Finnleo Corp.

Wall Street would approve this line extension.  Finnleo dealers number in the thousand, from an HVAC distributor in Devils Lake, ND to a gem stone shop in New Mexico.  Infrared “saunas” are as hot in North America as Starbucks drive-thru, 5 Hour Energy, and Curves 30 Minute Fitness.

Finnleo has an infrared drop down box on their website, and a widget to plug a demand hole in its dealer network.

Finnleo is out to move product, and the American consumer associates sauna with an infrared light bulb closet.

Has Finnleo joined the dark side?  You, the authentic sauna enthusiast can decide.

Oh, the Finnleo infrared “saunas” are reported to have low Electro-Magnetic Radiation and Electrical Field Radiation.

Post workout yesterday, cautiously, I  enter the sauna joining a guy fully clothed wearing headphones bobbing along to Lady Gaga or similar: more buzz kill.  A third guy enters.  An old school guy who’se developed the art of taking a swig of water and spitting it like a hose out his mouth onto the sauna rocks.  I’m debated whether to whistle the guy out, but a little Loyly is welcome, albeit mixed with his saliva.

Next comes the ranting:  “This sauna’s too cold.  They have a suggestion box, you know.  If enough people complain..”  It’s 175f.   I decide to argue the point with him, explaining that if they crank it up, others will complain that it’s too hot.  He resigns himself to:”can’t please everybody, I guess.”

Sure you can.

Heat rises.

All Health club saunas should be built with triple benches. The Lady Gaga guy can sit in his track suit on the lower bench, others can moderate in the middle bench, and this guy can spit water to his heart’s content up by the ceiling on the upper bench.

Next dream?  The tile saw, blazing a hole to the outdoors, to a fresh air chill out zone, where after a clean rinse, members can embrace the rubber band theory raising their hands in the air like Andy Dufresne escaping from Shawshank Prison.

Saunatimes will continue to wave the flag for folks to build their own backyard sauna.  Life’s too short.  Let’s go.  Let me help you escape to your own authentic Finnish sauna.

Therme Erding purports to be the largest thermal bath complex in Europe at 36 acres. It is located 30 minutes northeast of Munich by car and is visited by around 4000 people every day.

According to information on Wikipedia, this megabathmetropolis had unlikely beginnings.  In 1983, Texaco drilled 7,710 ft below ground just outside the town of Erding, Bavaria, Germany.

Instead of oil, they discovered sulphorous water.

Initially a ‘mini thermal bath complex’ was constructed on the site, and then the foundation stone of Therme Erding was laid in November 1998 and was officially opened in 1999. The complex has a clothed bathing area, and a clothing-optional sauna section.

In 2007, the waterslide section “Galaxy” opened, making it one of the biggest indoor waterslide parks in Europe. The newly expanded “Saunaparadies”, with an area of 139,000 sq ft, became the largest sauna complex in the world. In total, Therme Erding is 1,560,000 sq ft and more than €100 million has been invested in it.

I’ve drooled over every mobile sauna online for longer than I care to admit. A mobile sauna provides opportunities for a community gather like no other; if I had room in my yard to store one I’d already own one.

Then I see this incredible unit! A portable bike sauna! Are you kidding me? Look at that design too. Elegant, simple, and effective. Just like saunas should be. There is no end to the places I could bring this thing in Minneapolis, MN in the summer.

Kudos to the Czech design team at H3T Architects for designing this amazing mobile sauna powered by the eagerness in your own legs to pull up next to a lake and throw an impromptu sauna party. Splendid!

Other times though, all you have at your disposal is a poorly maintained sauna that gets fired up a couple times per month. No worries! You can still get a good sweat in with these tips:

1. Every single sauna stove made is meant to take water. Don’t buy into that nonsense about electrical shock. Hotel owners know that using water shortens the lifespan of the heating elements so they try to keep water off the rocks. Dry sauna? Not if I’m in there. The rocks are getting doused and that’s all there is to it. If someone in there feels nervous just explain this to them (and maybe bribe them with a beer). This is also necessary for a good sweat because usually hotel saunas are only around 150 degrees.
2. Put a little scented oil in a gallon of water for the rocks. There won’t be a bucket so you’ll have to tote your own water. The oil is a good idea because hotel sauna rocks sometimes have a funky smell. Kids pour pop on them and who knows what else. A nice shot of birch oil in the water will give you a little insurance.
3. If there are other people in there, spark up a conversation! Hotel saunas can be great places to meet people and to learn more about the town you’re visiting. Don’t miss out on that opportunity.

Don’t let an underused hotel sauna get you down. Crank it up, follow the rubberband theory, and you’ll have a great sweat.

Here’s a step by step instruction on how to take a hotel sauna.

More practically, let’s consider that $8,000 can provide you with an authentic free standing sauna in your backyard or cabin.

