Is a Traditional Backyard Sauna Actually Worth the Money? I Built One to Find Out

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What do you picture when you hear the word “sauna”? For some it’s a hot, windowless room lined with cedar at their gym. For others, it’s a wood-fired heater roaring in a sauna cabin by a lake. For me, I call up memories of off-grid wood-fired saunas at remote backcountry huts during ski season, but I’ve had memorable sauna sessions in closet-sized sauna chambers in a condo building basement.

Thanks to an increase in interest in sauna for potential health benefits, there are more options than ever that fall under the big umbrella of “sauna.” I tested and reviewed a wide range of saunas and sauna alternatives for my upcoming Best At-Home Saunas review including sauna blankets, sauna domes, infrared saunas, and wood-heated pop-up sauna tents. If you really stretch the definition, sitting in your underwear in your car with the heat cranked could be a sauna. 

However, despite the glut of cheaper, simpler sauna products, I still gravitate toward traditional cabin saunas. The Almost Heaven View Outdoor Sauna is the sauna I chose for my backyard sauna setup because of its adherence to good sauna design principles and the more modern additions of large glass windows and glass-paneled door.

The first time I loaded up the wood-fired heater in the View Outdoor Sauna, aurora borealis was lighting up the sky and the only other light in the sauna was the flicker from the stove. The outside temperature was around freezing but it was nearly 200 degrees inside and I was dripping with sweat watching the light show. This is the type of experience you’re chasing when you spend the money on a “real” sauna.

The View (and saunas like it) aren’t cheap and involve a substantial construction project, but for me it delivers the sauna experience I picture when I close my eyes. In this review, I share my experience building and using the Almost Heaven View Outdoor Sauna so you can decide if you’re likely to get as much out of the investment as I have.

What It Is

If you’re not versed in the mechanics of traditional Finnish-style saunas such as the View, they are wood-paneled spaces for sweat bathing with a wood-burning or electric heater topped with sauna stones for creating steam. Sauna bathers sit on benches at or above the top of the heater in air temperatures ranging from 140 degrees to more than 200 degrees.

Almost Heaven’s View Outdoor Sauna is a textbook example of this traditional type of sauna with three levels of benches to sit up to four people. You can move up or down on the bench levels to shift to hotter or cooler temperatures and the sloped ceiling puts you squarely in the hottest air when seated on the top bench. 

The footprint of the View Sauna is roughly a 6’8 x 6’8 foot square with a shed roof that slopes down from the front windowed wall to the benches in the rear. The door sits on one side wall with the heater inside against the other. The benches are long enough for people about 6’3” or shorter to fully lay out or to sit up to four people side by side on the top bench. Two people can share the View very comfortably, seated with knees up on the bench facing one another. I find the size a perfect compromise that’s small enough to heat up relatively quickly while still having enough room to stretch, move about, and bring in a few friends.

While most Americans think of aromatic cedar as the wood of choice for saunas, pine is most common in Finland and the View sauna uses 1.5-inch thick Nordic Spruce boards for its walls. The floors and ceiling are tongue-and-groove spruce boards and the ceiling includes a layer of insulation where heat loss is greatest.

Any cabin sauna that follows good sauna design principles and uses a quality sauna heater should deliver a similar experience, but what sets the View apart for me is the glass. The wall opposite the benches is floor-to-ceiling heat-tolerant glass that lets in lots of natural light and is a great choice if you have a natural setting with water, a view, and/or flora to enjoy outside it. The door is also mostly glass and the View doesn’t seem to have any trouble building up and retaining heat despite it.

Almost Heaven View Sauna Overall Impressions

I chose a Harvia Pro 20 wood-burning heater that can exceed 200 degrees and reaches 180 degrees even when it’s sub-freezing outside for the Almost Heaven sauna. The View can instead be paired with an electric heater or a different style of woodstove, but all your options come from the Finnish sauna heater giant Harvia which purchased the American sauna manufacturer Almost Heaven a few years back.

With the wood-burning Harvia Pro 20 heater, building the fire takes time and is part of the sauna ritual, but once it’s going requires little management. The streamlined design doesn’t have a damper or other adjustments and maintains a steady burn rate and you manage the heat by adding logs or letting the fire burn down. The heater is also sized specific to the View sauna to ensure it can maintain proper sauna temperatures without overheating, which is easy to do with a too-large woodstove in a small space.

Once a fire is going, it takes 30 to 45 minutes to reach the minimum sauna temperature of 140 degrees, but I usually let it go for an hour if I have time, adding a log every 20 minutes or so. After an hour, depending on outside temperature, the sauna usually has reached at least 160 degrees and will continue to climb during your sauna session. 

Even though the walls of the View aren’t insulated and there’s a ton of glass, I’ve found the temperature never has drastic swings like I’ve experienced in other saunas. I chalk this up to the insulated ceiling as well as the heat retained by the sauna rocks and thick metal of the stove which keeps emitting radiant heat even if the fire dies down.

Adding a log every 20 minutes seems to be about right for maintaining whatever temperature you prefer. For a lower temperature, use a smaller base fire and for a hotter temperature keep the stove packed.

Building the View Sauna

In addition to the significant upfront cost, you’ll also need to commit quite a bit of labor, time, and know-how to construct this cabin. The View (and the many cabin and barrel saunas like it) ships as a kit, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s just another Ikea table project.

