Im looking to buy an outdoor Infrared sauna in the UK and wondered if the VOC's or the type of heating element makes much of a difference.
One manufacturer claims that if the elements don't have stainless steel surrounds there is a VOC risk. Also any plastics or other materials could release VOC's.
With regard to heating element type, do you still get the same 'effect' on your body?
I got an infrared sauna for my birthday! Yay me! It’s going in our basement so I am curious what others have liked about some gym mats or rubber flooring for underneath. Also, for anyone who enjoys some dedicated towels for their sauna , what did get and like. Lastly, what type of set up with necessities and maybe a side table works for you they maybe makes a full basement more spa-like! Thank you.
Before I bought mine, I went way too far down the research rabbit hole.
I was comparing EMF claims, heater placement, wood type, max temp, dimensions, reviews, basically everything. Some of that stuff definitely matters, but after actually using one regularly, I’m realizing my priorities are a little different than I expected.
The biggest surprise is how much I value it as a quiet space more than anything else.
It’s turned into this little distraction-free room where I’m not checking my phone, answering messages, watching something, or trying to multitask. I’m also not sitting there stewing over some dumb political post I read earlier or replaying an interaction with a customer who treated me poorly. I’m just sitting in the heat with nothing to do, which sounds boring, but it’s honestly where I do some of my clearest thinking.
Work stuff, life decisions, random ideas I’ve been stuck on; a lot of it seems to sort itself out in there.
If I were buying again, I’d still care about heating performance and build quality, but I’d probably pay more attention to comfort and whether it feels like a place I’d actually want to sit in several times a week. Layout, size, how it fits in the house, all of that ended up mattering more than I thought.
I’m really happy with the one I chose, but it took me months to feel confident about the decision.
For people who have been using one for a while, did your priorities change after owning it? Or are you still focused on the same things you cared about before buying?
Saw these last night, curious if anyone has one? Looks like a better deal than the Clearlight I was looking at. Quite a bit cheaper and still get full spectrum. Any thoughts?
Disappointed is an understatement! I paid a premium price tag for a product that continues to fall short and Customer Service that can't assist. Here's the concerns with my sauna.
Overall, I fell in love with the look of the sauna online. However, it's fallen short in so many ways. At a price tag around $10k, there should not be this many issues. I tried to look for honest reviews before purchasing but only found paid reviews. I regret this purchase and would not recommend it. Let me know if you have any questions about my experience. I'm happy to help!:-D
I need some help / advice -
I bought a ‘uk saunas’ sauna from a friend, it was working before dismantling and has not had much use, I have put it up in another location, the display and fan both work so there is no issues with power, but it doesn't seem to heat up.
Can anyone help troubleshooting? I don't know if it trips/needs resetting after being dismantled? But inside the box looks fine, everything looks to be connected, and as explained the power (audio, display, fan etc) all work.
The temperature on the display just automatically goes to max. I was wondering if it could be related to the thermometer which isn't picking up the internal temperature and therefore not heating up? But no idea how to test/check this.
I bought a generic made in china sauna off amazon. Under $1500. I’m actually pretty happy with the purchase and benefits but one odd thing is the “red light beauty light” on the roof. Only every other led lights up.
The manufacturer claims it’s supposed to be like that but it’s just odd that it’s like that. Does anyone else have this?
Do you think you get any benefit from it? It’s pretty far from my skin. Just a simple red led light. Do you think it’s worth tinkering to get all to light up?
GHS quoted me $7.3K to VA for the GHS-3CX including white glove delivery and assembly. I'm buying this unit based on Facebook posts and overall rating on Google. I originally wanted to purchase Clearlight as had used it in the past but GHS has a better overall deal.
Thoughts??
Curious what surprised people most once the “new toy” phase wore off.
I’ve had mine for a while now, and the biggest surprise wasn’t what I expected. I figured I’d notice the relaxation, maybe better sleep, maybe just the routine of having something quiet to do in the evening.
But the skin improvement was the big one for me.
I’m over 40 and had been dealing with adult acne for years. Nothing extreme, but enough that it was always annoying. Since using the sauna consistently, my skin is basically clear now. The only time I really seem to get a few pimples is if I push my luck with an old razor when shaving or don't wash my bedding each week.
I also spent months researching before choosing one, which felt ridiculous at the time because every company seems to make a slightly different set of claims. Heater type, EMF, full spectrum, size, heat-up time, wood, warranty, all of it. But now that I’ve lived with it for a bit, I’m glad I was picky.
For those of you who have had one for a few months, what surprised you most?
Was it skin, sleep, soreness, mood, how often you actually use it, or something you wish you had cared about more before buying?
I’m in a rented space with an infrared sauna that hasn’t had the best maintenance. I’ve finished cleaning and drying it and have ordered some sauna wood oil to put onto it before it’s used again. Any recommendations for how to address these spots before it goes back into service? Thanks!
