Wanna sauna?

2024

Saunas are typically thought of as an inaccessible luxury; here’s how I think of getting one for your home, workplace, or city.

For a few glorious years, instead of paying the New York City tax of $20 every time I set one foot out my door, I could have friends over and sauna like the good Estonian I am. In my one bedroom apartment, unbeknownst to my landlord at the time, Jeff and I managed to sneak in a disassembled sauna. It had cost $500 on eBay, and the U-Haul moving truck cost $100 to rent.

A timelapse of two people assembling a wooden sauna in a living room, from flat panels leaning against the wall to a finished cabin beside the sofa. — Assembling a sauna in my living room, in about thirty seconds.

Saunita sat 3 people, lasted a few years, and several dozen friends came through to use it regularly. It was more calming and gregarious to socialize in the comfort of an apartment than in a loud bar. This amenity also led to more meaningful interactions - as a small example, phones overheat so tech is off the table during a sauna hang.

Our napkin math had worked:

Jeff and I had a wake-up call during the pandemic where we realized we’d collectively spent thousands at the Russian Turkish Bathhouse in New York, which costs upwards of $50 per visit. We decided then and there to buy a sauna, having calculated it would cost less than $1 an hour to operate.

This small anecdote can hopefully help you realize that you, too, can find a sauna!

At a larger scale beyond personal use, saunas can have financial returns and non-financial returns for their investors. But these non-financial returns are ambiguous and difficult to put a dollar value on to calculate expected return. Some of the non-financial returns of saunas include:

social connection risk score reduction (c.f. reviews on the public health risks of loneliness)
health benefits, such as reduced all-cause mortality (c.f. many articles such as this one describing research in cultures in which saunas are common, such as Finland)

These benefits are small in magnitude but large in aggregate, so few entities are positioned to reap the direct financial benefits while keeping costs low. For example, a large employer such as a hospitality group or health system in an area might be incentivized to improve social connection and reduce cardiovascular risk. An employer such as the university where I worked might be incentivized to have a sauna for faculty and students (they did).

That’s it - just wanted to encourage more people to consider scouring eBay or Craigslist with their agents, in order to procure and operate a home sauna to realize the manifold benefits and joy. The next time I have such an opportunity, I will take it.

P.S. I also wanted to document the “capital stacks”, or the stacks of capital investments necessary to acquire or build a sauna. If we get this right, maybe we can find a way to create the same number of public saunas in North America as there are in Estonia, Finland, or Japan :) Edit the following diagram here if you have any suggestions, or reach me here!

timeline
    section Personal Saunas
        $60 : Amazon Tiny Sauna Tent or Sauna Blanket
            : Est. IRR 0% (Personal use)
        $3,000 : HSA Infrared Sauna
            : Est. IRR 0% (Personal use)
        $5,000 : Barrel Sauna (Costco/eBay/Alibaba)
            : Est. IRR 0% (Personal use)
        $10,000 : 3D Printed Concrete Sauna
            : Est. IRR 0% (Personal use)
    section Public Saunas
        $500K : Raua Saun (Tallinn)
            : 8 EUR per visit
            : Est. IRR 5-8% (10-15 year horizon)
        $20M : Kultuurisauna (Finland)
            : Free public use
            : Est. IRR N/A (Public good)
    section Workplace/School Saunas
        $100K : Tartu University (Estonia)
            : Delta Center Faculty/Student Sauna (free benefit)
            : Est. IRR N/A (Employee/Student Benefit)
        $150K : Chalmers University (Sweden)
            : CS-bastun (CS-sauna)
            : Chalmers Kårhus Union Building Sauna
            : Est. IRR N/A (Employee/Student Benefit)
    section Commercial Saunas
        $8M : Othership (NYC)
            : $50-80 per 90min session
            : Est. IRR 15-20% (5-7 year horizon)
        $30M : World Spa (Brooklyn)
            : $70-120 day pass
            : Est. IRR 12-15% (7-10 year horizon)
        $40M : Bathhouse (NYC)
            : $80-100 per visit
            : Est. IRR 10-13% (8-12 year horizon)
        $50M : Aire Baths
            : $200-300 per visit
            : Est. IRR 15-18% (6-8 year horizon)
        $200M : Therme Group Project
            : $50-100+ per visit
            : Est. IRR 8-12% (10-15 year horizon)

Wanna sauna?

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