The Complete Guide to Cleaning and Maintaining Your Sauna

A sauna doesn’t ask for much. There’s no engine to service, no filter to change every month, no complicated schedule to memorise. But cleaning and maintaining your sauna properly is still what decides whether it looks and performs like new in five, ten or twenty years, or starts smelling musty and needing parts replaced within one year.

Most of the care is small and habitual… a wipe here, a door left open there. The bit that trips people up is that infrared saunas and traditional or hybrid stove saunas need genuinely different routines. Wood, ventilation and cleaning products carry across both. Stone care does not carry across at all, and telling an infrared owner to check their stones is a good way to send them looking for something that was never there.

This guide walks through what to do after every session, what to check weekly, and what only needs attention every so often… plus which products to reach for, which to avoid, and when a job stops being a cleaning task and becomes one for a qualified electrician.

Know Your Sauna Type First

Vidalux sells three distinct sauna families, and care starts with knowing which one is sitting in your home.

Infrared saunas heat the body directly through light rather than heating the air. There’s no stove, no rocks, no steam. Care here is almost entirely about wood, wiping down, and letting the cabin air out.

Traditional saunas use a stove that heats a bed of stones, producing dry heat with the option of löyly… the burst of steam you get from pouring water over hot stones. These need everything infrared saunas need, plus stone care and closer attention to ventilation and drying.

Hybrid saunas house both systems side by side, switchable but never running together. That means hybrid owners follow the full traditional-sauna routine, stones included, on top of the standard wood and wipe-down care.

After Every Session: The Wipe-Down Routine

This is the single habit that does the most work. A quick wipe-down after each use stops sweat from sitting on the wood, keeps the cabin smelling clean, and takes under two minutes.

Wipe the bench and backrest with a dry or lightly damp cloth once you’ve finished. If your model has a floor-level heater, the floor stays warm enough that sweat mostly dissipates on its own, but a thin microfibre towel laid down during your session protects the wood and saves you the wipe-down afterwards. The ergonomic backrest on most models is held on with screws rather than glued in place, so it can be removed entirely if you want to clean properly behind it or check the heater underneath.

Leave the door open once you’re done. Traditional and hybrid cabins benefit from running the stove mode briefly with the door ajar to dry the wood out fully… infrared cabins just need the door left open until the cabin has cooled and the air has cleared.

What about the “new sauna” smell? A hot-wood or faintly resinous smell for the first few sessions is completely normal… it’s the natural oils in the hemlock curing under heat, and it fades within three to four uses. A smell of burning plastic is not normal. If you ever notice that, switch the sauna off immediately and investigate the issue thoroughly, not a cleaning one.

Looking After the Wood

Vidalux sauna interiors are built from Canadian hemlock, chosen because it’s naturally rot-resistant and stays free of volatile compounds when heated. That last part matters for how you treat it.

Never apply oils, varnish or any treatment to the internal wood. Heating chemically treated timber can release fumes inside a sealed cabin, which is exactly the environment you don’t want that happening in. The exterior is a different matter… you’re welcome to treat outward-facing panels with furniture polish or oil if you want to keep the outside looking sharp, just avoid anything containing benzene or a high concentration of alcohol, which can damage the finish.

For sweat marks on the bench or backrest, a small amount of fresh water on a cloth usually lifts them. Where staining has set in, light sanding with fine-grade sandpaper along the grain will take it back to bare wood without needing any product at all.

Is a bit of cracking or colour variation a fault?
No. Hemlock is a natural, living material, and hairline cracks from moisture changes, grain variation and slight colour differences between panels are all normal. None of it affects the structural integrity of the sauna, and it isn’t something you need to treat or worry about.

Never use the sauna to dry towels or clothing, and never leave anything flammable inside… both are genuine fire risks rather than a house rule for its own sake. The same goes for covering the heater or infrared emitter, which should always stay clear.

Ventilation and Drying Out

How much ventilation attention your sauna needs depends heavily on type, and this is where infrared and traditional/hybrid care genuinely part ways.

Infrared saunas produce dry heat with no steam, so there’s no requirement for an extractor fan or dedicated drying routine. Leaving the door open after use to let residual warmth and moisture from sweat clear is generally all that’s needed.

Traditional and hybrid saunas produce steam through löyly, so proper airflow matters more. Most cabins have an adjustable ceiling vent you can open to regulate airflow and temperature during use. After your session, running the traditional stove briefly with the door open is one of the most effective ways to dry the cabin out completely and stop moisture building up in the wood. The built-in ioniser also helps here, clearing impurities from the air and keeping the cabin free of the damp, musty smell that poor drying causes.

