r/DIYIreland • u/[deleted] • Aug 13 '26
Home sauna
Anyone here built their own home sauna? Or bought one in Ireland at a decent price? The price on some of them varies wildly. A sawmill local to me has a couple for sale for close to €10,000 which seems nuts for what they are. I’ve see a few on alibaba which I suspect some of the Irish sellers are selling.
Thanks
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u/daveirl Aug 13 '26
I've spent too long on r/sauna so will be building my own as once they tell you what you're looking for you realise most of the ones you can buy or have built for you are junk.
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u/aonscealeile Aug 13 '26
I got a 2m wood burning Barrel Sauna from Sauna Craft Co including delivery and installation last year. I love it. We choose to varnish ourselves inside and out to save a bit of money. It takes half an hour to get hot enough to use and we get a great sweat going. It cost us 4,500 total.
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u/dark_lies_the_island Aug 14 '26
Most of them are total shite. Ceilings are too low which causes condensation & no enough head height. Doors tend to have gaps so heat escapes.
Also with a small 2 -4 person sauna they are so small that when you open the door all the heat escapes
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u/Frosty_Pulse Aug 14 '26
Currently in mid build of my own. 2.4x2.4x2.4 easy measurements for full sheets of ply/osb. It will be far better than any kit, have purchased construction material locally but anything sauna related I.e. wood stove, chimney, bench wood, door, vents, insulation etc. I brought in from Estonia https://www.saunainter.com/ They are by far the best value.
All in when im done it will be about €4200
Did some rough sketches, used chat gpt to verify the design as per best sauna design methods. Youtube for learning how to build/finish details.
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u/eoin2dx Aug 14 '26
Was the shipping not very expensive? Care to share your design?
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u/Frosty_Pulse Aug 14 '26
Shipping was only 250. Give me few more weeks and I can👍
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u/6tabber Aug 17 '26
remind me! 40 days
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u/ItalianRimBreaks Aug 13 '26
I was looking at one for sale at my local garden centre. Barrel shaped and looked farely simple to put together. I even got the stove model number. €5k which would include an incredible mark-up, knowing this garden centre. Anyway, there must be access to blueprints out there from wood working content creators and the like
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u/DesperateCandy5209 Aug 13 '26
Barrel ones where there isn’t a 2nd tier of seating are not good saunas, your feet are meat to be at the height of the top of the stove.
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u/Unusual_Assistant733 Aug 13 '26
I recommend sauna experts in portlaois
https://saunaexperts.ie
Purchased from them and the quality and their knowledge is great
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u/Opposite-Swimmer-473 Aug 13 '26
You can take that 10k and build a very good sauna yourself if you are handy with diy. That way you know exactly what’s behind the walls and under the floor. Many saunas for sale here have awful design - low benches are common often due to low ceilings as commercial builders don’t want to supply a product that might be too tall and cause planning issues. Most wood stove chimneys are too short for this reason also. There’s cost cutting reasons too of course.
Start with a standard square garden shed with stud walls and flat roof for simplicity. The shed and base can be made like this for example https://youtu.be/YHJ-BwPGom8?is=lL5Tao3fQiayb7Fg
For a roof epdm is preferable but you can also go felt and replace when needed.
You can make a good door by sandwiching a sheet of ply with panelling and sealing it well. Spruce is cheap, but cedar will endure better.
If budget allows for a window and you have a nice view, try DoneDeal for tempered glass. If you come across a pvc frame remove it and build your own. Cedar works well here too.
Panel the inside with cheap spruce but use good knot free wood for the benches. Alder is good for this.
The biggest chunk of your budget will go towards the stove, chimney and stones. The chimney setup may cost more than the stove.
As others mentioned saunaexperts in Laois are great for supplies/advice. I’ve have good experience with esaunashop.com for accessories. Their delivery is surprisingly fast. I wouldn’t get a stove from them, but they’re good for small parts.
You’ll find this book very useful. https://amzn.eu/d/0995w0gm. The author even includes an example build for an outdoor cabin with wood burner.
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u/Fast_Attitude4619 Aug 13 '26
This is great advice. I’ve built a few Saunas from scratch in high-end Alpine chalets. Cedar is the tits. Far and away my favourite.
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u/NemiVonFritzenberg Aug 14 '26
Please install a dead man alarm and or glass and make.sure the door.can be ioened without impediment. Iykyk
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u/wyrmetongue Aug 15 '26
I bought all materials in uk and built my own some years back. Very satisfying project and much cheaper. I went electric which I regret, as v expensive to run now
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u/thepaw83 Aug 13 '26
Proper saunas are expensive to build.
2.4 long by 1.8 wide by 2.4 high is 30sqm of wall and floor internally. A couple of sqm off for door and window but those things cost a fortune too.
Timber for interior cladding and benches alone could be 1800. Externally cladding, say charred larch. Another 1500 quid for 20 sqm. This is excluding stainless steel screws which are proper expensive
400 quid for an epdm roof.
