SaunaNews
The Sauna Industry's Record of Note
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Leisurecraft launches the CT Element, a glass-fronted indoor sauna kit in three sizes built from Thermo Grandis. Priced between Almost Heaven and Auroom, it fills a gap in the home sauna market, but the wood choice and Canadian shipping logistics deserve a closer look.
The fourteen new sauna SKUs at ThermaSol.com are built in Sastamala, Finland by Kirami, the wood-fired hot-tub maker Harvia bought in May 2021 for EUR 7 million plus a EUR 4 million earnout. The cabins ship in Europe under the Kirami FinVision® nameplate. ThermaSol's American product pages say 'designed and crafted in the U.S.A.' Kirami's product pages say 'designed and manufactured in Finland.' The price band runs from $30,393 for an indoor Lumaria Medium to $107,182 for the outdoor flagship Ombra. The American premium sauna market has been culturally Finnish for years. Harvia has now closed the loop.
Costco is currently the place where most Americans form their first opinion about what sauna is. Between infrared heat cabinets that cannot throw water and cedar barrels where the bench geometry guarantees cold feet, the dominant gateway products are teaching that lesson wrong.
Harvia operates five core production facilities across four continents: Muurame (Finland), Lewisburg (West Virginia), Gheorgheni (Romania), Guangzhou (China), and Driedorf (Germany). Each plant has a specialty. Together they handle over 150,000 heaters per year and more than 10,000 saunas per year for a business doing nearly EUR 200 million in annual revenue.
Harvia, three months after its Nasdaq Helsinki IPO, announced the acquisition of Almost Heaven Saunas, a Renick, West Virginia barrel sauna manufacturer. The deal, valued at approximately EUR 4 million, gives Harvia a US factory, a consumer brand, and the distribution reach to accelerate its North American strategy.