Guide

Is a garden sauna safe? Fire, electrics and children

The safety questions buyers ask about a garden sauna: electrics, heater clearances, wood stoves, doors, children and slippery floors.

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Fitted properly and used with common sense, a garden sauna is a small timber room with a heater in it. Most of the risk sits in the installation, so get that right and follow the heater maker's manual.

Electrics

Use a registered electrician for the circuit, with an : the safety switch that cuts the power if something goes wrong. The wiring rules treat a sauna as a special case, so tell the electrician what the circuit is for. Sauna electrics.

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The heater

Every heater manual gives minimum distances to walls, ceiling and benches, and most come with a guard rail. Keep to them, and keep towels off the stove. Turn the heater off at the controller when you finish.

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Wood stoves

Fit the chimney pipe (flue) as the stove maker says, with the right clearances where it passes through the roof. Keep a fire extinguisher or fire blanket nearby and never leave a lit stove with nobody watching. Check the smoke rules too.

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Door and floor

Sauna doors normally open outwards with a push handle and no lock, so nobody can be shut in. Wet floors are slippery: a wooden slatted floor mat and a step with a handrail help.

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Children

Supervise children every time, keep a timer on the wall and follow the heater maker's guidance on age and time. Lock the control panel, or switch the heater off at its wall switch, when the sauna isn't in use.

We don't give health advice. If anyone using the sauna has a heart or blood-pressure condition, or is pregnant, ask a GP first.

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Common worries

"The electrics sound like a nightmare."

It is one visit from a registered electrician. Every sauna page says what power it needs, and we add a typical cost to the price (£450 for a new circuit). 8 saunas we list plug into a normal socket, and 46 garden saunas take a wood stove with no electrics at all. Sauna electrics, explained →

"What will the neighbours say?"

An electric sauna is quiet and makes no smoke. A wood stove does smoke, and in a you may only burn wood in an exempt stove. Put the door and chimney away from the fence and most neighbours never notice. Wood stoves and the smoke rules →

All ten sauna worries

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