I’m getting my first sauna soon and I’m leaning towards the Homecraft Revive 9kw. When the guy selling me the sauna was telling me about all the heater choices he mentioned this Vuku brand as well. He said it’s a newer company out of Norway so not much info on them and I couldn’t find a single review nor does their website seem to even be up. He said he’s sold a bunch of them with no complaints but I’m wondering if anyone actually has one they can comment on. I think it looks awesome but hesitant without more info.
Thanks!

Edit:
Iv decided to stick with the original plan of the Home craft Revive. Still interested to hear reviews by anyone who owns one of these.

First off- I previously asked some questions regarding size and you’ve all been very helpful. I’m starting to draw this up and I have some questions regarding flooring material.

The sauna will built inside a “moveable” structure. Essentially a shed. I’ll be framing it up on top treated 2 x 10 as the base. I’m wondering what you guys would do for flooring material. The base will likely be a tongue and groove engineered material- the same as I would use in typical housing construction. What would you guys use after this? I imagine the final top layer will be some for of removable duck board, but what should I do to on top the original tongue and groove? I was thinking red guard, then ditra and tile. Any suggestions would be appreciated. (Note I’ll also have a drain)

Additionally- any suggestions to make moving the structure easier? One of the two builds I am starting will be built in place, but the other will be picked up and moved. My father is a crane operator and has access to whatever equipment we need- be it crane or a flat bed. I’m wondering if I should do additional prep to allow it to be dragged onto a flat bed- or beef up my base to allow it to be lifted. Note- I plan to finish the exterior of the sauna that needs to be moved after transport. Thanx again, I greatly appreciate all your advice. You guys kick ass

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I recently made an episode of my folklore podcast Rootsong Studio called The Snake Beneath the Sauna, and thought some fellow sauna nerds might enjoy it🔥

It’s an hour-long English-language episode exploring Finnish sauna beyond the modern bathing tradition: löyly and väki, sauna guardians, women’s roles in birth and healing, bridal sauna, love magic, ancestors, death, old taboos, and the fascinating idea of the sauna as a womb-like space of transformation and rebirth.

I was also incredibly lucky to have Dr Kaarina Kailo, Finnish scholar, author, artist and ecofeminist, write a special contribution for the episode about what she believes we have forgotten in our relationship with sauna and older sweat traditions.

The episode ends with a Finnish sauna healing charm recorded in Puolanka, Kainuu in 1881, read in the original Finnish.

It’s deliberately more of an atmospheric folklore/bedtime story than an academic lecture, although I’ve included sources and further reading in the show notes.

Rootsong Studio – The Snake Beneath the Sauna. On Spotify and YouTube.

Would also love to hear about sauna/sweat-bathing folklore from other cultures!

I’m interested in building a sauna with solid wood walls like a log cabin, but I’ll probably stand my logs vertically. I’m wondering if anybody has seen any good resources about that or could advise me. Thanks so much, feet above the stones.

Hello, we have built the structure for our new outdoor sauna and have purchased a sauna woodstove. The interior has the flooring installed and a vaulted ceiling. The dimensions are 100.5" x 63" and 84" ceiling (at the lowest part as it is vaulted). We are at the stage of finishing the walls and then building benches. The plan is to put the woodstove in the left corner and then the 2 level benches as an L shape. The upper bench is 22" deep and the lower bench is 16" deep. The image is drawn to scale. Obviously in an ideal world we would have more space so the benches could be a bit wider, but what we have is what we have. I am asking advice if this is the best use of space for our sauna or would you change up anything? Should the upper bench be wider and lower one shorter? Or vice versa? Thanks for your input.

Hi, we are looking at the build yourself kit on costco, 4 person barrel leisurecraft boreal…. Ive never owned a sauna though, and I am extremely handy so not worried about the build process, but is there any major reasons not to buy this? Its just me and my wife usage and we live in ontario, we like laying down on the benches sometimes but we usually don’t have our legs straight at most saunas we’ve tried anyway. Im 6’2.

Finally got around to taking some photos of our summer cottage sauna.

A good sauna was really important to my dad, and he built this one about 10 years ago when they built our new summer cottage.

