Leisurecraft Launches CT Element Indoor Sauna with Thermo Grandis Wood

Leisurecraft, the Ontario-based manufacturer known for its barrel and cabin saunas, is launching the CT Element: a glass-fronted indoor sauna kit in three sizes, aimed squarely at homeowners who want a real sauna that looks like it belongs in a finished basement or dedicated wellness room. The line sits under Leisurecraft’s Canadian Timber Collection and joins the company’s cedar Indoor Cabin and Pure Cube Indoor saunas.

The CT Element lands in the middle of an increasingly crowded field. Below it sit the familiar budget options from Almost Heaven and Costco. Above it sit the European imports from Auroom and the premium line from Kohler. Where CT Element gets interesting is the wood: it is built from Thermo Grandis, a thermally modified eucalyptus that none of its competitors use, and that choice creates trade-offs worth understanding before ordering.

Three sizes for home use

The CT Element comes in Nook (roughly 4.5 x 4.5 feet, a two-person compact), Loft (4.5 x 6.2 feet, the mid-size), and Studio (5.3 x 7 feet, the largest of the three). All share the same material stack: Thermo Grandis throughout, 3/8-inch tempered glass on the front wall, triple-layer wall construction, a complete framed floor, and wide two-tier benching at 20 inches (upper) and 15 inches (lower).

Like its competitors, CT Element is a kit sauna designed for homeowner or contractor assembly with pre-framed panels. The heater is sold separately, giving buyers flexibility to choose their preferred brand and output. The company describes the finish as “closer to furniture than equipment,” and the clean geometry and full glass front support that framing. For homeowners coming from the barrel and cabin saunas that dominate the under-$6,000 market, the CT Element looks and feels like a different category of product.

The wood: what Thermo Grandis actually is

This is where the CT Element gets interesting, and where buyers should pay attention.

“Thermo Grandis” is thermally modified Eucalyptus grandis, a plantation hardwood grown primarily in South America and southern Africa. The thermal modification process (heating to 375–450°F in a low-oxygen steam environment for 24 to 96 hours) fundamentally changes the wood’s properties. Equilibrium moisture content drops from roughly 12–15% to 4–6%. Volumetric swelling decreases by about 35%. Decay resistance improves by a wide margin.

Research at Brazil’s Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo found that fungal weight loss dropped from 34.3% for untreated eucalyptus to 6.05% after thermal modification at 430°F, an 82% improvement. The resulting wood is dimensionally stable, moisture-resistant, and carries a deep reddish-brown color that penetrates the entire board rather than sitting on the surface.

In those respects, Thermo Grandis is genuinely well suited to a sauna enclosure. It will not warp, cup, or decay the way untreated softwoods can. For a home sauna that needs to hold up over a decade or more of regular use, that matters.

But eucalyptus is a dense hardwood, and that creates a specific trade-off. Denser woods generally conduct heat faster than lighter ones, so a Thermo Grandis bench may feel warmer against bare skin than one made from a lighter species; Leisurecraft does not publish a conductivity figure for it. The thermal conductivity of a dense modified hardwood runs roughly 0.11–0.14 W/m·K, compared to about 0.09–0.10 W/m·K for thermo-aspen (the wood used in Auroom sauna interiors) and roughly 0.09 W/m·K for obeche (the bench wood in Kohler’s C1 line). For shorter sessions at moderate temperatures, the difference is subtle. For longer sits at higher heat, it becomes noticeable.

Where CT Element fits: five price tiers for indoor home saunas

The indoor home sauna market has organized itself into five fairly distinct price tiers over the past few years. Where a buyer enters depends on budget, how much they care about materials, and how long they plan to keep using the sauna.

Tier 1: Budget kits (under $3,000). Costco lists the Almost Heaven Sutton 2-person indoor sauna at $2,799.99, in Heartwood Spruce with a 6.0 kW stainless steel heater, shipped by common carrier. For a buyer testing whether they will actually use a sauna regularly, these are a reasonable starting point.

