Infrared Sauna Info

Nice overview of the traditional sauna building process can be found at Great Saunas website. Although filled with references to sauna kits sold by Great Saunas and written about traditional, not infrared saunas, this guide gives you a good overview of the sauna building. It can be handy if you going to build an infrared sauna, because an infrared sauna is similar in building to a traditional one. Thing are even easier with infrared - there is no water, so no need to worry about moisture.

This guide is adapted from the “Art of Sauna Building” book by Pertti Olavi Jalasjaa.

Take a look and check if there are any good ideas for you to use - Build Your Own Sauna… It’s Easy! by Great Saunas.

Talking about new infrared sauna brands which use flat carbon sheets as a heating element in their saunas, a new line of infrared saunas, CarbonFlex from Saunatec clearly worths mentioning. I want to remind you, that Saunatec saunas are sold internationally by a group of companies which brand them under their own product names. These brands are Helo, Amerec, McCoy, Polar and Finnleo. I previously covered an older 2-person model from Saunatec, but this new line introduces a flat carbon heater technology.

The model in review - a 2-person CarbonFlex IG-520 D/IG-520 B:

Wood: Hemlock (IG-520 B also comes in red cedar modification).

External dimensions: Width: 48 in, Depth: 40 in, Height: 74 3/4 in (77 in for IG-520 B).

Heaters: Carbon heaters covering all side and back walls, and space under the bench.

Outlets: 120 V, 15 Amps, 1620 Watts.

Accessories: CD/AM/FM player, remote control, speakers, spot lighting, color therapy (IG-520 B only).

Warranty: Lifetime on wood and emitters (emitters are covered only if the sauna is used as a non-commercial product), 5 years for controls and electrical parts, and 1 year for speakers and a player.

Price: Approximately $2000 for IG-520 D.

CarbonFlex saunas are the first ones that I’ve seen that have carbon heater sheets on the whole surface of the wall. Other brands, like Sunlight Saunas, or EZe Products have large carbon heaters too, but they don’t cover the walls completely. In CarbonFlex saunas there is no cold spots on back and side walls. In the same time, they do not have heater on the floor as Sunlight Saunas have. CarbonFlex heaters are imported from Japan. Place of assembly of a sauna itself is not mentioned.

IG-520 B model is positioned as a “premium” model, and is little higher, has color therapy, outside and inside controls (unlike IG-520 D, which has a control panel only inside) and has red cedar wood option. IG-520 D has a latching system for assembly, while IG-520 B uses a buckling system. In all other ways these models look quite similar.

There is no page for these models at the official Saunatec website, so I give a link to one of the distributors - CarbonFlex infrared saunas. You can also find there an assembly guide for both IG-520 D and IG-520 B models.

Not so long ago I’ve noticed the Brighton Sauna website has added details on internals of ceramic heater used in their saunas. Since companies don’t usually write about the nature of their far infrared heaters, I’ve thought it can be interesting:

Brighton Sauna does not use carbon heaters in our infrared saunas. We use ceramic heater rods that contain a thick pure ceramic casing over a glass tube wrapped in a thin conductive metal wire.

Link - Infrared Sauna Construction by Brighton Sauna

Typical wood in an infrared sauna is not covered with any polish or paint, and it will smell naturally. Different woods have smells of many tones and intensities, from strong-smelling cedar to the mild smell of poplar. A smell thus becomes one more factor in a choice of wood for a sauna. Obviously, no definite recommendations can be given here, because its more the matter of taste than of a logical choice.

In my opinion, a sauna wood smell is a very important thing. In our daily life, we give little attention to smells, spending most of the time in a smell-neutral environment, but in intimate moments, when we relax, meditate or enjoy our meal, the value of a smell rises greatly. The same is with a sauna, be it infrared or traditional one. A smell that is coming from heated wood is more intensive than from polished and/or veneer made furniture. It will enter your world when you will be taking a relaxing infrared sauna session, and it will co-create your overall experience of a sauna.

Your task when shopping for an infrared sauna is to choose the wood which smell will enhance your pleasure. However, there are many other factors which should be taken into account, and a wooden smell is clearly not the most important one. Do not seek for the sauna which smells best, just give attention to a smell, and look for one that is pleasant to you, or at least neutral. Put your head in a sauna, close your eyes and breath slowly. Imagine that you are taking this sauna regularly, and ask yourself is you like the fragrance.

Go for a strong smell only if you like it. If you read my other article about wood allergies and their role in infrared saunas you know that some woods can cause allergic reactions. The general rule is the stronger the smell the more potentially allergic the wood is. Very small amount of people is allergic to wood, but the point is that strong smell have more chances to become annoying even if it was acceptable at first.