While I’m a writer and editor on my resume, I’ve gutted and remodeled several houses and am generally more handy than your average person, and the build process for the View took me three weekends worth of full days to complete. The View ships with pre-cut lumber, all required hardware, and step-by-step instructions, but you’ll need tools, time, familiarity with basic carpentry, and a positive mental attitude to get through it.

I presented the build instructions to a builder friend and asked him for an estimate of what he’d charge for the project and he gave a ballpark of $2,000. This is a significant additional cost, but if you’re concerned you don’t have the tools, time, or expertise to do it yourself, that’ll be money well-spent.

Optional Steps and Hidden Costs

For my installation, I chose to build a deck platform set on pressure-treated 4x4 beams to keep the View Sauna off the dirt and provide a place for shoes, extra firewood, and other sauna paraphernalia. This was another weekend-long project and over $1,000 in materials. (I used long-lasting composite deck boards so you can definitely do it cheaper.)

Almost Heaven also advises adding a proper roof on top of the raw pine tongue-and-groove boards and treating the exterior with protective stain. Because the materials for this aren’t included nor are the processes outlined, you’re on the hook for the materials and cost to hire it out (or time required for DIY). I used excess materials I had on-hand to stain the wood and add an asphalt shingle roof, but the cheapest and simplest roof option is probably using corrugated metal panels which are cheap and simple to install.

If you go with an electric heater, the build process gets simpler in one aspect, as you won’t have to cut through the ceiling and roof to install a chimney. However, if you don’t already have the required electrical wiring and outlet installed, you’ll likely need help from a licensed electrician. The scope of the electrical work required can vary wildly depending on the location of your sauna, but expect to spend several hundred up to several thousand dollars on electrical work alone. Consult an electrician before buying any electric heat sauna to be sure you understand the scope and cost of the project in advance.

Pros

• Excellent sauna design
• Large windows and door panel for natural light and views
• Finnish saunaheater included

Cons

• Significant build process
• Expensive

FAQs

Is a traditional cabin sauna really worth it?

Sauna researchers I spoke to suggest that it likely matters less how you sauna than how hot you get and I was surprised at how effective some of these seemingly gimmicky sauna products such as sauna blankets were. This is good news for folks that want to reap the benefits of sauna but aren’t ready to fork over five figures to get there. 

Why spend $8 to 20K on a traditional sauna and undertake the hassle of a complicated build when you could spend $500 on a plug and play sauna blanket to achieve the same results? While I can’t deny the value proposition of cheaper sauna alternatives, the ideal sauna experience for me is a crackling woodstove heating a wood-paneled cabin out in nature, not sweating in an electrified sleeping bag on the floor of my home office.

Eric Matis, partner at strategic consulting firm Cactus has a regular sauna practice, travels to Finland yearly for mini sauna retreats, and laments how “health practices in America get stripped of their original context.” Matis says he appreciates simple, everyday saunas but cautions that “sauna is much more than heat. It’s a ritual — and that’s why substitutes often feel incomplete.”

In his new book Finnish Sauna: Steam, Wood, Stone and How to Build Your Own, author Lassi A. Likkanen says sauna in Finland can be quotidian and utilitarian, but at its best is like an evening at the theater with friends. 

“Both sauna and theatre take place somewhere out of the ordinary and involve a carefully pre-arranged stage, a setting that temporarily transfers you to a different world but only comes alive with people,” he writes. “You don’t just walk into the experience; it takes some planning and an investment of time and money.”

While I share this enthusiasm for the poetic aspects of a sauna ritual, I wouldn’t recommend spending the time or money on a higher-end sauna like the View if you aren’t sure you’ll use it enough to justify the cost. If you’re not confident your sauna habit will stick or just want a more plug and play solution, check out the other options reviewed in detail in our Guide to the Best At-Home Saunas.

What about a DIY sauna?

The high price of cabin saunas such as the View push many sauna enthusiasts to explore the DIY option, hoping to save big and get a custom build, evidence of which is apparent all over YouTube and various internet forums. Before buying the View Sauna, I spent a considerable amount of time researching sauna designs, calculating materials needs and costs, and sketching initial schematics. 

What ultimately pushed me toward a build kit was the realization that I likely wouldn’t save enough money to justify taking on a project that’s on par with designing and building a small house. As inspiring as I found pictures of successful DIY sauna builds, I was discouraged even more by posts lamenting design choices, underestimating cost and complexity, and getting hung up for weeks trying to source the right materials.

I was also concerned that in pursuit of a successful and affordable build, I’d follow a DIY path that led to a sauna that was good enough but not great. In buying the View Sauna kit, I got a proven design and features such as the full-width window wall that might’ve cost more and been omitted in a DIY build. 

In his book Finnish Sauna, Likkanen estimates the average cost of a DIY sauna build at around $15,000 which is more than the current price for the View kit and plenty of other comparable options. If you’re considering DIY, I recommend picking up a copy of his book which includes detailed plans for example builds as well as helpful discussions on the pros and cons of doing it yourself.

Final Verdict

There’s a strong argument for cheaper, utilitarian saunas that bring the health benefits of the practice to your living space and daily routine, but if you value the aesthetics of a memorable sauna session and setting, you’ll likely value a traditional cabin sauna such as the Almost Heaven View Outdoor Sauna. 

My at-home sauna dreams were filled with flickering woodstove light in a cabin sauna in the woods looking out at the surrounding mountains, and the View made them come true. The upfront spend won’t fit everyone’s budget and the build process will cost you time and/or money, but it’s a worthwhile investment if you appreciate the intangibles of the sauna experience as much as the nuts and bolts of getting a good sweat.