Carpenters or machine made is a choice to be made when deciding on the construction of the sauna. Prefabs are sure a heck of a lot cheaper but you never know what kinda of wood you are gonna get. Or the opposite extreme, a sauna like Heavenly heat they take 2 months to build it but you get the quality but you pay for that quality. Wood is a commodity, especially center cut wood and grade a wood. Not everyone wants to pay for grade a wood. There are very small margins to discount grade a center cut wood and models that are hand crafted.
The cookie cutter pre-fabricated model VS. The Made to Order quality construction
So many brands to choose from…I don't think so.. In reality 90% of the brands all come from 4 manufacturers in China. So if I do not have absolute beyond a doubt proof my sauna is made somewhere else, I have a 25% chance I bought a brand from one of those 4 factories.
That being said there are some better quality brands out there that just buy the heaters from oversees and construct the rest of the sauna in a different country like Canada, USA, or England so they can put more time and care into the construction. So the question is how much of my sauna brand is constructed in Japan or Chinese factories and how much from someplace else? Or maybe its that I don’t trust a company sourcing out parts from oversees and want it completely manufactured right in the country I live in. So that being said are there some brands that even manufacturer the heater components on US or Canadian soil? Absolutely..but I only know of three. Three brands out of so many!
Look at the end of the day anyone can become a dealer start a company and sell saunas. Just register their business name with their state, take a loan out or if they have some money saved up and buy a few hundred saunas get them shipped and store them, put a private label on them and now their in in business. Pretty simple over all right? Well that is exactly what most companies do and why most brands come from those main factories in China and Japan.
Read more about Private label saunas on my new page here.
