Guides

Infrared or traditional, how big a heater the room needs, what a sauna costs to run, and what humidity does to an outdoor sauna.

Infrared saunas

Infrared saunas picks →

A wood-lined sauna room beside a bedroom in an apartment

Infrared or traditional sauna: temperature, steam, power and space

How an infrared cabinet and a traditional stone-heater sauna differ in air temperature, steam, warm-up, the circuit each needs and where each can go, using the makers' own figures.

Traditional sauna heaters

Traditional sauna heaters picks →

What a home sauna costs to run

Work out the electricity a sauna session uses from the heater's kilowatts, the warm-up and the time the elements stay on, with worked examples for a 6 kW heater and an infrared cabinet, and how to measure your own.

Outdoor saunas

Outdoor saunas picks →

A wooden barrel sauna beside a red bathing hut on a shoreline

An outdoor sauna where it is hot and humid

What heat, humidity, rain and storms mean for a barrel or cabin sauna: the wood each maker uses, roofing, the foundation and drainage, drying the room between uses, and questions to settle before the kit arrives.