Maintaining A Home Sauna: How Often Should You Clean It And What To Use?
It is sufficient if you clean your home sauna once a month using a cleaner for use on wood and treat it with paraffin impregnating oil every three months. If you want to make the care as easy as possible, opt for more resistant wood and observe the hygiene rules before and after your sauna sessions.
Basic maintenance of saunas.
Public saunas are cleaned every day; with home saunas, it is generally sufficient to clean them once a month – depending on how often the sauna is used, of course. If you take a sauna every other day, shorten the interval between cleanings to 14 days. Use a special cleaning for use on sauna wood to be diluted in water. Clean the wood with a clean, well-squeezed cloth or sponge, or use a coarser brush in the case of heavier contamination.
Treat the cleaned and dried wood with paraffin sauna oil about once every three months. Although the impregnation darkens the wood by one to two shades, it increases its resistance to water, bacteria, and cryptogamic diseases. Use the sauna paraffin on all the wood in your sauna: walls, ceiling, all benches, and rests. In our offer you will find cleaners, as well as other sauna accessories.
Aspen and alder are the least maintenance.
Maintenance requirements depend on the wood used for the sauna moulding. For instance, light Nordic spruce with numerous knots smells beautiful when heated and looks natural, but it leaks rosin, so the necessity of regular cleaning is its biggest con. Moreover, its light colour means that darker places behind the stove will require more frequent cleaning or even grinding (which should preferably be done at least once a year).
Other woods, on the other hand – such as aspen or alder – have no knots and also do not smell so intensively, but they are less maintenance. So is the "smoked" wood for saunas known as Thermowood, which is darker and has closed pores, which means that you do not need to clean or impregnate it so often – about 2-3 times less often than light-coloured wood. Thanks to its darker colour, it stays clean visually for longer time.
Follow hygienic rules.
You can make taking care of your sauna much easier by following several hygienic rules.
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Always have a shower properly before entering the sauna; do not forget to use soap.
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Do not wear shoes or clothes in the sauna; always be naked, using a towel only.
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Put clean, well-absorbing sauna towels under your body so that the sweat drips onto the wood as little as possible.
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Wipe the place where you were sitting or lying after finishing the sauna session.
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Do not close the cubicle after finishing the sauna session; leave the door open to air the cubicle.
About once a year, do a general cleanup of the entire Finnish sauna – take out the sauna stove and all accessories and clean the entire cubicle thoroughly; let it dry and air.
Grind off any potential stains and darker spots; remove old, broken or musty sauna rocks and replace them with new ones. Clean the outer side of the heater, and possibly have the heater checked by an electrician, including the cabling in the heater and measuring the heating coil power output.
If the resistance of any of the coils is lower, buy a new one in advance. Once it stops heating, you will be ready to replace it. You can find the relevant type of coil in the heater's manual, or we will be happy to recommend one.
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