I Tried Costco's Almost Heaven Sauna (3 Years Later)
00:00today we're going to be testing out the Almost Heaven sauna that my friend got from Costco and we're going to see what it's like wow what what timing right now so we're going to take you to the experience of like what the actual using of the sauna is like what his setup process was like how long that took the electricity the wiring maintenance and what having a sauna over what 4 years is actually like saunas will be as common as pools in people's backyards it's really nice to get the sauna and you can invest in it and it might be like you know $3 $5,000 but there's a lot of extra added costs that you don't know about there's a lot of maintenance there's a lot of wear and tear this thing has been 3 and 1/2 years but it definitely looks like it's gone through its Paces so I'll show you everything let's go let's SAA how long did it take to set up the entire sauna each one of these like wooden slates like came on its own and they all came uh on their own and thing is they wouldn't deliver up here they literally left it downstairs so I had to ask a neighbor to like help me bring it all up the assembly actually wasn't very complicated the instructions were relatively straightforward it took about maybe 2 hours and how many days after you got it set up did the electrician come like a week okay so it was like you
01:00got it set up and then another week to get the electrical stuff what about the door and the front panel yeah everything everything got delivered yes okay and then these are you had to put in one by one yes to wrap all the way around right right and did you have to nail them in or no no no they kind of just went in together and these belt this belt is what's like holding it all together oh so nothing is nailed into the really so if you take these belts off it'll all fall apart yes and then the foundation is it's plastic and then what happened to the roof up here yeah I just saw that there was was uh when I was inside the sauna I saw there was a gap like I could clearly see uh light coming in meaning that it would be easy for heat to escape more or less put that wooden piece there to prevent heat from escaping yes okay but now it's like kind of warped isn't it I don't know if it's bad it definitely doesn't look as good have you had any heating issues or do you have heating issues I have had heating issues before so um maybe about a year after getting it I noticed it wouldn't heat Beyond 150° called the company and more or less like sent them like pictures of
02:00my uh heater and they said I needed to more or less bring this part out oh this part right here uh this was actually St in the heater I never brought it out this keeps track of the temperature and when it's too close to the heater um it prevents it from heating up too much so when you pull that out then uh the sky is the limit for the temperature what about installing the benches in the back rest was that like you had to do that yourself too yeah that was straightforward yeah it just it all came with the SAA all right if you do plan to buy a make sure to use my code shervin and go to Redwood Outdoors I'll have a link and a discount code down below it'll help you save some money oh my God my camera's dying y all it's hot why are you closing the door so fast so heat doesn't escape bro if you leave the door open does it get cold it does I just I just saw like the temperature actually hasn't increased at all since we were last in there yeah we just kept going in and out right uhoh and why did you put the light there because that's what the installation guide said oh so the the light came with the sauna light
03:00came with the SAA I mainly use the light when it gets a bit darker so that's the thing that's the main reason I got like the sauna instead of a hot tub like everyone ask me why this and of hot tub there is really no maintenance involved with it right the only maintenance is maybe over like over time the Wood will change color and for uh aesthetic purposes you might want to give it another coat I know I haven't coated it I not coated it even once okay so that's why it's kind of Aging right that's the look of no coat I wish it heated up faster like it would be ideal if it heated up within like 20 minutes or so I'd say the fastest it heats up is like maybe 30 minutes but that's when it's like already 70° outside having it for 3 4 years now like is there anything that you wish you'd had done differently or you'd give advice to someone who's just about to buy SAA probably with like the assembly piece like it is a little crooked uh at least like this door and you could see because like there are cracks here which let heat Escape I think I should have just paid more attention uh to the assembly instructions I usually like after the sauna I always like keep keep keep this
04:00open to let it air out what is this uh it's just aent a vent yeah I should more often but I usually just let the rain take care of it well love about it I would say I tend to do it at night um after a workout it's good for Recovery it really helps me I've always noticed at nights when I do do it like I sleep a lot better I like the social aspect of it more than anything else which is like I have a lot of friends who like Dana and like rather than like saying like hey let's go out and grab drinks or or get dinner like come over come over and like I love the conversations I have in there right like it's just a different experience a different kind of social experience that I think is going to become more and more common um as uh time progresses this is marketed as a six person sauna and I have had six people in a once I don't think a six person one is really necessary like I usually have like if I do have people over it'll be like one or two friends Max uh and a four person one would have been sufficient what are you checking see it turned off no no it did not so what do we have to do