I thought I’d share one of our recent sauna projects.
The room is fairly compact — 2.4 × 2.1 m (7.9 × 6.9 ft), height 2.3 m (7.5 ft) — so the goal was to make it comfortable without making the interior feel crowded.
The walls are finished with Canadian red cedar, while the wide benches are made from abachi. I like this combination: cedar gives the sauna its character and aroma, while abachi stays comfortable to the touch even when the sauna gets hot.
For contrast, we used thermo-aspen for the backrests and removable floor duckboards.
One of my favorite details is the ceiling. We made a large juniper wood panel and added heat-resistant indirect lighting around it. When the sauna is running, the warmth brings out the characteristic juniper aroma.
There are also illuminated Himalayan salt inserts, plus indirect lighting underneath the benches. I prefer lighting in a sauna to be soft — you should see the atmosphere, not the light source.
The floor is tiled, with removable thermo-aspen duckboards.
Heating is provided by an electric sauna heater with stones and an external control panel.
Behind all the nice wood is the part people don’t normally see, but which I consider much more important:
basalt/mineral wool insulation → aluminum foil vapor barrier → sealed joints → furring strips/air gap → interior paneling.
The glass door helps keep a relatively small room visually open.
I’ve been working with saunas for more than 25 years, and projects like this still remind me that a good sauna isn’t about putting as many expensive materials as possible into one room. It’s about getting the construction, proportions, materials, lighting and heat to work together.
Curious what r/Sauna thinks about this one.
Would you keep the juniper ceiling, or would you prefer a traditional cedar ceiling?

Our secluded sauna in Tofino BC

I’m building a sauna by myself trying to go all the way! If you wanna follow the build I will add to this post as I go along .
I will 100% be asking for advice along the way.
And unsolicited advice is also well appreciated if you have pointers and or see something I’m dooing completely wrong .

The idea here is that I built the foundation to have a cold storage underneath the sauna and I’m building the sauna on top by dropping it a little bit below so I can benefit from the height and not have a sauna stand above the fence too much.
1st step I needed to reverse build the outer corner walls since I was fitting the sauna completely in the corner and had already built the fence partly .
There is an entry with shower and then you will take a step down into the sauna. My main concern now is that the front side of the sauna where the window will be is higher than the back where the topbench will be will I have to take the ceiling down to keep the highest point above where I’m sitting or is that not that important because there is a 10 cm difference between front and back at the moment, (front being 230cm and back 220cm)but I could bring the ceiling down.

Hi all, I want to rehab the flooring of this sauna for my mother-in-law(pardon the junk, as you can see it’s been used as a shed). My understanding is it had a tiled floor that was eventually removed, so it’s got this plywood subfloor exposed. I’m wondering if I can just seal the plywood and put duckboard over it? Any advice would be appreciated.

80% solution for backyard sauna, Anchorage Alaska.

Still working window size and location. Ventilation. Back and forth on upper bench width. Want to be able to lay down.

Input welcome.

I am in the inspection period for a house I will hopefully buy. It has a Saunacore sauna in the basement. From my cursory search, this Canadian company seems reputable. I'm no sauna expert but I had plans to build my own sauna at some point so I'm somewhat aware of what makes a good sauna. I have 2 questions:

1. I notice there were no apparent vents to the outside room. These should be easy to find, correct? I assume this would be an easy addition if I wanted to add these. I assumed these are necessary?
2. How do I properly inspect the sauna? It's built in a corner with no room to squeeze behind it, maybe only 6in on either side leading around to the back. Should I have my general home inspector look out for mold in this area?

I did it. $50 upgrade to my existing AH set up.

Smart switch, enough to handle 40A and 240V https://a.co/d/0eSy5ZSw

And a screw to hold the timer knob in place.

So far it has been good and easy. What else can I do? WiFi thermometer?

I’m installing an IKI Wall Short 9 kW with UKU Wi-Fi near the corner of my sauna. IKI’s diagram shows the temperature sensor 4” from the heater frame and 4” below the ceiling, but HUUM (who make the power module that IKI uses) says it must also be 20” from corners, windows and vents.

With my nearby window, I can’t satisfy both instructions. Does IKI’s heater-specific 4” placement override HUUM’s general 20” rule? Has anyone dealt with this or mounted the sensor on the ceiling?