• $8,000 buys you a car that costs you much more in gas, maintenance, and traffic anxieties.
• $8,000 buys you a cocktail of chiropractor, psychologist, and medical services that may have you still scratching your head.
• $8,000 buys you a cruise where you come back relieved that it’s over and in need of going on the wagon.
• $8,000 buys you a year or two of cabin property tax, where you shake your head on the way home because it was too cold to jump in the lake.
• $8,000 buys you 5-6 years of a health club membership with a guarantee to have a locker right next to a naked guy bending over to put his socks on.

This can be in your backyard.  Come join us.  Let’s walk out your back door and enjoy your own backyard escape.

1. Backyard saunas are backyard sanctuaries.
2. Authentic Finnish saunas offer cache with colleagues and a Euro cool factor.
3. Saunas are hygienic, unlike fungi hot tubs.
4. 9:30 pm is ideal, cherished time for sauna (our posse can attest).
5. Infrared saunas are not saunas but overpriced, unhealthy light bulbs.

The Home Improvement That’s the Hottest of Them All

By ANNE MARIE CHAKER

Saunas today are hot. Even in Texas.

James Hall, a civil-engineering consultant, relishes evenings spent in his backyard sanctuary. He shuts the door and cranks up the heat to about 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Afterwards you get a real calm feeling of well-being,” he says.

Elizabeth Orlic, her daughter Selah Orlic Phillips, age 6, and her husband Winthrop Phillips, walk to the sauna at her father Don Orlic’s house in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

That may surprise some of Mr. Hall’s neighbors, who think that Dallas is often steamy enough. Mr. Hall says his sauna provides not only relaxation, but also a certain cachet with friends and colleagues. “We’ll have clients over and instead of going some place for happy hour, we’ll have a sauna, a couple beers,” he says. “People think it’s weird at first” but then are usually won over, he says.

Saunas have been at the core of Finnish culture for thousands of years, a traditional toasty respite in a cold and snowy climate, according to the nonprofit North American Sauna Society, whose members are fans and merchants. More Americans are making space for sauna rooms, clearing out basements, converting closets and even partitioning off backyard sheds. Florida Hot Tub and Sauna, of Ft. Lauderdale, says sauna sales this year are up as much as 40% over last year. Rozycki Woodworks, of Royalton, Minn., says sales of its handmade barrel-like outdoor saunas have been climbing about 6% a year for the past four years. Kalevi Ruuska, a Fishkill, N.Y., sauna dealer, says sales were up 50% this year.

“What I’m interested in is whether our American friends will sauna in the nude,” says Leslie Kahn, an architect in Bethesda, Md. She and her husband are remodeling a basement bathroom in order to add a sauna. Her husband believes sauna sessions he experienced overseas helped with aches and pains. The couple also enjoys the social aspect and hopes eventually to entertain guests with sauna parties. The cost of the sauna, including installation, will be around $5,000, on top of about $12,000 for remodeling the bathroom, she says.

Don Orlic, Roxanne Fischer and Elizabeth Orlic in the sauna.

Besides the Euro-cool factor, saunas’ growing popularity also is due to their practical appeal. They are less fussy to install than other spa-type amenities. The source of their intense, radiant heat is simply stones placed inside and on top of an electric heater. Some outdoor units are set up with a traditional wood-burning stove, requiring no electricity for heating (just a good stack of firewood).

Whether indoors or out, saunas typically are built using a light-colored wood able to withstand wide fluctuations in heat and humidity. In the U.S., western red cedar is popular and releases a pleasant scent.

Although saunas can be enjoyed dry, many people like to add humidity by sprinkling water on the rocks. There’s no need to rejig water lines and plumbing—as homeowners often do when installing a jetted whirlpool tub—nor is there water quality to maintain, as with a hot tub.

Health concerns about jetted water in bubbly spa tubs may be also be helping saunas’ popularity. A 2000 study at Texas A & M University tested 43 water samples from whirlpool tubs in hotels and homes nationwide and found all had some form of microbial growth, such as fungi or staphylococcus. The reason: The water in the jet-spray pipes tends to get trapped, and bacteria may accumulate. When the jets are switched on, microbes are forcefully blown into the tub where a person is soaking, carried on a bubbly mist that can enter lungs or open cuts, says Rita Moyes, microbiology professor at Texas A&M.

CREDIT: Stephen Voss for The Wall Street JournalGuests arrive for a sauna party at the Embassy of Finland in Washington, D.C.

A sauna can be relatively affordable. Converting a closet into a two-person sauna might cost as little as $3,000, not including installation, while a “designer deluxe” model with digital controls and high-end lighting could climb to $10,000, says Keith Raisanen, president of Saunatec Inc., a Cokato, Minn., manufacturer and distributor. Most saunas, he says, fall in the $4,500-to-$8,000 range and seat from four to seven.

Social Venue

In Washington, D.C., a 10-seat sauna in the basement of the Finnish embassy becomes an evening hotspot, where journalists and politicos mingle on Friday nights about twice a month. Embassy spokesman Kari Mokko says he limits invitations to about 15 each time and regularly changes the guest mix. “The demand is so high,” he says. The sauna was built into the embassy, which was completed in 1994. Parties, considered a useful vehicle for promoting Finnish culture, came soon after.

