What Does a Sauna Session Cost? Garden Sauna Running Costs
Running costs of a garden sauna: wood per evening, electricity per session, the costs people forget, and the habits that cut the bill the most.
Read →Barrel Sauna or Hot Tub: What Suits Your Garden?
Two different rituals that often get mixed up when planning a garden. In photos they look similar; in daily life they differ so much that the choice is not a matter of taste but of lifestyle.
Preparation time: the biggest difference
You light the sauna and walk in after 30–45 minutes, even spontaneously after work.
A tub is a different order of magnitude: heating several hundred litres of water takes several hours, and longer in the cold.
That is why a sauna is often used two to three times a week and a tub more like every few weeks.
Upkeep between uses
After use, a sauna mainly needs airing.
The water in a tub has to be changed after a few days unless you treat it, or you work with a filter and water care.
Cost per use
Water has a far higher heat capacity than air, so heating it takes much more energy. Add the water itself and the chemicals. Per use the sauna is clearly cheaper.
Winter
A sauna works in winter without changes; it is its best season.
A tub is wonderful in winter but needs attention: between baths the water and pipes can freeze.
When the tub wins anyway
For long, shared sitting and conversation: in a sauna at 90 °C you stay a quarter of an hour, in a tub an hour.
If there are people in the household who tolerate high temperatures badly. A tub at 38 °C is accessible to them; a sauna at 90 °C is not.
The combination
A barrel sauna with a small cold-water tub next to it is the most popular solution for anyone with space and budget: hot in the sauna, cool down in the tub, back in again.
If the budget stretches to only one and you want to use it regularly: the sauna.
