By Susan Semenak
After a busy day, there is nothing more relaxing to Alan Blundell than slipping into the sauna in his Oakville backyard and disconnecting from the hurly-burly of life. “It’s a chance to break away from the noise of your day-to-day,” says Blundell, co-owner of SaunaFin, a retailer specializing in all things sauna that he runs with Alex Faltas. “You set the cell phone and everything else aside and your time in the sauna—even if it is just 15 to 20 minutes—becomes a sanctuary. When I come out of the sauna, I feel relaxed. It’s like mental detox.”
Beyond mental clarity, studies have shown regular sauna use may be linked to a vast array of health benefits, including improved cardiovascular health and circulation, lower blood pressure and reduced symptoms of arthritis, psoriasis and flu. While sauna rituals have long been an integral part of everyday life and self-care in Nordic countries and especially in Finland, which has more saunas per capita than any other country and where using a sauna is as common as taking a shower, its popularity in North America is growing too, bolstered by an increased interest in health and wellness.
It is often a surprise to Blundell’s prospective customers that a sauna can fit into even the tightest of spaces. While SaunaFin has outfitted grand casinos, hotels, spas and gyms across Canada and the United States with luxury saunas, it can also supply sauna kits as small as four feet by four feet for square-footage-squeezed condo dwellers. His customers have managed to fit them into a multitude of carved-out spaces, including former powder rooms and closets. Unsurprisingly, SaunaFin’s motto is “Your sauna, your way.”
Blundell’s own home sauna is a six-foot-by-eight-foot unit in clear western red cedar, fitted into a nook under the backyard deck, near an outdoor fireplace and facing the swimming pool, but also within 10 steps of the indoors, which is especially appreciated in the winter months. It is equipped with a Tylo combi heater with a water reservoir which “heats up like a kettle” and allows him and his wife Paula to adjust the temperature and humidity level in the sauna to their own preferences. “My wife runs it in standard mode because she likes a dry sauna, like the heat in Phoenix or Las Vegas,” he says. “But I like higher humidity.”
Bringing 60 years of experience to the table, SaunaFin sells sauna kits, prefab saunas and steam baths, as well as heaters, showers and cold-plunge pools. SaunaFin’s saunas come in western red clear cedar, knotty cedar and hemlock and are available as tailored customized sauna kits, but also as pre-fab saunas in various shapes that are suitable for both indoors and outdoors.
For those who want the health benefits of a sauna but can’t stand high temperatures, the company also sells infrared saunas, which use light to make heat. The infrared version heats up the body directly without warming the surrounding air as much as a traditional sauna heater.
“When I come out of the sauna, I feel relaxed. it’s like mental detox.”
Blundell recommends clients take a couple of months to decide exactly what kind of sauna they want and where it will go. Once their decision is made, SaunaFin can have a custom sauna ready for delivery within a week or two in the Greater Toronto Area with prefabricated saunas typically ready within six to eight weeks.