I'm super frustrated with Heavenly Heat Sauna customer service. The shipping date keeps moving out further and I'm only getting updates if I ask and then I only receive vague and non-committal answers. Has anyone else experienced this? Has anyone tried to cancel their order due to their dishonesty? If you waited, how long did it take from order to delivery?
I purchased the Clearlight Sanctuary 2 Professional a couple months ago.
I specifically went with the Professional model because it uses 240v and heats up noticeably faster.
Assembly took about 1.5 hours with two people.
Since the room is carpeted, I added a polyurethane-coated plywood platform underneath the sauna.
I also added:
- Red Light Therapy Core Tower
- Halo therapy
- Aromatherapy system
Haven’t tried halo or aroma therapy yet.
The Red Light Core Tower initially didn’t work, but Clearlight sent a technician out pretty quickly and got it handled ASAP, which I appreciated.
Overall I’ve been loving the sauna so far!
Still not totally sure I notice major benefits from the red light yet though.
Anyone else using the Core Tower long term and noticing significant benefits?
We’ve now had our Sun Home outdoor IR sauna (Luminar 5-person) for roughly two weeks. It’s installed, up and running and my wife and I have used it pretty much every day since we got it. I was a little confused as I was doing research, and I struggled to find what looked like trustworthy information in that process, so hoping this helps others.
A bunch of thoughts follow. The TLDR: the whole thing was easily 4x more than I had planned to spend, but I’m (mostly) happy with the unit and very happy to have an IR sauna in our lives. If you’re reasonably mechanical and have some help, you’re good to go with installation and setup.
Why this model?
I needed this to be outside. We’re in the Monterey Bay Area, so climate is temperate, but I had zero interest in something I needed to cover in order for it to be outside, so the aluminum cladding seemed like a great thing. It’s possible that there are other options, but I didn’t find any.
I was originally thinking the 2-person model, but my wife and I were planning to frequently use our sauna together and it looked a little small. SO glad we went with the bigger model. I guess you could get 5 people in it, but you better like each other : ) The 5-person is perfect for 2 adults with some space. 3 would probably be comfortable. 5 adults? NFW.
The Luminar had all the features I thought were important. It was WAY more than I had planned to spend and IMO the warranty is lacking, but I held my nose on both of those negatives and clicked ‘buy.’
How was setup?
Our unit got to us roughly two weeks after order, which seemed totally reasonable. I reached out to Sun Home before ordering to confirm they had one in stock and ready to ship.
This model comes in a giant wood shipping crate that weighs over 1,000 lbs. (see pictures for scale) It’s really well packed, but as a consequence, you’re going to be left with a pile of crate and packing materials to get rid of when you’re done. Is what it is.
There are two panels – front wall and roof – that are VERY (!!!) heavy. I alone or my wife and I could move everything else, but you really want four people to move these two panels. And, frankly, having a couple people around for the whole un-crating and setup is probably a good idea.
Actual assembly is super straightforward. Budget the better part of a day for everything, including un-crating, moving stuff, assembly and clean-up. If you’ve put furniture together, built a model, used a screwdriver and a caulk gun, you got this.
When you watch the assembly video, more than half of it is dedicated to connecting the 26-ish male to female electrical connections. Don’t even bother with that section. It should have just said, “make the connections with matching numbers.” I think I moved around the top panel clockwise and just connected everything I could find until I couldn’t find anything not connected.*
Why the asterisk? We didn’t opt for the optional red light thing and there’s a connector for it up top that I didn’t connect as it seemed unnecessary. BUT, in my confusion about that, I ALSO neglected to connect #4. Turns out this is the connection for the IR heaters on the front panel. How do I know this? Because of the commonsense step that they neglected to include in the instructions (next lines).
BEFORE you put the very heavy roof panel on and secure it, plug your sauna in and test that everything is working. This is how I knew. After panicking that I missed connecting something on the floor panel…as in, underneath my new 1,000 lb, nearly fully assembled out building, it occurred to me that I should check the top. Sure enough…
We had our landscape guy pour a roughly 8’x5’ concrete slab, which turns out to be just about perfect. In retrospect, I might have added another foot or two in length so there’s a solid step outside, but I’ve since put down some slate pavers which do the trick. We also had our electrician run the 240 line out to the slab and install a new GFI breaker. This necessitated an 18” deep trench for the conduit from the slab to our electrical panel. All of this added another $4 to $5k to the cost of the project.
If you’ve connected Bluetooth devices and app-enabled things, then you’re good to go with getting all of that connected. I think it took a couple of tries each to connect the sauna to our home wifi and iPhone to the Bluetooth speakers, but no big deal.
How is it / What have I learned?
