Infared Saunas - Running Costs

How much does it cost to runa an Infrared Sauna?

U.S. manufacturers have put an estimate of power usage as being a 20-minute session, including warm-up in the heat sauna, costs about 5 cents of electricity whereas a comparable session with a full warm-up in a conventional sauna costs in the region of $0.75 - $1.00. This is effectively saying that a steam sauna is at least seven time as expensive to run as an infra-red sauna. Assuming the sauna is used daily for 20 minutes, using the above figures you're looking at an annual spend of around $18 for an infared sauna or $275 for a conventional steam sauna. That's quite some saving.

The running costs of an infared sauna comes down to two factors, the number of heaters and their respective power usage. Some manufacturers of infrared saunas favour the use of many smaller ceramic heaters while other manufacturers prefer to use fewer but higher powered ceramic heater units. Whichever method is preferred the consensus seems to be that an overall output of in the region of 1kW - 2kW for a 1-2 person infrared sauna, and 2kW - 3kW needed for 3-4 person sauna. When you compare this to a typical stream sauna which has a power consumption in the region of 6kW you can see there are significant savings in relation to running costs of an infrared sauna over the conventional steam sauna. In the UK running costs for a far infrared sauna will be in the region of 9p-19p per hour depending on the model. Another factor to consider when comparing the two is the warm-up time. According to many manufacturers, a far infrared sauna has a quicker warm-up period thus saving time and energy.