Overview
Our Western Red Cedar sauna products offer the unique blend of rich aroma and luxurious silk finish that only the best cedar for saunas can provide. Renowned for its high impermeability to liquids and its natural phenolic preservatives, Western Red Cedar is ideally suited for exterior use where humidity is high, such as in saunas.
The cellular composition of cedar, with its millions of microscopic air filled cells, provides a high degree of insulation and cedar’s pleasantly aromatic natural oils are the reason for its decay-resistance and distinctive rich colour.
Your clients will be delighted by exceptional performance and the smooth finish of our finely machined sauna panelling. Manufactured locally by our team of timber processing professionals using our custom machining technology, which enables us to meet even the most demanding sauna specification.
Whilst our sauna panelling range is specifically designed for use in saunas, it is highly versatile and may be used in any other installation where the tranquil, fragrant effect of sauna panelling is appropriate.
View our stock via the Species Guide
Our handy species guide will help you find the right high-quality softwood species.
Western Red Cedar Sauna Panels
Traditional Finnish saunas were always wood fired and were used both to bathe and also for social enjoyment. Such wood fired saunas still remain popular for outdoor enthusiasts, however infrared saunas are rapidly gaining popularity.
To meet the demands of the sauna environment, the timber panelling must withstand the unique sauna environment in which both dry and damp air is present at the same time.
The high heat (average of 82–88℃) and the low humidity (about 20%), designed to promote natural deep cleansing through overall perspiration, not only take a toll on timber walls due to expansion and contraction occurring each time the sauna heats and cools, but also require a fair degree of insulation from the walls in order to maintain the high internal temperature of the room.
Our sauna profile comprises a tongue and groove design allowing a face or concealed fixing to be used.
Health Benefits of Cedar Panels
Saunas panelled with our Western Red Cedar panelling present the perfect place to relax in a warm aromatic environment while the body’s impurities are flushed away resulting in a clear, healthy skin and a rosy afterglow.
Your clients will revel in the beauty of our finely machined wood panelling as the soft heat and humidity soothes and relaxes tired muscles, relieves stress, and promotes a wonderful after-sauna feeling of satisfaction and well-being.
The exceptional insulation properties of Western Red Cedar panels ensure that the sauna remains hot enough to create the necessary increase in the rates of blood circulation, breathing and pulse so that the sauna acts like mild exercise, burning calories and providing a gentle cardiovascular workout for the heart.
Why Western Red Cedar for Saunas
Sauna timber has to do things ordinary lining never has to. It sits through repeated cycles from room temperature to around 90 degrees and back, in humidity that swings just as hard, and people lean bare skin against it the whole time. Most timbers either move, resin up or get too hot to touch.
Western Red Cedar handles all three. Its low density means it does not store heat the way a dense hardwood does, so a cedar bench stays comfortable to sit on at temperatures where other timbers would not be. It is dimensionally stable through repeated heat and moisture cycling, so the lining does not cup or gap. It contains no resin to bleed. And its natural oils resist the mould and decay that constant humidity would otherwise encourage.
The aroma is the part everyone mentions. Cedar releases its scent when it warms, and for a lot of people that smell is the sauna experience as much as the heat is.
We supply clear grade, knot free cedar for sauna work. Knots conduct heat differently to the surrounding timber and can get uncomfortably hot against skin, so they are worth avoiding in a sauna even where they would be fine elsewhere.
Our sauna components cover wall and ceiling lining, bench slats, back rests and trim. We have supplied sauna builders including SDS Australia and can machine to a specific bench or lining detail.
Sauna Timber FAQs
Ready to order for your next project?
Our experienced team can help find the most cost-effective and suitable option for your next project. We can determine which grade, length and section size is best to suit your needs.