How to clean a sauna?

In the sauna, you clean yourself and shake off the day’s dust from your shoulders. In terms of the cleansing experience, it is particularly important that the whole sauna experience feels hygienic.

Sauna facilities offer favorable conditions for the growth of microbes. That is why it´s important to make sure that the space is clean – from the dressing rooms to the sauna room.

“Only in a clean sauna you can get the authentic Finnish sauna experience. The whole sauna journey starts with the fact that the dressing rooms are clean, the washrooms are hygienic and the sauna smells fresh and clean,” says Minna Kyllinen, cleanliness expert.

Tips for ensuring a clean sauna experience:

1. When you map the level of cleanliness of the sauna facilities, trust your senses. Are the surfaces clean, is there hair in the drain, for example? Do the walls feel slimy? What does the space smell like?
2. Choose the right tools and materials. A home sauna can be cleaned with tools found at home, but it is good to use mechanical methods in public and customer saunas.
3. When it comes to choosing cleaning agents, the most important thing is to pay attention to the pH values of the products. The most suitable cleaning agent for all surfaces of sauna facilities is weakly alkaline (pH 8.1-10).
4. Pay special attention to the dirtiest places in the sauna facilities. They are the lower parts of the walls and the floor well in the washroom, the lowest board and the floor in front of it in the sauna room, as well as the wall surfaces and footboards on the leaning surface.
5. Take care of the cleaning interval. In a home sauna, cleaning after use and thorough cleaning 1-2 times a year is enough. In public and hotel saunas, daily maintenance cleaning is performed according to use, as well as more thorough cleaning on a regular basis, for example weekly.
6. Take care of prevention. The table cloths protect the tables and keep them clean. Instruct sauna users on hygienic sauna use. Offer customers washing tools and products.

“If you start your sauna experience by noticing the lack of hygiene in the environment, no other aspect can save the experience.”

You can find more sauna cleaning and hygiene tips from our Quality Handbook.