Even most neutral woods have smell. If you don’t like (or can’t stand for medical reasons) the smell of your sauna, you can use a fan to ventilate it before a session. Another idea is to leave new sauna open for some time and wait until intensity of smell will decrease.

On the contrary, if you want to return the smell of a fresh new wood, polish it with a sandpaper and the fresh smell will return. There is another thing you can do - bring a piece of a different strong-smelling wood into your sauna, and enjoy the variety of smells.

I wish you to use sauna smell to help you relax and enjoy the time spent in a sauna.

Infrared sauna from EaconSauna are manufactured in China and I actually count is as a plus that they are saying it clearly on the website, while many other sauna companies do not like to disclose the origin of their sauna. English language on the website is somewhat awkward, it is apparent that is was written by a persion with Englifh as a second language. I would get a good writer/proofreader if I was on their place. Eacon Saunas say also that their models has passed ETL, CE and ISO 9001:2000 certification (read more about infrared sauna certification).

In the model line of EaconSauna there is a two-person Eacon 002 sauna:

Wood: Hemlock.

External dimensions: Width: 49 in, Depth: 41 in, Height: 77 in.

Heaters: 10 ceramic tube heaters, 4 on back , 2 on front, 1 on door, 1 under the bench and 2 on the roof.

Outlets: 110 V, 15 Amps, 1500 Watts.

Accessories: CD player/radio, ionizer.

Warranty: Lifetime on wood and heaters, electrical components 2 years.

Price: Around $3000.

There are two things in this sauna that makes it unique in some way and why my attention was caught.

First is the number of heaters. There are ten (10) heaters in this two-person model, when industry average is 4-6 heaters. There are heaters on its doorand even on the roof. This doesn’t mean that there will be hotter in this sauna - overall heater power is still in the same range with other 2-person models - 1500 Watt. With more heaters, heater surface temperature is lower and heat distribution should me more even. Theoretically. Surprisingly, in Eacon 002 there are no heater on side walls, which I think is compensated by tilted front heaters, but only first-hand expirience can determine if heat distribution is even.

Second feature is the heater on front door, which can be moved vertically on a metal bar, and tilted to loft or right. This is the only model I know with such heater placement, which you can adjust to your needs.

Fron the other hand, this sauna model appear rather small for me. It has below the average depth dimension. And only when you try it yourself you can tell if features mentioned really give it a advantage over other infrared sauna cabins.

Link to model page on official website - Eacon 002

In our ordinary life we rarely need to think about hazards that wood in our furniture exposes. If you don’t have allergies of high sensitivity for different biological of chemical substances you will probably won’t have any medical problems with sauna wood. But if you have allergies, you should be aware, that in closed heated space of infrared sauna cabin wood tends to outgas more that furniture in a room and can trigger an allergic reaction. So you may need to consult your doctor for recommendations.

The fact that wood can give you allergy or just bad feeling should not scare you or repel from buying a sauna. Probability of this is very small. Still, it won’t be superfluous to check you reaction for a given wood for sure. Price for having an infrared sauna made of inappropriate wood is high - it will render your expensive sauna useless.

Most common allergens are wood pollen, dust and smoke. While smoke and pollen aren’t usual things in a sauna cabin, wood dust is common in a new sauna. Take some time to wipe it with damp cloth prior to use.

Less common is a contact allergy to wood. If you have this type of allergy to wood, you should avoid the wood type which give you such reaction altogether.

There is no agreement between infrared sauna manufacturers on which wood is best. Some use cedar because of its good traits as a furniture material, others offer woods like basswood and poplar saying that they are hypoallergic, so you need to take this choice yourself. You may not know beforehand that you have an allergy to certain wood type, thats why ideal way is to put the candidate sauna on trial. Find a place in your neighborhood where you can try a sauna you want and test it for a month.

To reduce the risk of developing the allergy to wood it is recommended to look for wood with mild flavor. Also, leave your new sauna open for a few days to let it outgas. You can also use a fan before the session to get rid of the smell.

There are some resources which go into detail about what hazards specific wood types have:

Wood Hazards - BME Encyclopedia
Wood Toxicity and Wood Identification Resources - American Association of Woodturners
Wood Toxicity - Hobbywoods
Wood/Dust Toxicity - Greater Vancouver Woodturners Guild
Toxicity of Wood - theWoodbox.com

Take a look at these pages and use charts of wood toxicity for reference when you will evaluate different sauna models.