Purchasing or building a good low cost or cheap sauna for your home or cabin is a great investment in your health as well as your home. If you have the luxury of have some lake or river front property then you most likely will want to build a traditional Finnish sauna. They are relatively cheap to build and there are several plans on the Internet that you can use. If you live in an area that has Northern white cedar, Western red cedar and/or Western Hemlock probably the cheapest place to purchase materials is from the local saw mill. The most expensive part of any traditional sauna is the stove. You can find good quality cheap sauna stoves from the UP of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Many of these manufactures have websites and sell on line.
A cheap sauna can be purchased as a kit as well. New infrared sauna technology makes it easy to place a sauna just about any place. Probably the best cheap sauna is an indoor infrared sauna that does not need any plumbing or special electrical hook ups. These dry cheap saunas are small and light thereby fitting most homes and many larger apartments. They are sized by the number of people that can comfortably sit in them. Common sizes are 1,2,3 and 4 person saunas.
Many cheap sauna kit manufactures will include free shipping in the price. In most cases an infrared sauna can be assembled in less than an hour or two with only a few tools. One of the advertised benefits of purchasing an infrared cheap sauna is that you can use it the same day that it is delivered. The quality of these low cost saunas is really pretty good and includes tongue and groove cedar or hemlock walls, dual inside and outside digital controls and comfortable bench seating. A typical 3 person sauna kit will weigh about 375 pounds and require about 20 square feet of space to install. Most cheap sauna kits are less than 80 inches in height so than can fit in most homes with 8 foot ceilings.
If you are setting your cheap sauna up in an apartment or upstairs room in your home you will need to know what the maximum bearing weight of your floor is. In most modern homes this should not be a problem. These cheap saunas are heated with infrared emitters that either are ceramic or carbon. Ceramic heaters are most common form of infrared heat source in a cheap sauna. Ceramic heaters tend to heat more slowly, require a higher surface temperature, more durable but also more fragile than carbon infrared heaters. Carbon heaters have lower surface temperatures, heat faster and are not as fragile. In general carbon infrared heat panels are more expensive than ceramic panels.
Purchasing a cheap sauna does not mean low quality it just means lower priced. Build it yourself traditional outdoor sauna costs will range from $1500 to $6000 while an indoor cheap sauna with infrared heat will run from $1000 to $4000 depending on the size.
Sauna sales numbers indicate that investing in a good cheap sauna is a great investment into your health and quality of life as well as adding value to your home.