Creating an Outdoor Sauna Hideaway

A sauna at the end of the garden gets used differently from one built into the house. The walk out to it, across the lawn or along a deck between new planting, puts a little distance between the heat and the rest of the household, and that distance is most of what people mean when they call a sauna a hideaway. The rest comes from where the building sits, what it's made of and what waits outside the door when you step out between rounds.

What makes an outdoor sauna feel like a hideaway?

Four things do most of the work: a little distance from the house, a door turned out of the prevailing wind, a window that frames something from the upper bench and cold water a few steps away. None of them depends on size. A two-person sauna set well on a suburban section can feel further from the house than a large one parked against the fence.

Privacy matters as much as distance. Planting, a screen or the line of an existing hedge can shield the door and the shower from neighbours, and at a garden sauna near Omaha Beach new planting was put in as part of the design so the building sits behind it. Stone steppers lead to it from the deck, which keeps wet feet off the grass on the way back to the house.

Where should an outdoor sauna go on a New Zealand section?

We look at four things on site: how the ground falls and drains, which way the prevailing wind blows, where the sun sits through the day and how easily a build team can reach the spot. A sauna with its door facing away from the wind and the evening sun on it is a very different place to sit from one tucked against a cold fence line.

Glazing is set on the view from the upper bench, since that's where you'll spend most of each round, so it pays to stand where that bench would be before anything is drawn. Uneven ground is rarely a problem (on tricky sites we often set the sauna on screw piles), an existing deck may need structural upgrades first, and on a roof terrace our architect reviews the building's plans to confirm it can carry the load. The site visit is free anywhere in New Zealand, and the position comes out of it.

How big should an outdoor sauna be?

Outdoors, we like a bench long enough to lie down on, so the interior sits at around 2100 x 1800 mm with the depth adjusted to the site. Beyond that, the size follows how many people will use the sauna at once.

The Omaha garden sauna measures 2100 x 1600 mm inside. Its walls, floor, ceiling and benches are all hinoki, left uncoated, and a HUUM Drop 6 kW heats the room. Ceiling and bench heights are drawn together, because heat gathers at the top of the room and the upper bench is where it's felt most.

Do you need building consent for an outdoor sauna in NZ?

Not for most. A single-storey detached building under 10 m² doesn't need building consent under Schedule 1 of the Building Act 2004, and there's no minimum distance from a boundary. Between 10 and 30 m², it must sit at least one metre from the boundary and be built by a licensed builder, which we are.

An outdoor shower fed from an existing hose tap doesn't need consent either. Our guide to sauna building consent sets out the exemptions in more detail.

What should an outdoor sauna be built from?

The outside is clad to sit with the house it belongs to. We can match any home's cladding, whether that's board and batten, weatherboard, cedar shingles, burnt yakisugi, corrugated iron or stone, and at Omaha the board and batten was matched to the existing house detail for detail. Seen from the deck, the sauna reads as a smaller part of the same building.

The roof is New Zealand made Colorsteel in a Eurospan profile, a standing seam with no exposed fixings, and the walls are insulated with wool made in Onehunga or Christchurch from yarn left over by the carpet industry. Inside, we recommend Japanese hinoki, a timber durable enough to need no treatment at all, which gives off a light, lemony scent as it warms. Sugi, the Japanese cedar, comes second, and New Zealand grown redwood is an alternative. Every Heritage interior is left uncoated. Our craftsmanship page shows how each sauna is put together.

Electric or wood-fired for an outdoor sauna?

The choice follows how you'll use it. At a main home, people often choose electric, since it can be started from an app on their phone before they walk out. At a holiday home, many prefer a wood-burning heater for the soft light of the flame and the sound of the wood as it burns.

An electric heater is wired and commissioned by a registered electrician, and every electric HUUM heater we supply comes with a UKU Glass control panel. A wood-fired heater needs no wiring apart from lighting. As the official New Zealand distributor of HUUM, we specify HUUM heaters as standard, and the HUUM range covers both.

What goes around an outdoor sauna?

An outdoor shower, a cold plunge, a changing room, a deck, lighting and glazing can all be designed in. The shower is best placed beside the door, so cold water is a few seconds from the heat, and at Omaha it's plumbed into the home's existing supply.

Lighting is set low along the deck and the path. Eyes adjust to the dim interior of a sauna, and low fittings light the ground without the glare of a floodlight when you step out into the dark. A deck that catches the late sun gets used more often than one in shade, so the deck and the shower are drawn with the sauna rather than added after it.

How much does an outdoor sauna cost in NZ?

Heritage saunas range from $45,000 to $90,000 + GST, depending on the materials, the design and how the sauna is shaped to its space. A 5% deposit covers design, 50% is due before fabrication to order materials and start the build, and the remaining 45% is due when the sauna is built and working on your property.

From a signed proposal to handover takes 10 to 16 weeks. Parts are made in our workshops in Auckland and Queenstown and assembled on site, which keeps the time on your property short. What a custom sauna costs breaks the range down, and you can start with a site visit through our contact page.