Steamy stuff: the rise and rise of mobile saunas

At swim spots around the country, mobile saunas are popping up. Sarah Cullen meets the people behind our latest obsession

Fad Saoil Saunas: one of a wave of mobile saunas popping up at swimming spots

There has been a significant rise in the popularity of sea swimming over the past few years. Perhaps as a result of lockdowns keeping everyone at home, many Irish people took to the seas to regain a sense of freedom that had been lost. Nothing shakes off a long day of remote working like jumping into the biting sea.

In spite of world events, for many people, the last two years has sparked a new wave of creativity and entrepreneurship, and these three businesses are no exception.

Capitalising on our love of a cold plunge, they have opened mobile sauna units close to popular swimming spots. The shock of cold water in contrast to the heat of the sauna has incredible health benefits, and may even encourage the weariest swimmer to dive in.

Steve Crosbie, Fad Saoil Saunas

Fad Saoil Saunas: "I looked to Finland and Norway"

Steve Crosbie, who owns and operates Fad Saoil Saunas, credits his Cork connection to Summercove for an early love of the sea.

“Sea swimming was always embedded in my family. My family’s from Cork originally, and my granny would have swum in Kinsale at Summercove quite often so I would have been thrown in at a young age.”

As an athlete, Steve saw firsthand the benefits cold-water swimming can have on recovery.

“I managed to secure myself an academy position with Leinster rugby, and I was told sea swimming was beneficial to my performance for recovery perspective, it was signed, sealed, delivered, I never had to look back. I became completely obsessed with it and didn’t understand why people wouldn’t do it, especially with how good you feel afterwards. Then I kind of understood that I always had a ‘why’, because the rugby and then living out in Galway. I was playing for Connacht and used to stop at the Galway diving board quite often, and would then go for a swim on the way home and then go to my local gym for a sauna.”

Steve says hot and cold contrast therapy was something he was absolutely fascinated by.

“Could you imagine if you could replace the intermittent period of jumping into the car shivering and chattering with getting into the sauna, and there’s one just there at the seaside?”

Looking to Scandinavia, he saw a clear solution.

“I started looking abroad to see if it was something that was done. I looked to Finland and Norway mainly and saw that it was kind of a thing, but I wasn’t really drawn to the way it was done because we’re trying to create our own Irish cultural sauna practices.

“Once I knew I wasn’t going to continue on with the rugby I decided to go back to college and finish my sports and exercise management degree in UCD. I used that as an opportunity to do my research projects on sauna health benefits as recovery methods and build a business framework around it.”

Fad Saoil Saunas started out at the Forty Foot in Dublin all the way back in 2019.

“We launched with the Ironman 70.3 event, it was a great success, so much so that we got booked to go to Electric Picnic then straight afterwards.

“We managed to have continued success at the Forty Foot and opened up a second location at the back of a local cafe in the Dun Laoghaire area.”

The pandemic was devastating for the company. It lost its trading licence at the Forty Foot due to Covid. The closure became a turning point for Crosbie, who found himself choosing between shutting altogether or re-investing in the business. Crosbie chose the latter, engaging in a long-term project converting shipping containers into saunas.

“That was the vision for a more sustainable more semi-permanent, more practical kind of purpose for communities that will have these units at seaside locations to promote sea swimming and sauna use.

“I’m proud to say that we’re still open. We currently have two locations in Greystones and we are in the middle of launching our new location in Galway about 500m away from the Salthill diving board.”

• fadsaoilsaunas.ie 

Luke Tanner, the Happy Place Saunas

Based at Fountainstown, Carrigaline man Luke says that gym closures inspired him to start a mobile sauna.

“I used to go to the gym a couple of times a week and I always used to go to the sauna after and then they shut the sauna down. I was building my own gym back home and I was going to get a sauna. I was looking at them to buy and I saw Fad Saoil Saunas at the Forty Foot in Dublin and my mind was blown. I tried it out and instantly when I sat down I was like, ‘Boom, this is it – I’m quitting my job and getting a mobile sauna’. It’s been flying since.”

Luke has found a lot of people are interested in the sauna business.

“I see that people want to not only use the sauna but actually do the business as well. I think that’s just a sign that people aren’t happy with their office jobs. Every week, people come to me and they say, ‘I want to do this’, you know, it’s really exploding.”

Luke said when he first set up at Fountainstown, people didn’t know what it was, “so you have to let them all in for free” but now it’s very busy.

“All the locals use it now and it is mainly the sea swimmers, but there are people who come for just the sauna too – people who work nights and will be there for the 7am session. It makes you feel so good.

“I’ve been there all through the winter and I was asking them on these really bad days, ‘Why are you here? Why are you here jumping into water?’ and every one of them said it’s for your head. It’s so good.” Luke says the sauna has made it easier to swim all year around.

“I only swam in the summertime, but since I have the sauna I swim every day I’m there and it U-turns you no matter what.

He says that the best antidote to the shock of cold water, is heat.

“I felt so bad some mornings and the sea just makes you feel better a big dopamine release and norepinephrine which makes you feel awake and alert and dopamine makes you feel good. So you have no choice but to feel good.

“Then saunas lower your cortisol levels and cortisol is the stress hormone that we humans have far too much of. People go to the sea to feel good, and with the sauna, you’re doubling down on the health benefits of the sea. The two of them together are really good for your heart because the heat stress expands your blood vessels and then the cold stress closes them back. It’s like doing reps for the heart.”

An advocate for his own business, he uses his sauna for an hour each day, citing the mental health benefits as well as visibly healthier skin and overall physical health.

Of course, it is our love of the ocean that has fuelled our newfound passion for heat, and says Luke – they go hand in hand.

“It’s kind of a given with the sea swimming that this would work out.”

• https://www.facebook.com/HappyPlaceSaunas/

Dan O’Connor, Hot Box Sauna

Hotbox Sauna: started as a plan to get away from corporate jobs

Dan and Liam started the Hot Box from Liam’s house in December 2020, during the lockdown at the time.

“We were finished college and we were thinking of different things to do instead of going to Canada, or starting corporate-type jobs. We built a sauna in Liam’s house just as a pilot run, realised that we could do it, so we decided to just build it on a trailer ourselves and see how it went. We started running it during the summer last year.

“We got one of our other mates involved, so there’s three of us now, three friends working together. We just opened our second sauna in Strandhill last week.” Dan says people come to them for an hour, and use the wood-fired sauna and hot tub, and experience hot and cold therapy.

“Our plunge pool is the River Boyne!” Dan says a lot of customers enjoy sitting in their hot tub and taking in the views.

“We have a lovely view overlooking the Boyne, and we’re in a really nice, kind of remote area, there’s an old disused mill on the site, really lovely and fields and everything around.”

Much like sea swimming, river swimming also benefits from remote saunas.

“Everyone seems to have taken to rivers, lakes, and sea swimming during the pandemic. Before that, it wasn’t very popular. A lot of people come to us, who were kind of interested in getting into swimming and having the option of warming up in the sauna afterwards has been a real complement to that.”

• thehotboxsauna.ie