05:00I just turned it back on why after an hour like the law states that the heater has to automatically turn off so the harvia heater has been designed that way I don't know why that's just the law man the law of all heaters that you buy sauna heaters they have to turn off automatically after one hour yeah really so any sauna you buy has this issue you can just turn it back on you can just turn it back on but like for example like passing out in here right the worst key scenario is you're passed out here for an hour and then it stops okay right it's safety thing thing is like it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to heat up to the temperature I want uh so usually what I do is around the 45 minute Mark I'll come in here I'll turn it off and then turn it back on and what's the temperature at right now now 160 cuz like while I'm in here it'll heat up to like 170 175 so temperature get how much did it cost to get the electrician to do all that and install the box and buy all the cabling the cover and all that stuff yeah I mean all of that was included with the electrical work it was about 3,000 3 ,000 for all the equipment
06:00and the labor yep how much was the sauna 3500 the sauna was from Costco right that's right the son was like on sale it's from Costco I think Alma 7 if you buy from Alma 7 it's way more expensive right yeah yeah but then the electrician cost made it almost the same price yeah so you have to really keep in mind the cost of the electrical work the equipment the labor the installation this runs what 240 volts which could be up to 60 amps but the other thing was 40 amps and then it's running through this cable yep and the electrician did all this yes so he drilled this hole right here and then this goes and Powers the heater inside that's right and then you have to manually turn on the heater that's right okay what is this thing I was trying to more or less create a different way to connect the lighting from the outside but it was just a project and never completed so it's just but so this doesn't do anything this doesn't do anything right and then what is this B cable this is the light this ethernet cable this is for the light oh okay that you installed separately yeah I just you bought it it just came with the sauna
07:00things that uh is my biggest uh pet peeve about this is that like I have to be home to turn on the eater right and it'd be great if while I'm out I could just remotely turn it on so that by the time by the time I get home I can just jump into the sauna yeah well all right I'm curious the electrician what do they have to do to get the wiring installed to get the sauna heater turn on can you show us that yes let's do that oh it's so hot all right the very first step is we're going to see the electrical panel that powers the sa they have to actually install a thing voltage thing in there I think this is the electric panel can see each one has its own unique control and how many amps or volts is it or 250 250 volts you wired something from here it went down it went directly down than into my bathroom down here okay how did he do that how did he get the wiring through the walls there was like a hole here a hole here now it's all patched and painted up and fished it through the ceiling created some holes here there's
08:00this hollow part here where hole there and there's a hole here and then finally he was able to get it out here to the patio what's the unit out there what's that box uh that box uh so essentially we can use that to turn uh the electricity on or off how much have it increased your electricity cost month over month on average I'd say the electricity bill has gone up like $30 a month how many times a week do you use it yeah I'd say like three times a week on average 12 times a month you're paying $30 to use it that's right they say it's the equivalent of like more or less like running your um your laundry okay every time you turn it on it's like running your laundry let sauna baby all right let's go see what the experience of actually saing is like we're just going to turn it on right now there's a knob here you just turn it to the right wait for two clicks one two okay and then back to the left one and now it's heating up for 1 hour you see the one there yep it's heating up for an hour so every time you want to use a SAA you have to turn this on that's right like
09:00how long is it going to take to heat up yeah I mean it all depends how hot you want it to get to right uh I usually like it anywhere between like 160 170 and yeah that takes about an hour and how hot can this sauna get I've gotten it to 190 before it doesn't get to like 200 it could it's just a matter of how long you're willing to wait right uh I've just never waited that long yeah if it's like warmer or hotter does that change the temperatures uh if it's warmer outside you could probably get it to 160 within like 40 minutes what is it at right now right now it's a little less than like 50 right well could be even lower depending on outside number 50 is the lowest it shows it is 405 we'll be back in 1 hour and hopefully it'll be hot all right we are changed and ready to get the sauna what's your opinion on putting a phone in the sauna like I used I had a iPhone 12 mini and I think it I think it really like drained my battery like to the end of my iPhone 12 mini I was maybe getting like 70% battery at 100% capacity so now I have one of those um sand timers in there that was my main reason for taking in there to tie myself but we'll take this