The room is walled in North Carolina white pine with benches made of cedar; it is heated to 190 degrees. Men sauna separately from women; each group takes its turn in an adjoining shower room. A buffet spread—think gravlax and meatballs in dill sauce— follows in an adjacent cocktail room, where a bartender serves vodka and cold beer.

Last fall, Don Orlic, a cardiovascular researcher, and Roxanne Fischer had an outdoor sauna built at their weekend retreat in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, in a free-standing cabin about 75 feet from the main house. Dr. Orlic digitally sets the temperature in the sauna from inside the main house, allowing 30 minutes for the sauna to reach as high as 180 degrees. He relaxes there for 20 to 30 minutes at a time. On cold winter days, he says, he loves the contrast of brisk air and penetrating heat. “I love to make margaritas and have our friends over,” Dr. Orlic says. “It’s a social thing.”

A tray of smoked salmon at the embassy party.

Reasonable Cost

The sauna, which comfortably seats five, cost about $10,000 for the basic preassembled unit. Installation—including underground electric lines and plumbing for a nearby outdoor shower and other custom elements—drove the cost up to $25,000. Dr. Orlic hasn’t received his first post-installation electric bill yet. Art Glick, owner of sauna and hot tub distributor Almost Heaven Group, of Renick, W. Va., estimates a 5-foot-by-7-foot sauna might consume an average of five dollars a month in electricity.

Saunatec’s Mr. Raisanen, whose grandparents emigrated from Finland, says he and his wife like to take a sauna at night, set at 165 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. “We like a lot of steam,” says Mr. Raisanen, who keeps a bucket and ladle next to the rocks.

A timer on the heater gets the sauna hot at 9:30 p.m. That’s an ideal time, he says: It’s a couple of hours after dinner (he advises against a sauna after a big meal), and the kids are in bed. Lights are kept low. “It’s really our cherished quiet time,” he says. “It’s a shut-the-door-to-the-rest-of-the-world-type thing.”

Inside the embassy sauna.

Mr. Raisanen sells prefabricated sauna units that can be assembled by a homeowner in hours and installed in a basement or workout room. His “custom cut” kits, in dimensions supplied by the customer, are made to be installed on pre-framed walls. Installation can be arranged through the dealer at extra cost, Mr. Raisanen says.

Going Infrared

“Infrared” saunas, with heaters built into the walls, are a fast-growing part of his business, Mr. Raisanen says. They have caught consumers’ attention with lower prices: A two-person infrared unit might cost as little as $2,000. Humidity can’t be adjusted the old-fashioned way, because there are no rocks. And they don’t get as hot, a plus for some people.

There have been safety concerns about infrared technology, though. In 2008, the Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled about 225 infrared saunas after reports that some caught fire. Some distributors today refuse to sell infrared models. Others say the technology has improved. Initially reluctant to continue selling them, Mr. Raisanen says he has begun working with an exclusive supplier with high quality-control standards.

If you own an infrared, perhaps you could recycle the cedar for a real sauna.  If you are thinking of buying an infrared, don’t.  Do your research.  You are smarter than that.

• You avoid tanning salons, they give you cancer and turn your skin a weird color.
• You don’t smoke tobacco cigarettes, same thing.
• You don’t sweat by stuffing yourself in a microwave oven.

Imagine for a moment you are a sauna enthusiast from Finland, a country with more saunas than cars.  You have grown up with sauna,  a centuries old cultural tradition.  Now, you read and hear about $499 microwave boxes you can assemble in your living room called “infrared saunas.”  Imagine how pissed you would be.  I am waving this flag for all the polite Scandinavians who may only speak up on this topic after 3 sauna rounds and a few beers.  Infrared is not a sauna.

Wood sauna is preferred.  Electric sauna is ok, but Infrared is NOT a sauna.  Infrared is a marketing scam.  Infrared makes unrealistic claims to lure consumers.  Infrared is fueled by light bulbs and sold by guys that used to sell mops and knives at state fairs.  Infrared hucksters hitch their wagons to weight loss, pain relief, homeo whatever therapy, detoxify, and it’s all horse shit.  They have taken real benefits of a Finnish sauna and packaged them up to try to sell their high margin light bulb closets.  But you know this already, you are smarter than this.

Infrared is not a sauna.

• Three functional windows.
• Half glass door, outward swing.
• Goofy wave optional.

6′x7’4″ sauna room:

• dimmer light for custom ambiance.
• Sauna thermometer: hovers well above 150 degrees thanks to the Kuuma Stove.
• Separate volume control for speakers safely stowed below the benches.
• The wood burning stove: 350 lbs. 1/4 inch steel, 80 lbs of granite rock.
• Stainless steel water tank: having warm water for rinse is a good thing.

5′x7’4″ changing room:

• Separate speakers, volume control, power amp.
• Wall mount lights with dimmer switch.
• Ample hooks.
• Cathedral ceiling, loft above sauna.

The Setting:

Bring the mobile sauna to where you want to sauna.

Considering whether to build a wood burning sauna or an electric sauna?  You may want to read below.. I’ll post all comments.