Wood

A sauna is a heat-generating product, and because of such nature, wood selection is extremely important in sauna building. Far North Saunas' feature:

The highest quality Grade 'A' Canadian Western Red Cedar.
In our own Lumber Mill, we directly control the entire process from raw material and selection to the finished sauna.
We only use the finest quality, hand-picked center-cut wood.
Entire manufacturing process and high-quality construction begins with the selection of the proper raw materials.

Our Canadian office directly purchases the best quality Western Red Cedar Wood from British Columbia, Canada.

Lumber is shipped to our 200,000 square-foot factory.
The finest center-cut parts are chosen and immediately fresh-air dried for 4 weeks to preserve the beauty and natural elements of the wood.
Each piece of a lumber is visually inspected and handpicked. Lumber must have a clear & vertical grain (avoiding the flat grain).
Very few companies in the industry have the ability of exclusivity in choosing the finest lumber, as we do.

SAFE AND NON-TOXIC MATERIALS

We guarantee at Enlighten Sauna that all products we build are made from non-toxic materials Environmental Report we are one of the only companies on the market who can make this statement. We only use non-toxic glue in our product and components.

INITIAL DRY

When the lumber arrives at the factory, the lumber is first sorted by length, size, grade, & grain. All wood must go through a drying phase before milling begins. To prevent any collapsing of the wood, the lumber sits in the yard for a minimum of three weeks. “Collapsing" means the fiber cells of the wood shrink due to water retention and microbial distress. If collapsing occurs, it can cause defects in the surface of the lumber. Collapsing is not a usual phenomena, however we take a precaution to ensure proper drying and monitor the entire process.

AIR DRYING LUMBER

WE TAKE OUR TIME! Lumber is then ripped into various sizes for sauna panels. Chosen pieces are then air-dried further. As said in a prior description of the process, shrinkage (or collapsing) causes changes to the lumber which can result in poor fitting panels. This would be detrimental to the quality of our sauna product. Therefore, we avoid any poorly dried lumber by only choosing the best air-dried pieces to be used for a production.

AIR DRYING LUMBER

Once an air-dry process is complete, the blanks are then placed in our high quality kilns. The most important step before production is the Kiln Drying. Lumber will reach its best moisture content in kilns. Many companies have problems as they only air dry their lumber and it drops its moisture content to 20%, which is too high for stability and may result in mold, rotting and shorter life-span. It is important to not rush the drying process. Therefore, our final and ready-to-build lumber will contain 6-8% of moisture. Once this is achieved, the final product is beautiful, strong and durable wood which now can be used for building.