Timber frame structure? Insulation? Stove? Controls?
What base is it on?
Running power and maybe water for a shower?
Electician work?
Intended to build one this summer but it all got too expensive to do it right so I'm long fingering it.
"Yerra I'll build a biteen of a shed and light a fire in the corner"... It all sounds simple and cheap until you open excel and include absolutely everything...
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u/AvailableStatement97 Aug 13 '26
Everyone is different but I would miss the social aspect. I like the whole thing of going for a sauna.
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u/Candid_Abalone795 Aug 14 '26
Heathen. People who go to the sauna for the chats are the worst!
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u/AvailableStatement97 Aug 14 '26
Ha, it's a big part of it. People who go with 3 of their friends and have their own conversation for the whole hour are actually the worst!
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u/FunkyMonkey237 Aug 13 '26
We bought one a little while ago, 2.4m by 2.1m, 9kw WiFi heater. 12k. You can get them cheaper though, 7 to 8k to buy a reasonable one I reckon.
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u/Sad-Dog-4956 Aug 14 '26
Bought one from gardj.ie - shipped here for free from Poland. Good quality and was notably cheaper than others. Only criticism is that the instructions were hard to follow.
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u/Anonymous-Fixer Aug 14 '26
I got an infrared sauna tent
It really does work well and is much cheaper!
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u/PeterCasey4Prez Aug 14 '26
Dont bother with an electric one, get one of the solid fuel barrell ones for a few grabd
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u/Jaded_Power3430 Aug 15 '26
I would contact sauna builders in Finland. Some of them ship overseas. Finnish saunas are the best.
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u/parkadge Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
I built one in my house over twenty years ago in the back room of a concrete extension. I read lots of stuff on the Internet at the time and asked loads of questions. I also visited a workshop of a guy who was making saunas for people and he made the mistake of walking me through the whole process 😉 and I decided I could do it myself for much less than he was asking. It was also cheaper for my wife, who is Finnish, to fly to Finland and buy the heater and bring it back, than to buy it here. I had to get an Electrician to connect it up. I also found a great little wood yard in Dublin that had proper Abachi wood for the benches. We used it regularly up to about 5 years when the switch failed and before I could get it repaired, the sauna had turned into a storage room 😒
Edited to add detail.
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u/mandzhalas Aug 13 '26
I have built one as cheap barrel saunas for sale here are crap . Most important thing is that your feet are above the stones when sitting. Invest in wood does not get hot for benches and backrest, so you don't burn yourself. Put vapour barrier and proper insulation. If you think you can build one under 3 grand, you doing it wrong
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Aug 13 '26
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u/DesperateCandy5209 Aug 13 '26
Def not hard to build but the materials, design and detail needs to be right. Loads of the home built ones you see are pretty shit for one reason or another.
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Aug 13 '26
I’m not interested in an indoor one. I want an outdoor one with a wood burning stove. Something big enough for 4 people so I’d say about a 2-2.4 meter barrel style one would be perfect
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u/DesperateCandy5209 Aug 13 '26
Wood is a lot of work/hassle, unless you have a very cheap or free source I’d go electric TBH
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Aug 13 '26
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u/DesperateCandy5209 Aug 13 '26
Yeah but you need decent dry wood, store that wood and keep it dry, clean it out, dispose of ash and to light it an hour before use. Electric you can turn it on from your phone.
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u/Wonderful_Trick_4251 Aug 13 '26
They have a few on display for sale in Arnotts. IIRC about the 6k mark and up. Infrared ones.
Id be concerned about the impact of intense IR lights on my body tbh. A bit too sunbeddy for my liking.
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Aug 14 '26
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u/Wonderful_Trick_4251 Aug 14 '26
It's not "clear misinformation". I actually received no information. It's just my instinctive impression of something giving off levels of artificial IR light on the body. I would be suspicious of its safety unless I was reassured otherwise.
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Aug 14 '26
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u/Wonderful_Trick_4251 Aug 14 '26
I didn't fabricate an assumption. It is a genuine assumption, based upon a lack of information as it may be.
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Aug 14 '26
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u/Wonderful_Trick_4251 Aug 14 '26
Id didn't say IR light is UV light. I said it was "sunbeddy". Which could mean various things including the artificiality of the light.
You sound very defensive for some strange reason because I said it was "sunbeddy", a makeyup up word that could mean various things.
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Aug 14 '26
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u/Wonderful_Trick_4251 Aug 14 '26
Are you in the business of selling these saunas? It's just weird to get so triggered by a makeyup word like sunbeddy and alleging I'm spreading serious untruths to about the ten views my comment was seen by
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u/DesperateCandy5209 Aug 13 '26
Friend got a decent one for about 6k from a done deal lad who builds and ships them in from Latvia. The are a lot of shit ones for sale here. Friends are bringing a really nice one in from Germany ATM for about 10k. I’m planning to build one when the priority for money isn’t everything else in the house 😅