I got a barrel sauna for 5000$ from a local company that makes them by hand. It's a beautiful piece of wood, and I think that the craftsmanship is excellent. They bought a heater from The Sauna Place, and the heater is this one made by Harvia: https://www.saunaplace.com/product/harvia-kip-60b-6kw-maximum-300-cubic-feet-free-shipping/ That's a KIP-60b heater.

I put myself on a waitlist last May, and I got it at the end of November.

I loved using it, and I was OK with the installation cost: roughly 1200$ from my electrician to get it connected to the house, appropriate disconnect box, etc. I have to emphasize that I live in a rural area, and it was time-consuming and difficult just to get an electrician to come to me.

But at the end of February, the sauna just stopped working. Nobody can figure out why: did something break inside? Did the temperature sensor break due to something? It was very cold at night when it broke.

The problem is that the people who made the sauna don't know enough about heaters to troubleshoot. The Sauna Place punts questions to Harvia.

And Harvia won't actually do anything except ask me for photos and then refuse to answer my questions. They'll tell me to do something with the heater but never respond to me. I am extremely far away from having a proposed solution.

I don't even know what to do. Getting an electrician to come to me is difficult: it can take weeks because the few who are willing to come to this rural area are usually booked out far in advance. And even then, it's expensive. I felt aristocratic when buying a sauna, but 5000 1200 is a lot of money as it stands, and I don't even know what any repairs from an electrician would cost. (Having an electrician come might be inconclusive and still cost me money.) It feels crazy that I'd have even more expenses just a few months after getting the sauna.

I adored using the sauna but I don't know what to do. How do you all handle a broken sauna heater, especially one that is new, when you are not particularly handy yourself and you know nothing about heaters, and you'd rather minimize your expenses?

Harvia tells me that this heater is covered by warranty, but they are doing exactly nothing to make any progress on repairing or replacing it.

I also don't even know how to replace it if I got the thing.

I feel like getting a sauna was an expensive nightmare that started off as a really fun dream: I loved using the sauna but I feel like I am slowly going crazy over the problems with it.