About Us

About Sonoma Custom Saunas

Who We Are

Sonoma Custom Saunas is a small building company based in Santa Rosa, and hot rooms are all we build. Our work takes us from town lots near Sonoma Plaza to ranches up past Glen Ellen, down to Petaluma, and out through the redwoods to the coast. The job changes a lot from one property to the next, and we like it that way, since most of what makes a sauna good happens in the planning before any lumber shows up.

How long we have been building

Our carpenters have been framing and finishing saunas for over a decade, and most of them came from general remodeling and cabinet shops before that. Over those years the county has handed us plenty to learn from: rebuilt homes after the 2017 fires with strict ember rules, river cabins in Guerneville that sit in a flood zone, and farm properties where the only power source nearby was a panel in the pump house. Each one taught us something we still use on site today.

How the company started

It began with a wood-fired room on a family property outside Kenwood. The power went out for three days during a shutoff one October, and that little cedar room was the one warm place anyone wanted to be. Neighbours came by to ask who built it, then asked if we could build one for them. We learned a lot from those early jobs, including how much a stove flue matters in fire country and how a sloppy vapor barrier fails in west county fog, and we started taking the work on as a proper business.

The team

The crew is a handful of carpenters who have worked side by side for years. Because we keep it small, the person who sketches your floor plan is also cutting the bench boards and stacking the stones. A few of us trained on Finnish methods and still care about details such as the gap under the door, where the fresh air comes in, and how high the top bench sits under the ceiling. We all use saunas at home, most weeks more than once, and that shows in the rooms we hand over.

Brands we work with

On the electric side we fit heaters from Harvia, Huum, Saunum, Iki and Tylo, and for wood we like Kuuma and Harvia stoves for their clean burn and sturdy fireboxes. Steam rooms get generators from ThermaSol, Mr. Steam or Amerec. Cold plunges get chillers and filters from makers who stock parts in the US, because a plunge sitting idle for six weeks waiting on a part from overseas is no fun. We install all of these on new sauna installation jobs, and our crew handles sauna repair on units someone else put in.

Why we love the work

The best part of the job comes at the end, on the first evening the room is hot, when a family sits on a bench they watched us build and someone tips the first ladle of water onto the stones. We get to be part of that on vineyard homes, valley cottages and old dairy ranches, which is a good way to spend a working life. You can see the range of it in our Sonoma County sauna builds, whether that is a full custom sauna in the hills or a small cedar tub tucked under an oak, and each one started with someone showing us a patch of ground and a rough idea.

Our mission

To build saunas, tubs and plunges that people in Sonoma County reach for all year, through foggy mornings, fire season and the wet stretch after New Year.

What we value

• Do the slow parts properly, including the sealing and venting nobody sees.
• Use real cedar and hemlock, and keep glues and finishes that off-gas out of the hot room.
• Point you to a smaller or cheaper option when it will serve you better.
• Keep one point of contact from the first call to the last walkthrough.