by Procraft
A dry sauna and a wet sauna are usually the same room run two ways. A traditional sauna is dry heat until you ladle water over the hot rocks, which adds a burst of steam and turns it, for a moment, into a wet sauna. A steam room is a different thing again: it runs at a much lower temperature with close to 100 percent humidity.
Run a traditional sauna without adding water and it is a dry sauna. The air is hot and the humidity is low. This is the classic Finnish style, comfortable for long, even sessions. Every Procraft heater runs dry out of the box.
Pour water over the heated rocks and you raise the humidity for a short while. The same air temperature suddenly feels hotter and the heat sinks in more. People often go back and forth, running mostly dry and adding a splash of water now and then. Because you control it with the ladle, one sauna does both. Our guide on pouring water on an electric heater covers how to do it safely.
A steam room is not a sauna. It uses a steam generator, not hot rocks, and it runs cooler, often around 40 to 45 degrees Celsius, with the air fully saturated so surfaces stay wet. A traditional sauna runs much hotter, with dry walls and benches, and only gets humid in short bursts when you add water. Different feel, different build.
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 learn how our installations work.