What Does a Sauna Session Cost? Garden Sauna Running Costs

You see the purchase price straight away, while the running costs are spread over years, so hardly anyone works them out beforehand. Here are the orders of magnitude so that you can.

Wood stove: wood per sauna evening

A full heat-up of a 3 m barrel sauna takes roughly 8–12 kg of wood. The lower end is summer and a short session; the upper end is frost and three rounds.

Moisture is decisive. With wood over 25% moisture a large part of the energy goes into evaporating water: the sauna does not warm up, it smokes, and consumption rises a lot.

Add the annual flue clean.

Electric stove: electricity consumption

An 8 kW stove does not draw 8 kW all the time. It needs full power while heating up, then the controller cycles to hold the temperature, so the average falls well below that.

As an order of magnitude: heat-up plus an hour of use comes to around 8–12 kWh. Multiply by your own price per kWh to get the cost per evening. It is more in winter, because heat-up takes longer and the stove cycles more often.

Costs people forget

Exterior wood treatment once a year: materials and half a day of work.

A new door seal after several seasons. It affects consumption more than anything else.

Sauna stones every 2–3 years.

With a wood stove: a dry, covered place to store logs.

What cuts costs the most

Dry wood.

A tight door.

A size matched to the real number of people, not to imagined guests.

Closing the vent while heating and opening it only during the session.

A changing room for winter use, so there is less loss each time you open the door.