Garden sauna

Having a sauna in the garden is one way of being able to enjoy the experience of a sauna without having to lose a room, or part of a room, in the home.

It is quite possible to have a small two or three person sauna occupy a relatively small area in, e.g. a large bathroom or spare room, however the sauna will be comparatively small and slightly cramped. If you want a bigger sauna, or more room, and you lack free space in the house, then a possible solution is to build a sauna cabin in the back garden or yard.

Outdoor sauna – sauna cabins

There are plenty of DIY and Home Improvement sauna kits that will adapt to fit the corner of a room, but there are also plenty of self build sauna cabins and lodges that you can build in your garden or back yard.

The sauna cabin is a much more complete kit than the one that simply provides an enclosing area in a pre-existing room. The cabin kit includes everything from the sauna heater to a weatherproof roof and structural (often insulated) walls that form the primary structure of the cabin.

Sauna cabins kits can be very hands-on, where the materials require a reasonable degree of carpentry skill and a good toolkit, or they can be modular and semi prefabricated like the indoor prefabricated kits. In the case of the modular kits the assembly is relatively simple and requires the bolting together of the main preassembled components. The weight of these components means that the work may require two people, however the skill requirements will be very basic.

The range of available outdoor saunas is very varied and covers everything from simple huts and sheds to log cabins that would not look out of place on a hilltop in Austria. The size of these cabins also varies considerably and this means that it is possible to buy and assemble a cabin capable of comfortably holding six, eight or even more sauna participants.

The easiest way to quickly get an outdoor sauna is to buy a prefabricated sauna cabin, however there is a cheaper alternative that requires more work, but which can save money.

A cabin kit and a material-only sauna kit

probably the cheapest way to build your own garden sauna cabin is to buy both a cabin kit and a self assembly materials-only sauna kit. These two kits can be purchased separately and treated as two individual projects.

The first project is to erect a solid structural base for the cabin with an insulated electricity supply. The cabin (of your choice) can then be built as a stand alone outbuilding with its own power and any windows and doors that are included in the design. The cabin needs to be secure and watertight.

The second project is to assemble a sauna kit (i.e. a materials-only kit comprising of all of the linings, seating and internal finishing components that are required).

Naturally when taking this route it is vital that the sizes of the sauna kit are suitable for the cabin kit, however a small amount of calculation and thought should enable corresponding kits to be selected.

Aside from possible cost savings, this option also allows a much higher degree of choice and personalisation in cabin and sauna selection. This means that you will get the external appearance of your desired cabin and the internal fittings of your ideal sauna.