I received a call over the weekend from someone comparing barrel saunas that were being offered online. The specific question was, “The online brand looks very dark; could it have been stained?” I then proceeded to go online and review it as well as various other barrels being offered at a variety of price points. Bottom line; as with all product comparisions, be sure it is an “apples to apples” comparision. In this particular case, it is clear from the picture and text that the sauna was not manufactured of clear Canadian western red cedar. In fact, I suspect it wasn’t red cedar at all but likely white cedar or some other light, soft wood. Reason? Because the wood clearly had many knots in it and the varying colors of the stain reveal wood that had various degrees of finish and texture, causing the stain to absorb differently in various areas on the finished product.
Additionally, the perimeter of the barrel was “chunky,” and by that I mean there was not a nice flow to the wood. This is due to the use of 2×6 rather than 2×4 staves and the fact that the ball/socket profiles were not precise and clean. The cradle supporting the sauna was built of 2×4 lumber and did not have a finished look to it. These are all observations that were obtained from pictures on a website, so I can only imagine how the finished product looked close up.
In short, you get what you pay for, even in saunas. The pictures you see of the Almost Heaven Sauna models are exactly what you get, and the quality is evident, even from a photo. Don’t be fooled by lesser imitations; Almost Heaven Saunas has been the leader in cooperage style sauans for over thirty years, and our reputation speaks for itself!