by Procraft
A traditional sauna heats the air and a bed of rocks to a high temperature, and you can pour water on the rocks for steam. An infrared sauna does not heat the room much at all. It uses panels that warm your body directly at a much lower air temperature. They are genuinely different experiences, and the traditional sauna is the one people mean when they picture a sauna.
A stove, electric or wood-fired, heats a pile of rocks and the air around them. The room runs hot, commonly 70 to 90 degrees Celsius. You sit in dry heat, and when you want humidity you ladle water over the rocks for a wave of steam. It is the Finnish original and the style we build.
Infrared panels emit radiant heat that warms your body rather than the air. The room itself stays much cooler, often somewhere around 45 to 60 degrees Celsius. It heats up faster because it is not trying to bring a whole room to temperature. There are no rocks and no steam, and you must never throw water at the panels.
If you want the classic sauna experience, the smell of hot cedar, the ability to throw water on the rocks, and the intense heat people associate with a sauna, that is a traditional sauna. If you want something milder that warms up fast and you are not attached to steam, infrared is a reasonable choice.
Worth knowing: many people who try both end up preferring traditional, because the control over humidity is a big part of the appeal. You cannot make an infrared cabin behave like a traditional sauna, but a traditional sauna can be run bone dry if that is what you want. See wet vs dry sauna.
Procraft builds traditional Western red cedar saunas, and our four electric heaters are traditional sauna heaters with rocks, rated for dry or wet use. Compare them on the heaters page.
Procraft builds Western red cedar saunas and makes four CSA-approved electric sauna heaters from 4.5kW to 9kW. See the heaters, read about Western red cedar, or see how installation works.