Let’s start by saying it’s fab. We love it. Despite looking sort of like the monolith from 2001:A Space Odyssey, I like the way it looks in our yard. I’m happy with the fit and finish, features and performance.
We’ve been using it at 155 degrees for 30 minutes and that seems pretty much perfect. At 65 degrees ambient, it gets to 125 degrees inside in about 15 minutes, which is better than I was expecting. In retrospect, I’d have worked up to 30 minutes, as we were both a little loopy in the last 5/10 minutes the first couple of uses. But it did wonders for aches and pains in the first use, after spending all day setting it up.
Yes, sit on a towel and bring in some hand towels. You're going to sweat…this is good. Common sense warning – be sure to wash your face and get rid of makeup before you get in, otherwise your eyes are going to seriously sting. Ask me how I know.
Chromatherapy – holy shit – who thought this was a good idea?! I’m looking for a relaxing experience while I sit in the sauna. Soft music, warm color LED indirect lighting, smell of cedar…all good. Adding Klieg lights does not help with the vibe. Your experience may vary.
The built-in speakers are perfectly adequate. If I get ambitious, I may swap them out for something nicer that connects to our Sonos system…we’ll see.
The glass is sort of one-way. Inside you can see out, but outside you really can’t see in. I’m totally comfortable that we can be naked and not have our kids or neighbors coming into our yard and see something they can’t unsee (if they open the door to the sauna, that’s on them).
Bring water. A lot of water. You’re going to need it.
If / when you do this research, prepare for non-consensual cookies to be dropped and an onslaught of adds showing up in all of your social media (hi there social media and marketing teams from multiple brands). It’s borderline abusive. I made the mistake of reaching out for information via email. Holy unsubscribe!
The unit came with a cover and the paperwork in the box says that (paraphrasing) not using the cover voids the (already seemingly inadequate) warranty. WTF?! You’ll recall at the beginning of this missive that I explicitly looked for and paid for a clad unit so that I did not have to cover and uncover the sauna. I looked again on the product information page and couldn’t find anything that spoke about this. It’s not getting used, I’ll take my chances, and this is a seriously disappointing surprise. (Hi there Sun Home social media team).
Ending on a hugely positive note - and maybe the best thing – my wife and I are now spending 30 minutes of time together on a regular basis without devices, relaxing, sweating and talking (or not). It’s been really nice. I expect this will continue for years to come.
Does anyone have a Influence sauna? I bought one from Robyn Openshaws group, but it stopped working several months ago and I can't get any help with it. Supposedly the company has rebranded to Finnmark Designs or something like that but no one responds from there either.
I was supposed to get a good warranty and if I had any troubles this would be covered like Robyn said in her webinar. But now when I check Robyns group she has Sunlighten saunas on their now. No one from her team will respond either, I don't know what ales them but this is crazy they won't stand behind their products.
Anyone else in similar boat? How do you get parts and help? TIA
Most of the marketing for saunas seems like it’s instilling fear in customers to get sales. Now brands are competing to who can have the “lowest EMF,” but I have spent months reading on the topic and I started to wonder, is this really even a big deal compared to how well the sauna uh... works?
I have tried several units at spas and gyms and what I observed is that a lot of the “low EMF” models did not get hot enough to make you sweat without sitting in there for a long time. Others on the other hand heated great, felt a lot better, and left me with a big improvement afterwards.
So I started to wonder, if I sit next to the Wi-Fi, carry a cell phone around with me all day, use Bluetooth, and the list goes on, then am I really doing this right by worrying about which sauna brand has a lower EMF?
In the end I decided to get a sauna that focused on heating performance instead of how good it looked on the outside.
I am curious what other people decided on. If you were to buy a sauna right now which would you pick?
Lowest EMF?
Better heating?
More Comfortable?
Build quality?
Or something else?
This sauna topic has been very strange and people have such different opinions on it.
I was searching around for Good Health reviews and found a few things but not much. Most seem to be happy with them, but when I look for videos and pictures online I'm not finding much in the way of users inside them etc. I did see a facebook group that looks favorable, but also some negatives like the way it goes together or something. Didn't really make sense to me, but I'm a newbie. Anyone own one? Likes dislikes? Thanks
if you have questions please let me know. My only regret is that I did not get a 2 to 3 person one the leg space is lacking in a one-to-one and a half person one.
I’m renovating my master bathroom and was looking to put a sauna in the space. Several months ago we purchased an infrared hemlock sauna. It will physically fit into the space but the directions say there should be 5 inches of clearance on each side. I’ll probably only have a few inches on each side though. The first picture is older and the shower is half tiled to the right of the space. The concerns would be fire hazard and moisture. As far as moisture there’s a window next to the sauna space and a standard bathroom ventilation fan. Is this doable and any suggestions to alleviate the heat or moisture concerns?