10:00camera in there and see what happens plan is to get in ASAP to not let heat Escape okay all right all right I'm ready all right I hope so ready shoes off shoes off yeah you can go in first open the door Ready set go how long you usually do 20 minutes 20 minutes 20 minutes yeah so I usually wait for the sand to come down fully and I flip it do five and then I call it like a sa timer yeah and when I went to a Russian bath house I saw a lot of them use these in in there I was like oh that's perfect cuz before I was bringing in my phone the time we're at 175° F what's the humidity percentage uh 41 41% that's a lot I would say most SS are 10 to 20 so I think that's why it's making it so hard but I'm dying and we've been in here for 15 minutes maybe 18 minutes cuz I started it late I'm hanging in there said in his last video push yourself when life gets tough you got to freaking push what call your mind be a
11:00better person right life gets tough right relationships family friends I did this freaking sauna at 15° almost and I was dying and I survived okay what is what are we at right now 70 1 70 yeah oh maybe the humidity just makes humidity makes it feel really hot should I start a workout on my watch open workout mind and body boom start workout there we go uh I got this June 2020 so three and a half and cuz everything else looks like it's like aged yeah the wood it looks like it's aged man like what is this it's falling inward yeah is this so big this I've had six people in here once and it was six dudes and like we all like comfortably fit like we weren't like touching each other so now mag starts again where we're creating humidity right oh what's your typical routine in the sauna honestly it's kind of like me time
12:00uh for me to kind of just be alone with my thoughts Ponder try to meditate think about the day you have essential oils as well yeah we got we got some eucalyptus oil uh they say it's very good for uh just general congestion um so then what do you do you pour that in in the blle with water yeah with water yeah and then what do you do here uh and now we'll start with a little bit uh-oh here we go oh [Applause] and that'll create some humidity oh it smells like a eucalyp this now yeah okay what do you think about the floor that's not flat it's curved does that bother you like it doesn't bother me they actually say like the barrel shape uh helps it heat faster because essentially like it heat rises and then it comes back down because of the shape interesting whatever temperature is shown right here which is about 80 now that's at that level right but if you up
13:00here it's probably 200 stand up in the sauna huh yeah you're too tall bro oh it is so hot my eyes burn wow we're already sweating we've been in here for how long 6 minutes the camera is steaming up oh my God but this is a timer oh and it shows the time on each each side side yeah so you know how long you've been in here mhm what are you wearing yeah this is my sauna hat like I actually I noticed this when when I first came to New York uh and went to one of the bath houses that a lot of Russians like wore this hat and yeah it kind of makes sense cuz your hair gets really really freaking hot with it so that's why they wear the hat it also that helps me stay in here longer all right we're at 198 minutes heart rate 121 we're dying bro you can't see anything but trust us I'm dying I don't have the energy I don't have the energy to uh Vlog this properly but it's like uh what's the temperature humidity right now 170 160 dude it's 190 190 now and what's the humidity 42 42%
14:00humidity I think that's the humidity is what makes it feel hotter a lot of people say oh my God it's hot that's because the humidity bro it's not because of the heat humidity makes you feel hot because of the moisture that's why in a desert the heat doesn't feel as hot but the temperature is different than moisture and humidity so just keep that in mind but I feel like I'm going to vomit man and if you do bring water in here do not bring plastic water bottles because you this is not healthy your plastic is going to melt and you're going to drink the plastic so just not worth it um oh what did you just do just turned it off bro oh yeah you're good at that oh my God I'm dying is it done time yeah yeah it work all right let's do it okay oh man we did it that was 18 minutes 19 minutes and 30 seconds sauna complete nade how do you feel honestly the way I described is nirvana man I feel a little tired but I also feel energized yeah like I feel good like I feel like reset like refreshed like in a
15:00whole new day feel like if you like this video hit that like peace all right since you enjoyed this video go watch all my Sonic comparisons my best ice bath videos it'll be linked right here subscribe turn notifications follow me on Instagram Twitter straa X shows we'll see you in the next one peace