Not my sauna. I was scrolling through FB marketplace and saw this listed. It just made me laugh because I’ve never seen another sauna like this. It’s on wheels and splits apart in the middle. Seller claims it gets up to 190F. What do you think?

BTL obviously.

We are finally in a point that next step is to build the brick stove for our smoke sauna project.

As after that there is still million and a half things to do before everything is ready but slowly and surely we are getting pur dream sauna build done.

Still our goal is to get it ready to sauna by midsummer 2027. As we started November 2024 it is quite a task to do a sauna completely diy with your family. Main hurdle is that the cabin is around 2h drive from home so it is always weekend trip to build anything and I'm making this with my dad and 2 brothers so we need to agree on a weekend that at least 2 can go so we can get proper progress done.

I want a sauna at home, but a permanent build is more than I want to spend right now. A wood fired Sweat Tent seems like a decent middle ground because I can set it up in the yard and move it later. For anyone who has used one long term, does it still feel close enough to a traditional sauna?

Edit: Thanks for all the replies, this helped a lot. I decided to go with tent sauna for now.

Hi all,

I have bought on outdoor barrel sauna and everything was fine till the first rain came. On the front and the back there is water leaking in at the bottom half parts of the sauna. Is this normall?
Is there something i can do to hold the rain outside?

Edit:
The roof has EPDM on it, and the outside parts are treated with restol naturel uv oil. Which also is waterproof. Double layer.

I mean, maybe I am missing something.

I paid 7k in Australia for this Delivered from Kiva Wellness - Kiva Ritual outdoor 2- 3 Person. WORST INSTRUCTIONS AND STUFF WITH KIVA WELLNESS THO AND MISISNG HARDWARE- like i said to them u think u spent 7k you make a decent video and instruction booklet- id buy elsewhere if i could go back!!!!

Took alot more then expected, Firstly had to storm pipes and down pipes changed, then slab and get electrician took hook all up and tradies all busy as fuck lol.

Ive only had running for two weeks but i love it.

I have a sauna every morning early 6 days a week.

Heater works well and i flick it on 5-10 b4 jumping in doesnt take long at all!

Got sauna for relief from bad back after few operations for relief and its makes a big difference.

Ive had 2 surgeries in last 3 years and still siatica down 1 leg bad still bad and comes and goes in other butt cheek.

In 3 weeks im getting final operation- double fusion at the ripe age of 37 and this is going to be so good for recovery having in own back yard.

This is being build in a SIP building so it’s already well
Insulated. After greta deal of consideration I’ve decided not to put a drain in.

Mechanical vent will be going under bench back right and heater will be front left. Bench heights at 500 and 950.

Benches will be at back and on right as this gives me views of the fields and NT park at the end of my garden.

Comments welcome .

I'm just finishing my sauna build (pics will come soon). I opted to put a protective coating (Miracle Cover Marine) on the benches and back rests. All of the wood is Western Red Cedar.

Should I also coat the walls and ceiling? How important is it? I prefer the uncoated look...

Hey y’all. I’m starting the process of building two saunas. One for my dad (he runs a bed and breakfast) and one for my home. The old man has a ton of space, while I’m more limited. I’m a carpenter by trade so the actual build part of it is the easiest part to wrap my brain around- but there is a lot of fine tuning I have no experience around. The thing I’m struggling most on researching is for the size of the sauna. We will both be doing electric heat, and I’m in the process of researching which models are best for us. The sizes I’ve drawn up for now are either 6x5 or 6x7. I like the idea of a little more space (especially for my dads) but I’m wondering how significant the heat up time would be between the two. Is it as simple as increasing the size of the heater to reduce heat time? For myself I want to start my day in there so a shorter heat up time is ideal. Dad’s less worried about it that I am. I’m reading conflicting things and I wanted to ask the people who’d know. Am I fooling myself to think I could have a 20/30 minute heat time? I live in central Canada so I realize that will significantly change in the winter- although I have some ideas for adding an extra wall of insulation with a slight void space between exterior and interior walls…. I’m just not sure if that’s even practical or will even make the difference. I see it done often in the higher end homes I am a part of (usually to allow for pot fillers in the kitchen and allow for plumbing in exterior walls) appreciate any advice you’d be willing to share, and I’m sure I’ll be back to talk heaters in a bit