Tier 2: Mid-market traditional ($5,000–$8,000). Almost Heaven’s direct line (now Harvia-owned) runs from about $5,000 for a two-person Sutton to about $7,300 and up at list price for a four-person Rainelle. Both use 1-3/8-inch tongue-and-groove construction and ship with Harvia heaters, and the Rainelle comes in red cedar or hemfir. Cedar is the classic North American sauna wood: aromatic, naturally rot-resistant when new, and comfortable to sit on at high temperatures. The trade-off is that cedar’s protective oils evaporate over years of heat cycling, and its rot resistance gradually fades. Almost Heaven covers its saunas with a limited lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects. It lists the Rainelle’s country of origin as the USA and the Sutton’s as Romania.

Tier 3: CT Element ($8,470–$10,650). Leisurecraft’s site lists “Request Price,” but its US suggested retail prices, which US dealers advertise, run from about $8,470 for the Nook to about $10,650 for the Studio. The step up from the tier below buys thermally modified wood (permanent rot resistance baked into the cellular chemistry, not dependent on fading oils), triple-layer wall construction, 3/8-inch tempered glass, and a more refined aesthetic. The price gap from a $7,300 Almost Heaven Rainelle to an $8,470 CT Element Nook is narrow enough that the material upgrade is hard to argue against on durability alone. But CT Element ships from Ontario, Canada, which means cross-border logistics, potential customs processing, and potentially longer lead times than US-stocked alternatives.

Tier 4: European premium ($9,000–$12,000). Auroom’s Cala Glass is the most direct competitor to CT Element at comparable sizes. In thermo-aspen, the smallest Cala Glass (59 x 59 inches) lists at about $9,000 at US dealers and the largest (59 x 79 inches) about $12,000 (heater not included). That puts Auroom about 6% higher than the CT Element at the smallest size and about 13% higher at the largest. The premium buys a lighter bench wood (thermo-aspen has lower thermal conductivity, meaning it stays more comfortable at high temperatures), mineral wool insulation with a foil radiant barrier, and the backing of Thermory, one of the world’s leading producers of thermally modified wood. Auroom saunas are made in Estonia and stocked at US distribution points, so they ship domestically despite European origins.

Tier 5: Top of market ($20,550+). Kohler.com lists its C1 indoor sauna from $20,550 for a two-person cabin to $32,200 for the five-person model with a floor. The C1 uses Scandinavian spruce for its enclosure and obeche for its benches, one of the lightest and lowest-conductivity hardwoods available. Kohler adds 2.1 inches of mineral wool insulation and backs the product with over a century of brand history. Every C1 ships with a FERO heater from Kohler’s KLAFS subsidiary (acquired January 2024); Kohler has not said where the cabins are made. Kohler also sells installation by a Kohler-trusted professional, scheduled after purchase. For a buyer who wants the sauna sold and installed through one brand, that service is part of the premium.

Getting it home: logistics and assembly

All five tiers sell saunas that arrive in sections for assembly on site. The differences are in where the kits ship from and what support is available after the boxes arrive.

Almost Heaven says the Sutton ships within four weeks of purchase and the Rainelle within six to eight weeks. It offers professional installation through its partner Pure Install, which it says covers the US and Canada.

CT Element ships from Leisurecraft’s facility in Melancthon, Ontario. That means cross-border freight, customs paperwork, and potentially longer transit times to US addresses. Leisurecraft has been shipping barrel and cabin saunas to the US for years, so the logistics path is established, but buyers should factor in the extra lead time and the possibility of border-related delays that domestic shipments avoid.

Auroom ships from European factories to US distribution centers, then domestically to the buyer by LTL freight. Despite Estonian origins, the last-mile experience is a US shipment.

Kohler sells the C1 direct and offers installation by a Kohler-trusted professional, with scheduling instructions emailed after purchase, for buyers who want turnkey setup rather than a DIY assembly project.

Under current trade conditions, the Canadian origin of CT Element and the European origin of Auroom carry potential tariff exposure, and Kohler has not said where its cabins are made. Almost Heaven’s US-made models avoid tariffs on the finished sauna, though the company lists its Sutton as made in Romania and its parent company Harvia is Finnish.