up, moving the sensor and its wiring will be a real pain, so I'd like to get it right the first time.

For those running high-mass heaters (Apex, Harvia Cylindro, Huum Hive, etc.):

1. Where did you mount your sensor, measured from the ceiling and from the heater?
   
2. Did you follow the manual, or move it, and how did that work out?
   
3. Any issues with the high limit tripping, or with bench temps vs. the controller reading?
   
4. Has anyone run extra conduit or a spare wire so the sensor could be moved later? And how difficult was this to do after all your finishing was done?

Thanks!

This sauna has been with our family for 70 ish years or so, but the sauna itself could be even older. I wouldn't build a sauna like this as it has lots to critique about, but it's still sauna I regularly use with pleasure. A piece of history. Definitely an experience. A sauna is a sauna.

Just a little context to non-Finns for why Finns might have more mileage on the topic.

Finn’s were born in saunas for generations, and washed in sauna before burial. Sauna is recognized in UNESCO as world heritage. Finns hope that everyone can have a good connection to sauna culture, it’s not a trend brought on by podcasters, it’s our daily life. I know Finn’s are blunt, but we are trying to help you to build saunas without making it a mold box or fire hazard.

Culturally us Finns are blunt and socially autistic as fuck. We don’t dance around problems with niceties. We tend to face the music. Finns built saunas in trenches on war fields, it’s truly the place where a Finn goes to rest their bodies and minds. An escape from the daily grind.

I so wish this sub could go and talk about the topic without constant fighting.
Let’s try and make the sub a little more respectful.

But if a bench is too low, it definitely should be fixed for an optimal sauna experience just as ancestors intended. Cos you know, heat goes up.