One detail worth knowing if you’re ever tempted to “improve” the seal around your door: on some models the seal strip is designed to sit along the top only, with the bottom intentionally left open. That gap is there for ventilation, not a fault to fix, and adding a seal along the bottom will trap moisture rather than keep it out.

If your sauna is in a room prone to damp, such as a basement, make sure that room has its own airflow too. And if the floor underneath ever feels damp, a floor separator keeps the sauna base high and dry rather than sitting directly on a wet surface.

Cleaning Products: What to Use and What to Avoid

The rule here is simple, and it applies to any glass, chrome or acrylic components on your sauna as much as the wood.

Use a non-abrasive cleaning solution suited to the material you’re cleaning. Plain water and a soft cloth handles most day-to-day marks on wood without any product at all.

Avoid anything abrasive, including well-known kitchen cream cleaners like Cif, Cillit Bang, and anything containing bleach or peroxide. These can strip finishes, discolour surfaces and, on wood, cause damage that no amount of sanding fully reverses. Not every general cleaner is suitable for every material a sauna uses, so when in doubt, choose the gentlest option that will do the job.

If you use aromatherapy, keep oils in a dedicated bowl or diffuser positioned safely away from the heat source. Applying oils directly to the heaters or the wood can cause staining and, in the case of traditional stove elements, is a fire risk rather than a cosmetic issue.

Stone Care (Traditional and Hybrid Saunas Only)

If you own an infrared sauna, this section doesn’t apply to you… skip ahead to electrical care.

For traditional and hybrid owners, stones need washing before first use, and after that, little beyond the occasional check. Over months of heat cycles, it’s completely normal for stones to crack and gradually become dusty. That’s ordinary wear, not a defect, and replacement stones are available when yours need topping up or swapping out.

How the stones are packed matters more than how often they’re checked. Bigger stones go at the bottom, smaller ones on top, and the whole arrangement should leave gaps for air to circulate rather than being packed tight. Leave a gap between the stones and the wooden surround too. Poor stone packing is one of the most common reasons a traditional sauna underperforms on temperature, so it’s worth getting right rather than just tipping stones in.

Löyly… pouring water over the hot stones… is a genuine part of authentic sauna use and won’t damage anything, in either a standalone traditional sauna or a hybrid running in stove mode. Oils on the stones are a different matter entirely and should never be used, since they can be flammable in contact with the hot elements.

Electrical and Heater Care

Vidalux supplies saunas built to a high standard, but we’re a supply partner, not an on-site servicing company… so it’s worth being clear about where DIY maintenance ends and a qualified electrician’s job begins.

There’s one piece of basic troubleshooting you can safely do yourself: most control panels have a reset button on the electric box that restores factory default settings when held for around ten seconds. That covers a good chunk of minor glitches without needing to call anyone.

Anything beyond that… wiring, connections, or a heater that isn’t behaving as it should… is a job for a qualified electrician or a DIY fix, it is not a cleaning routine issue. Some smaller infrared models run from a standard socket, but every hybrid and traditional sauna, along with larger infrared units, needs to be hardwired by a qualified electrician in the first place, and any electrical work after that should go through the same route. This isn’t about being overly cautious. It’s how the sauna stays safe and the warranty stays valid.

If a part does eventually need replacing… a heater cover, a door seal, a wood panel… Vidalux holds long-term spares for its ranges, including many older and discontinued models. Contact customer service with your order details and a photo of the part in question, and they’ll confirm what’s available.

Your Sauna Care Schedule

Frequency	Infrared	Traditional / Hybrid
After every session	Wipe bench and backrest, leave door open to air out	Wipe bench, leave door open, brief stove run to dry the cabin
Weekly	Check for staining on the wood, wipe glass and chrome trim	Same as infrared, plus a visual check of stone arrangement
Periodically	Light sanding of any sweat marks, check backrest screws are secure	Wash and top up stones as needed, check door seal hasn’t shifted
As required	Basic reset via the control panel button; anything electrical goes to a qualified electrician	Same as infrared

None of this is complicated once it’s a habit rather than a checklist. Wipe it down, let it breathe, treat the wood gently, and leave anything electrical to someone qualified to touch it. Browse the sauna range to compare infrared, traditional and hybrid models, or get in touch about spares for the one you’ve already got.

DISCLAIMER: All specifications, claims, and advice relating to any internal or external procedure, practise, product, or service were true at the time of writing. For more accurate and up-to-date details in relation to Vidalux services, please visit the relevant dedicated on-site page. For any product-related information, specifications, or guidance, the information on the product page should be considered the governing source.