Sun Home Outdoor IR Sauna - What I Now Know, 2 Weeks In
We’ve now had our Sun Home outdoor IR sauna (Luminar 5-person) for roughly two weeks. It’s installed, up and running and my wife and I have used it pretty much every day since we got it. I was a little confused as I was doing research, and I struggled to find what looked like trustworthy information in that process, so hoping this helps others.
A bunch of thoughts follow. The TLDR: the whole thing was easily 4x more than I had planned to spend, but I’m (mostly) happy with the unit and very happy to have an IR sauna in our lives. If you’re reasonably mechanical and have some help, you’re good to go with installation and setup.
Why this model?
I needed this to be outside. We’re in the Monterey Bay Area, so climate is temperate, but I had zero interest in something I needed to cover in order for it to be outside, so the aluminum cladding seemed like a great thing. It’s possible that there are other options, but I didn’t find any.
I was originally thinking the 2-person model, but my wife and I were planning to frequently use our sauna together and it looked a little small. SO glad we went with the bigger model. I guess you could get 5 people in it, but you better like each other : ) The 5-person is perfect for 2 adults with some space. 3 would probably be comfortable. 5 adults? NFW.
The Luminar had all the features I thought were important. It was WAY more than I had planned to spend and IMO the warranty is lacking, but I held my nose on both of those negatives and clicked ‘buy.’
How was setup?
Our unit got to us roughly two weeks after order, which seemed totally reasonable. I reached out to Sun Home before ordering to confirm they had one in stock and ready to ship.
This model comes in a giant wood shipping crate that weighs over 1,000 lbs. (see pictures for scale) It’s really well packed, but as a consequence, you’re going to be left with a pile of crate and packing materials to get rid of when you’re done. Is what it is.
There are two panels – front wall and roof – that are VERY (!!!) heavy. I alone or my wife and I could move everything else, but you really want four people to move these two panels. And, frankly, having a couple people around for the whole un-crating and setup is probably a good idea.
Actual assembly is super straightforward. Budget the better part of a day for everything, including un-crating, moving stuff, assembly and clean-up. If you’ve put furniture together, built a model, used a screwdriver and a caulk gun, you got this.
When you watch the assembly video, more than half of it is dedicated to connecting the 26-ish male to female electrical connections. Don’t even bother with that section. It should have just said, “make the connections with matching numbers.” I think I moved around the top panel clockwise and just connected everything I could find until I couldn’t find anything not connected.*
Why the asterisk? We didn’t opt for the optional red light thing and there’s a connector for it up top that I didn’t connect as it seemed unnecessary. BUT, in my confusion about that, I ALSO neglected to connect #4. Turns out this is the connection for the IR heaters on the front panel. How do I know this? Because of the commonsense step that they neglected to include in the instructions (next lines).
BEFORE you put the very heavy roof panel on and secure it, plug your sauna in and test that everything is working. This is how I knew. After panicking that I missed connecting something on the floor panel…as in, underneath my new 1,000 lb, nearly fully assembled out building, it occurred to me that I should check the top. Sure enough…
We had our landscape guy pour a roughly 8’x5’ concrete slab, which turns out to be just about perfect. In retrospect, I might have added another foot or two in length so there’s a solid step outside, but I’ve since put down some slate pavers which do the trick. We also had our electrician run the 240 line out to the slab and install a new GFI breaker. This necessitated an 18” deep trench for the conduit from the slab to our electrical panel. All of this added another $4 to $5k to the cost of the project.
If you’ve connected Bluetooth devices and app-enabled things, then you’re good to go with getting all of that connected. I think it took a couple of tries each to connect the sauna to our home wifi and iPhone to the Bluetooth speakers, but no big deal.
How is it / What have I learned?
Let’s start by saying it’s fab. We love it. Despite looking sort of like the monolith from 2001:A Space Odyssey, I like the way it looks in our yard. I’m happy with the fit and finish, features and performance.
We’ve been using it at 155 degrees for 30 minutes and that seems pretty much perfect. At 65 degrees ambient, it gets to 125 degrees inside in about 15 minutes, which is better than I was expecting. In retrospect, I’d have worked up to 30 minutes, as we were both a little loopy in the last 5/10 minutes the first couple of uses. But it did wonders for aches and pains in the first use, after spending all day setting it up.
Yes, sit on a towel and bring in some hand towels. You're going to sweat…this is good. Common sense warning – be sure to wash your face and get rid of makeup before you get in, otherwise your eyes are going to seriously sting. Ask me how I know.
Chromatherapy – holy shit – who thought this was a good idea?! I’m looking for a relaxing experience while I sit in the sauna. Soft music, warm color LED indirect lighting, smell of cedar…all good. Adding Klieg lights does not help with the vibe. Your experience may vary.
The built-in speakers are perfectly adequate. If I get ambitious, I may swap them out for something nicer that connects to our Sonos system…we’ll see.
The glass is sort of one-way. Inside you can see out, but outside you really can’t see in. I’m totally comfortable that we can be naked and not have our kids or neighbors coming into our yard and see something they can’t unsee (if they open the door to the sauna, that’s on them).
Bring water. A lot of water. You’re going to need it.
If / when you do this research, prepare for non-consensual cookies to be dropped and an onslaught of adds showing up in all of your social media (hi there social media and marketing teams from multiple brands). It’s borderline abusive. I made the mistake of reaching out for information via email. Holy unsubscribe!
The unit came with a cover and the paperwork in the box says that (paraphrasing) not using the cover voids the (already seemingly inadequate) warranty. WTF?! You’ll recall at the beginning of this missive that I explicitly looked for and paid for a clad unit so that I did not have to cover and uncover the sauna. I looked again on the product information page and couldn’t find anything that spoke about this. It’s not getting used, I’ll take my chances, and this is a seriously disappointing surprise. (Hi there Sun Home social media team).
Ending on a hugely positive note - and maybe the best thing – my wife and I are now spending 30 minutes of time together on a regular basis without devices, relaxing, sweating and talking (or not). It’s been really nice. I expect this will continue for years to come.