Garden sauna
Garden sauna: which one suits your garden?
- €1,349
- Sauna tent, complete
- 3.2 m²
- Footprint of the tent
- 0 kWh
- Electricity per session
- 5 min
- To set up, no tools
The four types
Four ways to have a sauna in the garden.
Prices are indicative and based on the usual offering in the Netherlands. They differ per supplier and per garden.
Sauna cabin or fixed outdoor sauna
€5,000 – €12,000
- Space
- Fixed spot, plus foundation
- Power
- Wood stove, or electric with often heavy-duty power
- Effort
- Foundation, installation and yearly upkeep of the wood
Suits: Anyone who wants to use the sauna every day without preparation, with room for a shower or changing corner.
Barrel sauna
From about €2,300, wood-fired often from €4,900
- Space
- Fixed spot, 700 – 1,000 kg on a load-bearing surface
- Power
- Wood stove, or electric
- Effort
- Delivery, installation and keeping the wood up
Suits: Anyone who wants an eye-catcher that is always ready.
Infrared cabin
€1,500 – €3,000
- Space
- Under a shelter or indoors
- Power
- Always a socket
- Effort
- Little: switch on and wait
Suits: Anyone who wants gentle warmth (40 – 60 °C) and needs no steam.
Sauna tent
€1,349 – €1,599
- Space
- 180 × 180 cm, free again after use
- Power
- No electricity, just wood
- Effort
- 5 minutes to set up, about 30 minutes of firing
Suits: Anyone who wants real heat up to 100 °C without a building project, and wants to take it along too.
How much space does a garden sauna need?
With a fixed garden sauna the footprint is rarely the problem. It is about what is needed around it: a flat, load-bearing surface, room to have it placed and enough distance from the property boundary to stay within the rules for outbuildings. A barrel sauna easily weighs 700 to 1,000 kilos, so you do not just move it somewhere else.
A sauna tent stands on 180 × 180 cm and is 200 cm high. With half a metre of free space around the stove and the chimney, a piece of patio or lawn of about 3 by 3 metres is enough. After use you fold it up and that spot is simply garden again. For a small garden that is often the deciding factor, and on our page about compact saunas we work it out further.
Per session
What a garden sauna costs once it is standing.
The purchase price says little about what a garden sauna costs you afterwards. An electric heater easily uses 8 to 10 kWh in a session of an hour and a half, heating up included. A wood-fired sauna uses no electricity: you pay for the wood, and that is it.
With an electric garden sauna also allow for the installation: a cable to the garden on its own circuit, and with many heaters a heavy-duty supply. That is work for a certified installer.
- Electric sauna heater of 6 kW: about €2.50 to €3 per session
- Infrared cabin: about €0.40 to €0.70 per session
- Wood-fired: only wood, about €1.50 to €2.50 per session
- Fixed wooden sauna: plus €100 to €300 upkeep per year
Fair is fair
When a sauna tent is not the best garden sauna.
If you want to use the sauna every day without making a fire first, a fixed sauna suits you better. You set a sauna tent up when you use it, and firing is a ritual of half an hour. For two or three times a week that is fine, for every morning before work it is not.
The same goes if you want to sit with more than five people at once, or if you want to build a shower and changing room onto the sauna. And if you mainly want gentle warmth without steam, an infrared cabin makes more sense. The differences are worked out in barrel sauna or sauna tent and infrared sauna or sauna tent.
One more thing
Questions about a garden sauna
A garden sauna, without a building project.
Wood-fired, up to 100°C, complete from €1,349. At your door within 5 working days, 30 days to change your mind.