The electrical part, explained for briefing

What the equipment actually is

Every electric heater we track runs at 240 volts, and every maker that states a phase states single phase, hardwired. That is 9 heaters from four makers, and not one of them is a plug-in appliance at sauna power levels. 8 of the 9 publish their own amperage figure, and 3 of the saunas we track state a breaker requirement for their heater package on the product page. Those maker-stated figures are on each record, marked as the maker's own.

A sauna heater is also a continuous load: it runs flat out for an hour or more at a time. Continuous loads get sized with headroom, which is why the breaker an electrician specifies is larger than the raw amp figure. The arithmetic below shows both numbers so the gap does not surprise you.

The arithmetic, per heater class we track

Kilowatts times a thousand, divided by 240 volts, gives the load in amps. Sizing a continuous load at 125 percent gives the capacity figure. This table is our calculation, stated as such, for the power classes present in the database.

Our arithmetic, not a specification. The circuit decision belongs to a licensed electrician working from your panel and local code.

The questions to bring to the electrician

• Does the panel have room? The at-125-percent column above is the size of the ask. An older or fully loaded panel may need work before the sauna enters the picture, and that is the long lead-time discovery to make early.
• What does the run to the sauna involve? Distance from the panel, whether the route is trenched, and what conduit the local code wants outdoors all move the quote more than the heater choice does.
• What does the heater maker require? Every heater record on this site links the manual or spec page we read. Bring the specific model's documentation, because makers state their own connection requirements and the electrician will want them.
• Controls on the unit or on the wall? Wall-mounted and app controls can mean an extra low-voltage run. The record for each heater lists the control type its publisher states.

Sequence it right

The expensive mistake in this category is ordering the sauna first and discovering the electrical picture second. The cheap sequence is: size the room with the calculator, shortlist heaters whose makers rate them for your volume, put the load figures in front of an electrician, and only then order the crate. Every step of that is free except the last one.