Custom saunas in Kigali and across Rwanda

How we size the heater for 1,450 m

Our starting figure is 0.85 kW per cubic metre for an insulated cabin lined in timber. At Kigali's altitude the air is thinner, so we multiply by 1.12, and each square metre of glass adds about 0.42 kW because glazing bleeds heat far faster than an insulated wall. The total is rounded up to the next heater in the EOS or Sentiotec range, never down.

A worked case: a four-person cabin of 2.0 × 2.4 m holds about 10.1 m³. That gives 10.1 × 0.85 × 1.12 = 9.6 kW, and a full glass wall of 5 m² lifts it to 11.7 kW, so the cabin gets a 12 kW heater. Built solid, the same cabin takes 10.5 kW. The whole method, with a sizing table, is in our note on heater sizing at Kigali's altitude, and the price configurator runs the same sum on your dimensions.

Timber inside, stone and brick outside

The hot room is lined in thermo-treated aspen or thermo-treated pine, kilned at around 200 °C so the resin is driven out and the boards stay straight through hundreds of heat cycles. Benches are cut in the factory and fixed from below, so no screw head ever meets skin.

Local eucalyptus is plentiful and a fine structural timber, but it is resinous and knotty, and it has no place behind a sauna bench — the reasons are set out in why Rwandan eucalyptus stays out of the hot room. Outside the cabin, Rwandan brick or volcanic basalt makes an excellent plinth, laid on site before the crates arrive.

Our reference in Kigali

For a residential resort in Kigali we delivered three villa spas. Each villa has a sauna with a panoramic glass front and, beside it, a membrane-lined steam room closed with full-height glazing. The cabins were made and dry-assembled in the factory, exported, and put together on site by our own installation crew — the same route every Rwandan project follows.

Message us on WhatsApp and we will send photographs of those rooms, together with cabins from our 1,450 completed projects that are closer in size to yours, and a first budget.

Cabin sizes and indicative prices

Bands are supplied and installed, with EAC duty and 18% VAT already inside, and they exclude civil works and the cable from your board. A cabin on a steep terrace adds a steel sub-frame, shown as its own line on the price list.

Single-phase or three-phase

Up to about 8 kW a sauna can usually run from a single-phase 230 V supply, provided the incoming supply and the cable are big enough. Above that we ask for REG's 400 V three-phase connection. The meter fee is RWF 56,000 whether single or three phase (REG New Connection Policy), so the real cost sits in the cable from your board to the cabin — cheap in an open trench, expensive under a finished garden. What each evening then costs on the REG tariff is worked through in sauna electricity in Rwanda.

Key points

• Heater sized at 0.85 kW/m³ × 1.12 for altitude, plus 0.42 kW per m² of glass — the sum is printed in your quote
• Thermo-aspen or thermo-pine in the hot room; eucalyptus never touches a bench
• Built and dry-assembled in our factory, installed and commissioned by our own crew
• 24-month warranty; EOS and Sentiotec heaters, CE marked to EN 60335
• Small room or rented flat? Compare infrared and Finnish saunas for Kigali homes