If you have recently visited your local spa and tried the sauna or have been researching the health benefits of using a steam room on a regular basis, you may have decided to join the millions across the globe who have a sauna installed on their own property.
In the UK, saunas are still considered a luxury item, despite falling prices and increasing affordability, but in other cultures they are considered a necessity. In Finland, for example, there are over 3 million saunas installed in a country with only 5 million people, and all domestic homes are expected to have one installed.
The benefits of installing your very own home sauna are tremendous, speeding up muscle recovery, helping to remove toxins from the body, providing a fantastic space for socialisation and meditation, and so much more. Having one installed is, therefore, a no brainer, but where are you going to put it?
Another major benefit of modern home saunas is that they can be installed pretty much anywhere. Infrared saunas, for example, have taken the home sauna market by storm in recent times, and without the need for mains water access or traditional wood cladding can be designed to fit in most spaces, no matter how big, small, or uniquely shaped they may be.
Most people either choose to have one of the rooms in their home transformed into a steam room, have a sauna built in if they are building their own home, have an infrared sauna installed inside their current bathroom, or have a garden sauna installed in their outside space.
Both indoor and outdoor saunas have their pros and cons, which will be examined here in detail, giving you all the information that you could possibly need to make your decision.
Pros and cons of an outdoor sauna
An outdoor sauna shares all the fantastic benefits of any sauna or steam room, with the additional advantage of helping you to reconnect with nature and enjoy your heat therapy session in the great outdoors.
Installing a home sauna will give you a place to escape from the stresses of the day and offer a great opportunity to relax after coming home from a tough day at work. As we all know, however, the home can sometimes become pretty stressful to, and a garden sauna is the ultimate retreat, letting you relax and unwind away from your troubles and enjoy the peace and quiet of a good sauna soak.
Some of the biggest benefits of outdoor sauna installation include:
Increase Property Value
Installing a home sauna can add significant value to your property, but this can be compromised if the installation comes at the cost of removing a bathroom or other valuable inside space.
By installing a barrel sauna or infrared sauna in your garden, this won’t be the case, and with no planning permission required, this is an easy way to improve your home life and add value to your property should you ever come to sell.
Private escape
There is nothing quite like an outdoor sauna when it comes to retreating from reality and entering into a state of quiet relaxation. No sauna is exactly bad for this purpose, but taking the sauna outside your home and into the great outdoors only amplifies the effect.
Enjoy a range of health and wellness benefits
Having an outdoor sauna installed next to your home give you access to your very own private spa experience at any time of the day or night.
Enjoy all the skin cleansing, mind relaxing, and detoxing experience of a spa sauna experience without having to venture out to your local spa or gym. Garden saunas can even be used as a valuable tool for those looking to lose weight, putting your body into calorie burning mode in a similar manner to cardiovascular activity.
Negatives of outdoor sauna installation
Let’s be honest, there aren’t many downsides to having your very own sauna sitting in your back garden. Before you make this investment however, there are a few things that you should consider.
Outdoor space needed
Some people would love an outdoor sauna but simply don’t have the outdoor space attached to their property for one to be installed.
Outdoor saunas do come in all shapes and sizes, however, so you don’t need a huge garden to benefit from them, with 1-4 person options available to suit the needs of a variety of different people and properties.
Electrical requirements
Outdoor saunas will require access to electricity, except in the case of very traditional Finnish saunas that still have wood burning stoves. This may limit the locations in which you can have your sauna installed and means that a licenced professional will be required to carry out the installation.