Questions, answered.

A Rooster is an architectural electric sauna built in our Louisville workshop and delivered fully assembled to your slab. Each room is hand-cut from Eastern Red Cedar from a single Kentucky sawmill, then fitted with a Huum electric heater (Drop, Hive, or Hive 15kW by size) with Wifi control and the engineered ventilation that makes Finnish löyly possible. We make three sizes — the Hot Box, the Cottage, and the Miller — all built from the same shared blueprint.

We're in Louisville, Kentucky. Builds happen here in the workshop. We deliver flatbed across the continental United States — every Rooster arrives finished and craned or rolled into place on a single day. International is by exception only.

Three differences worth knowing.

First, architecture. A barrel is a curve of staves with a heater in it. A Rooster is a room: a recessed porch, a two-tier bench, a window set at a specific height, a roof line. It's designed to be looked at and walked into.

Second, build. Kit saunas arrive flat-packed for an installer. We arrive with a finished room. The cedar is cut, fit, and oiled before it leaves the shop.

Third, heat. Huum electric heaters with Wifi control, tuned for high stone mass and proper löyly — schedule the heat-up from your phone and walk into a fully soaked room.

The studio was founded in 2025. The first build was the Miller — our flagship. Hot Box and Cottage join the lineup soon. Early commissions are limited and numbered.

The Hot Box (7′ × 6′, 2 person) is for one person, or two who like each other a lot. Single bench tier, no porch overhang. Fits almost any backyard — decks, tight clearings, side yards.

The Cottage (10′ × 8′, 3–4 person) is the middle build. Two-tier benches, recessed porch under the same roof. The size most clients land on.

The Miller (14′ × 8′, 5–6 person) is the flagship. L-shaped bench layout, the room to share with friends on a long evening.

If you're unsure, the Cottage is almost always the right answer.

Yes — every Rooster is technically built to order. Standard customizations include bench layout (single tier vs. two-tier), window placement and size, door swing direction, and exterior cladding (Eastern Red Cedar, shou sugi ban, or Kentucky white oak shake). We don't do interior wood other than cedar.

Comfortably five. Six if everyone is friendly. The two-tier upper bench seats three lying down or four sitting; the L-shaped lower bench takes two or three more. If you regularly host more than six, look at a custom commission — we've built up to 18′ × 10′.

Eight feet exterior; seven feet of interior chamber height. The upper bench sits at thirty-four inches off the floor, putting your head at roughly the warmest band of air. The window meets your eye line when seated.

Base prices, fully built and delivered to the continental US:

Hot Box — from $9,800
Cottage — from $14,800
Miller — from $21,400

These include the room, the standard Huum electric heater for that size, the standard cedar interior and exterior, and standard delivery. They don't include site prep, the dedicated electrical service the heater needs, or custom cladding upgrades. Final quotes are tailored to your build after the consult.

Standard schedule, broken in three:

25% at design sign-off (gets you on the build calendar)
50% at frame-up in the workshop
25% before flatbed dispatch

We accept wire and ACH. No financing through us, but several clients have used home-equity lines.

Roughly ten to fourteen weeks for a Hot Box or Cottage, fourteen to eighteen for a Miller. We share a build calendar at design sign-off so you can see your slot. Custom commissions add four to eight weeks depending on scope.

Yes. Five years on the structure (frame, joinery, roof, cedar). Two years on the Huum heater (this matches the manufacturer's warranty — we honor it on your behalf). Wear items like door gaskets, bench oil, and replacement stones aren't covered. We respond to warranty calls within five business days.

A reinforced concrete pad, level to within ¼″ across the footprint, with the structure footprint plus 6″ of overhang on each side. Pad thickness depends on local frost line — typically 4″ for Cottage, 6″ for Miller. Full pad specs ship with your design package; see also our Site Preparation Guide.

Pavers, yes — over a properly compacted base. Deck, only if the deck was engineered for the dead load (a Miller weighs roughly 4,800 lbs dry, more with people inside). We're happy to review your deck plans during the consult, but most clients pour a small dedicated pad off to one side.

On a flatbed with a hydraulic crane or by tilt-bed depending on access. We need a clear corridor from your driveway to the slab — fourteen feet wide, twelve feet of overhead clearance, no soft ground unless plywood is laid first. We do a delivery walk-through during the design phase to confirm access.

Electric Huum heaters run on a dedicated 240V circuit sized to the heater: roughly 30 A for the Drop 6kW (Hot Box), 40 A for the Hive 9kW (Cottage), 60 A for the Hive 15kW (Miller). Your electrician runs conduit to a stub-up at the porch corner; we hand off a single connection point on the design plans. A separate optional 20A 120V circuit covers interior lighting.

Thirty-five minutes from a cold start to a fully soaked 180–195°F room. The Huum controller lets you schedule heat-up from your phone or wall panel — start it from work, walk into a ready sauna, run as long as you like. Sessions of three to four hours are common; the room holds temperature on a thermostatic loop.

Not technically. Many clients do contrast cycles with a garden hose, an outdoor shower, or a stock tank with an off-the-shelf chiller. We can spec a recommended setup during your consult; we don't currently sell plunges ourselves.

Yes — that's the point. Insulated walls, double-pane window, weather-sealed door. Clients in Minnesota and Vermont report no issues at -20°F. Heat-up time stretches to about forty-five minutes in deep winter.

Once a year on the interior benches and floor with a food-safe sauna oil. We ship a bottle of the oil we use with every build. Exterior cedar takes care of itself — it'll silver naturally over two seasons unless you choose to maintain the warmer tone with an annual penetrating oil.

Honestly, very little. Sweep it out monthly. Wipe down benches with a damp cloth after each session. Oil benches once at the six-month mark. Wipe the heater housing every few months, and check the stones once a year for any that have cracked badly. We send a written care card with each delivery.

Wipe the heater housing down with a damp cloth every few months — no chemicals. Inspect the stones once a year for crumbling or splintering; rotate the cracked ones to the bottom and replace the broken ones with a fresh bag (Huum sells them, or any sauna shop). A clean stone load is what makes the löyly soft.

Cedar is a soft wood — small surface checks (hairline cracks along the grain) are normal and don't affect performance. If a structural board fails inside the warranty window, we ship a replacement and a single-page guide. Out of warranty, we can ship boards at cost.

A single sawmill in eastern Kentucky we've worked with since the studio's first build. Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana), kiln-dried to 8% moisture, hand-selected for clear grain. We don't buy from brokers, and we don't use Western Red Cedar — the Kentucky tree is denser and holds aroma longer.

Wifi-scheduled heat-up, no chimney, no permits, no ash, no spark arrestor — the room is ready when you want it. Huum heaters are tuned for traditional löyly with high stone mass, so the steam is the same soft, enveloping burst you'd get from a wood stove. We don't currently build wood-fired models.

Interior cedar is finished only with a food-safe natural oil — same oil we ship with the build for annual maintenance. No stains, no sealants, no urethane. Exterior is left bare or treated with a penetrating oil if you choose the warmer-tone option.

A small team of master craftspeople in our Louisville workshop. Every Rooster is signed by the lead builder on the build plate inside the door frame. We are intentionally small — we'd rather build twenty rooms a year well than two hundred poorly.

It's a sauna built for the first hour — the cold dark before sunrise, when the rooster calls and the room has been warming on a phone timer for thirty minutes. Made in Louisville, where bourbon coopers and bat turners have been working in oak and ash and cedar for generations. Same hands, same wood, same patience.

By appointment, in Louisville. We keep a Miller assembled at the workshop for clients to walk through before signing on. Reach out via the consult form and we'll find a date.