Saunas
Infrared vs Traditional Sauna: Which Costs Less to Run
One heats the air to 80-100°C, the other warms your skin at 45-60°C. What that changes: the bill (52p vs £1.57 an hour), the wiring, and the evidence.
Read the guide
The Shape House is a UK guide to home saunas and heat therapy. Infrared cabins, Finnish rooms, sauna blankets and cold plunge.
The rule on every page is the same. Each figure carries the date it was checked and a link to where it came from. Usually that is a regulator, a published study, or a live retailer listing.
That matters in this market more than most. Sauna listings are full of claims that nobody sources: penetration depths that are off by a factor of a hundred, detox promises the researchers themselves reject, and running costs quoted against a tariff that expired two years ago.
What a session actually costs
Electricity is 26.11p per kWh for direct debit customers in England, Scotland and Wales, including VAT. That is the price cap unit rate for 1 July to 30 September 2026, published by Ofgem. One hour at full power draw:
- 1.3kW infrared cabin: 34p
- 2kW infrared cabin: 52p
- 6kW traditional sauna heater: £1.57
- 8kW traditional sauna heater: £2.09
Heaters cycle off once the cabin is at temperature, so a real session comes in under those figures. The cap changes each quarter, so the rate is worth rechecking before you rely on it.
What is here
- Infrared vs traditional sauna: temperature, running cost, the wiring each one needs, and which has the evidence behind it.
- Urban sweat lodge guide: what a city heat studio session involves, London drop-in prices, and the point at which buying a cabin beats paying per visit.
- All sauna guides: everything in the section.
What the evidence supports
Regular sauna use has a genuine research base, and it is worth knowing exactly how far it goes.
- It does support a cardiovascular association. Finnish men using a sauna 4 to 7 times a week had 63% lower risk of sudden cardiac death than once-a-week users, over a median 20.7 years, in JAMA Internal Medicine. Observational, and on traditional saunas.
- It does not support detox. The liver and kidneys do that work. The researchers behind the sauna studies say so themselves.
- It does not support weight loss. You lose water in a session and replace it when you drink.
Where a page here used to carry a claim we can no longer stand behind, we have taken it out rather than softened it. How we work sets out the standard, and about us explains what the site is.