Saunas are world renowned for their unrivalled relaxation and wellbeing benefits and more homeowners every year are choosing to have one installed in their own property.

There is nothing quite like relaxing in your own personal spa bath, sauna, or steam room on a cold winter’s night or after a tough day at work.

Despite being used for over 2000 years in various guises, and the surge in popularity saunas have experienced in recent times, many people are still unaware of many of the fantastic features of saunas and the background behind their historical rise.

Here are 5 interesting facts that you might not know about the sauna.

Home saunas are a must-have in Finland

There is a good chance that you knew that the traditional wood clad sauna originated in Finland over 2000 years ago. After all, these traditional designs are still, to this day, known as Finnish-style saunas.

However, you might not know that whilst in the UK a home sauna Scotland is a wonderful luxury to have, in Finland it is expected that any modern property will come with its own sauna. Any property without one will be seen as requiring renovation.

In fact, there are an estimated 3.2 million saunas in the country, pretty impressive for a country with only 5.4 million residents.

There are many different types of sauna

If you have only ever experienced one type of sauna in your local spa or gym, you might not realise that there are actually several different types of sauna currently available.

Sauna options include:

• Traditional wood clad dry Finnish saunas
• Traditional wet saunas with boiling water poured over hot stones
• Steam rooms with humidity levels of over 90% filled using a steam generator
• Infrared saunas where infrared rays are sent directly into the body of the user to provide penetrating deep heat to sore muscles.

If you are thinking about getting your own home sauna you will need to decide which of these options seems most appealing, and which is most suited to your needs.

Saunas were once used to smoke fish!

In Finland, saunas have been such a big part of the national culture for so long that they have been used for a wide variety of weird and wonderful things over the centuries. The high heat spaces were traditionally used as sterile locations to treat the unwell, give birth, and to prepare dead bodies for burial.

They have also been used to smoke fish, dry meat, and prepare a number of different foodstuffs. We wouldn’t recommend that you try this in your own home sauna, but it’s nice to know that you could if you really wanted to!

Saunas used to be a major fire hazard

As saunas used to be heated through the burning of fuel inside a wood built cabin, it is no surprise that they used to be built a good distance away from the home of the user in centuries past.

Nowadays, you don’t need to worry about this, with modern saunas heated using electric, steam generators, or in very traditional saunas by pouring boiling water over hot stones.

The safest and most energy efficient of all modern saunas are infrared saunas which do not pose any significant fire risk and do not require the sauna to be heated as high as alternative models, heating the body of the user directly instead.

If you do have any safety concerns about your new home sauna, get in touch with our expert team today and we will be happy to talk you through the work we have done to make our saunas as safe as possible.