Sauna doors are one of the most important pieces of your Sauna. Not only are they a focal point of the room itself, they are instrumental in making your sauna heat and contain the heat it generates effectively. For the sake of clarity, in this article we will be discussing a sauna door that is mostly built of wood. While to a certain extent, all sauna doors contain wood in some form or another, wood sauna doors are built to contain a window (or no window at all).
We receive a fair amount of questions from our customers that ask whether their sauna door should be wood or glass and in this article, we’ll discuss the advantages of each. While sauna doors have been constructed in various wood fashion for hundreds of years, the all glass sauna door is a relatively new concept.
Should I Use A Wood Door In My Sauna?
While all sauna doors feature wooden components (such as the door jamb), to answer this question we are talking about a wood door specifically. The entire door being built of wood, with minimal or no glass component whatsoever.
The number one reason why you should not use a wood door in your sauna is due to the expansion and contraction of the wood itself.
Due to the extreme heat and humidity generated by a sauna room, the wood used inside lives in a much different environment than most other wood used in other applications. This means that while your door may be built square to begin with, over time, it will likely lose some of its shape, causing the door to restrict itself when opening or closing.
While this may be a major con for some, prompting them to choose a glass sauna door, it’s not enough to say that wooden sauna doors should not be used at all. In fact, the sauna door on my own home is built using mainly wood components and it has stood the test of time for over twenty years.
In the photo below, we show an example of a custom built wooden sauna door. The door was originally built with room to expand on 3 sides, however, after several years of use it has expanded to rub on the frame itself. This has resulted in an incomplete close, allowing heat to escape the sauna room while it’s in use.
The second reason you should not use a wood door in your sauna is building the door correctly.
If you’re a master carpenter who has no trouble building a perfectly square door, there is less concern of building the door incorrectly. For the average do it yourself-er who is capable of building a sauna, building the door poses an interesting challenge that may not be worth your time in building. If you find yourself in this camp, we’d love it if you gave us a call. We carry a full line of custom built sauna doors and would be thrilled to help you choose the perfect one for your home sauna.
Now, that’s not written just to convince you to buy a sauna door from us, it’s simply a fact of building. Building any door, much less a sauna door, is a challenge. The door must be built to swing correctly within the actual door frame itself. Building a sauna door offers the expansion and contraction risk, adding additional challenge to building it correctly.
Wood vs Glass Door In Sauna
When comparing wood versus glass sauna doors, glass sauna doors are by far the superior option. Glass sauna doors seal more effectively, latch better, they last longer than wood doors, and they’re more affordable than a wood sauna door.
- Glass doors offer better sealing ability locking in heat
- Glass doors latch better as there is no wood expansion or contraction
- Glass doors last longer than wood doors
- Glass doors cost less than a wood sauna door
While a truly custom built wooden sauna door can look and perform extremely well, the chances that it outperforms a glass door that maintains a near perfect seal each and every time it closes is very slim. Glass simply does not expand and contract like wood, even the right sauna wood, will over time. Eventually, wood sauna doors will need replacing. While glass can be broken, with the proper care it will likely outlive your sauna room itself.
The glass sauna doors we sell come pre-hung ready to install to your rough opening. This means, your only challenge is setting the door correctly (which is far easier than building a door frame / jamb, building the door itself, adding hinges and building a custom latching system.
With a glass sauna door, the latching system that we use is designed to securely latch each and every time, with zero effort from the user. The easy to use handle system opens from the inside and out with ease and you’ll ensure that the least amount of heat and humidity possible escapes from the sauna room itself while in use.
Should you choose to build a wood sauna door, aside from the challenges of building it to square, you’ll have to build a latching mechanism that allows you to open the door from the inside as well. For many who have built their own sauna doors, the process has gone great up to this point.
What are some reasons for building a custom wood sauna door?
The main reason we see a custom sauna door built isn’t for the cost savings, as many doors you can purchase will cost you the exact same amount as buying one built of glass. We typically hear of custom sauna doors being built due to a rough opening that has been framed in a shape or size that prevents the user from purchasing a pre-hung door. If you have not done your sauna door sizing research prior to building, you may end up needing to build a custom sauna door.
If you have a unique sauna door size, we recommend giving us a call or contacting us. We build custom sauna doors in both wood and glass and may be able to help you get a door without you having to struggle with building one yourself.
If your sauna door opening is in an odd shape or an off-size and the room has already been built, you may consider building your own door. Start by taking a look at a few sauna door ideas we’ve compiled! In the sauna door example we’ve provided above, the door is much thinner width wise than a standard size sauna door. If this is the case, building one yourself may be necessary. Compared to building the actual sauna itself, your door will likely be the most difficult part of the entire thing.
If you are local, consider visiting our sauna showroom to take a look at some of the sauna doors we offer.