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Over the past few weeks, my ten-year-old daughter has developed a little habit. As soon as she got home from school, she grabbed her library books and disappeared into the backyard. She turned on the Sun Home Luminar sauna in the backyard, set the temperature to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and sat down in her room, fully clothed, to read. One day, when I was outside, I saw five neighbor kids sitting there, chatting, and warming up.
I live in Portland, Oregon, where there’s a healthy sauna culture, probably because saunas have become an important tool in the fight against seasonal depression in this rainy region. Not only did I open a regular account at a local health center, I also joined a gym near my home and started using the sauna there. When I had the opportunity to try a public home sauna, I jumped at it.
If you are considering purchasing a sauna from Sun Home, there are a few things to consider. First, it is an infrared sauna, not a traditional steam sauna where steam is created by pouring water onto a heating element.
Both traditional and infrared saunas have their enthusiasts who can argue forever (and they do). Traditional saunas are more prone to fires. Infrared saunas are drier, and therefore more hygienic and easier to clean. Among other things, the benefits of traditional saunas have been more thoroughly researched. For me, the two main differences are that traditional saunas tend to be more expensive (in fact, Sun Home offers saunas for up to $15,000) and that you need to stay dry in an infrared sauna to avoid getting electrocuted by the heating panels.
I also highly recommend figuring out the ideal location and reading the assembly instructions before purchasing. It needs to be placed in a dry, sheltered area, otherwise it will take longer to heat up and could damage the electrical components. I thought I lived in the perfect location for an outdoor sauna because I live on a double lot with an unused basketball court that is close to a dedicated outlet and close enough to my router to get a full Wi-Fi signal. Unfortunately, it is not an indoor basketball court. Sun Home assured me that this would not be a problem.
The assembly process can also be a bit of a hassle unless you hire a professional. As the assembly instructions state, you should have several people there when the sauna is delivered to your home, and the box should be dry. It almost always rains during Portland sauna season. While everyone’s experience with third-party assembly services is different, my experience was nothing like the “white glove service” described by Sun Home. For example, the third-party installer required my dad to bring all the parts to the garage, and I told my dad that all he had to do was meet the guy at the door. (Sorry, Dad!)
Rather than wait for assembly, my husband decided to do it himself. Sun Home says three to four hours for assembly; it took us a weekend, not counting the time it took to rewire the dedicated outlets. Luckily, our marriage is still going strong. The process was as easy as assembling IKEA furniture, which was good, since the instructions were completely useless. (I passed on all this feedback to the company, and they responded; Sun Home later revised the manual and added a video.)
Saunas are surprisingly sociable. When the Sun Home box arrived in my driveway, many people texted me: “Do you have a sauna?” I invited them all. Later, I rescinded the invitation. The five-person sauna only fits five very small people. My husband (5’11”) and I (5’2”) were able to sit comfortably. If they were very good friends and skinny, we might have squeezed in another person.
During testing on a damp, cold winter night in the Pacific Northwest, the sauna slowly warmed up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, with the last few degrees taking much longer to warm up than I expected. I typically wait about an hour for the temperature to reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Sun Home warns that if the outside temperature is below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, it will take longer to warm up unless you use a “weather-protective cover.”
After I shared my experience with the slow heating, the company sent a technician to make sure it wasn’t an installation error. On a sunny day, he managed to heat the sauna to 170 degrees Fahrenheit in just an hour, without a protective cover and with the help of a patient conversation with the owner on the phone. The technician also suggested that the door didn’t have a sufficient seal, something I hadn’t noticed at night. Daylight was visible through the glass, meaning the heat wasn’t sealed in. “I don’t want to criticize the entire market, but based on my experience with this type of sauna, a heating process of one to two hours seems about right for this type of sauna,” he said.
Also, the Sun Home timer is set to one hour by default. It was frustrating to wait, the temperature would only go up to 150 degrees, then it would turn off, the temperature would drop to 130 degrees, and you would have to reset the timer, etc.
If you decide to mount the accessories on the wall under the control panel, you will have nowhere to lean your back because the heating panel is right behind the seat. This is very inconvenient. The heating panel glows, which is nice, but if I lean on it for more than a few minutes, it burns my back. This is inconvenient because most people sweat naked in the sauna.
I asked Sun Home about the suspicious placement of the heating element, and the company said they had never received any feedback like this before. When I received the sauna, the company gave me a huge black sauna robe with a signature cap to wear underneath to protect me from the heating element. Wearing a huge black bag into the sauna was so weird, but also so pleasantly weird, that I always wore the sauna cap when I went in.
Sun Home notes that you can purchase additional backrests to provide more space between your back and the heating plate. The company sent me some so I could receive them in a few days. A towel or wearing a sauna bag is cheaper and more effective.
Finally, the lock on the door opened from the outside. It’s scary because it’s easy to get caught up in it. When the kids were around, I kept checking to make sure no one had locked the other house out as a prank. When I was alone, I’d occasionally peek outside to make sure there weren’t any serial killers around. (Sun Home said the lock was installed because without it, the door would remain ajar and would be blown back by strong winds, shattering the glass.)
On the plus side, the decor is very nice. It looks and feels solid. When you walk in, there’s a slight cedar scent in the air that’s very pleasant. As my daughter and the neighborhood kids can attest, it’s a lovely, cozy nook to curl up in and read a book if you’re the child of someone who’s always cold, and if you’re always cold yourself.
I find it much more convenient to open the Sun Home app, let the sauna heat up for 30 minutes, and then walk out into the backyard than to walk three blocks to the gym where I have to pre-workout before I can go into the sauna.
You can connect your phone via Bluetooth or USB and listen to music or podcasts with the Sun Home ceiling speakers, which provide a pleasant depth of sound, even if you hear explosive consonants when listening to podcasts. With the touch of a button on the control panel, you can turn on the lights for a party for two.
There is also a chromotherapy panel on the ceiling that turns the sauna a purple-pink hue. Some small studies support the idea that chromotherapy can reduce anxiety. I have turned it on a few times, but I find that sitting under the pink light panel keeps me from forgetting that Freddy Krueger could attack me in my own backyard. You also have the option of installing additional infrared therapy panels on the door.
For this price, you expect your sauna experience to be enjoyable and completely satisfying. You don’t want to deal with the hassle of assembly and delivery. You don’t want to wait an hour or more for the water to heat up to the right temperature, and once in the sauna, you don’t want to sit on a bench, carefully touching your back to make sure you haven’t burned yourself. You don’t want to worry about broken glass or your neighbor’s five-year-old getting trapped inside.
There are plenty of other saunas where you can sit without worrying about the door breaking. For example, this Plunge sauna also has Bluetooth connectivity, you can recline comfortably in the chair, and it has a wooden door! You can get a traditional home sauna at Costco for as little as $4,000. However, someone in my family often hosts sauna parties, and I think my 10-year-old enjoys the Sun Home more than I do. A stuffy, muggy room full of naked parents is not exactly a cozy reading nook.
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