The best glass-front outdoor saunas

The Hekla Cube 210 is the glass-front sauna we'd buy, because it's the only cabin here whose maker lists a double-glazed front, which loses about 40% less heat than a single pane on standard window figures. The shell is 40mm thermo-spruce held by two steel bands, the door is 8mm grey tempered glass, and you choose a half panoramic rear window or a solid timber back.

It's £7,699 for the cabin and £8,698 with a 9kW Harvia Cilindro, or £10,199 with a Harvia Linear 18 wood stove and its chimney kit. The electric heaters want a 40A hard-wired supply. Two tiers of thermo-aspen benches in an L seat four, in a room about 2.17m by 1.8m wall to wall.

Hekla gives 2 years on the cabin and Harvia covers the heater. Kerbside delivery is £149, or £899 to have it built on your base with the heater connected. At 2.35m it's the tallest cabin on this page.

The glass-front Sauna Cube is the same 45mm thermowood cabin as the wooden-front version with the whole front wall in glass. It costs £5,999.99, £1,000 more than the wooden front, and the price includes a 6kW Harvia Vega heater, L-shaped alder benches and a bucket, ladle and thermometer. That's about £2,700 less than the Hekla with its heater, for a cabin that seats one more.

Inside it's 1.96m wide and 1.4m deep, so one person can lie along the back bench while two or three sit with the garden in view. The glass is the weak point for heat: it lets warmth out faster than 45mm thermowood, so on a cold night this version takes longer to come up to temperature than the wooden-front Cube.

The Vega needs a dedicated 32A supply. Polar's warranty is 2 years with professional fitting and 1 year if you build it yourself, and it excludes glass damage and condensation, so the glass is yours to look after. It's made to order with a 3 to 4 week lead time.

The Fjelda Small glazes its front in 8mm bronze-tinted tempered glass, which keeps the view from the bench and makes the inside harder to see from the garden in daylight. It's clad in thermally modified pine over 42mm boards, with a roof that rises from the glass to the back wall and a two-tier bench for two or three.

It's £5,499.99 without a heater, £5,929.99 with a Narvi NS 9kW package or £6,879.99 with a HUUM Drop 6kW and Wi-Fi controller. Finnmark doesn't list the electrical supply on the page, so get that figure before an electrician quotes.

It arrives flat-packed in a crate that needs a truck-mounted forklift to unload. Lead times are special order with no figure given, and the warranty terms are on request rather than on the listing.

The Outdoor Living Cube puts three tall glass panels across the front, a glass door between two fixed panes, on a spruce cabin 2.35m wide and 2.2m deep. Two 73cm-deep benches run in an L, 1.99m down the left wall and 1.55m along the back, so one person can stretch out while the others sit.

It's £4,200 for the cabin and £4,999 with a 6.8kW Harvia Cilindro, the cheapest way on this page to put five people behind glass with a heater. The walls are 36 to 38mm spruce rather than thermowood, so they give heat back to a cold night faster and want regular treatment. The Cilindro is hard-wired on its own supply, listed at 35A.

Kerbside flat-pack delivery is £149 for a four-person self-build, or £899 delivered and built. The warranty is 1 year on the cabin from Outdoor Living, with the heater covered by Harvia, and the built cabin weighs about 850kg.

The Mini is the Sauna Cube cut to two seats: 45mm thermowood walls, a 3.5kW Harvia Vega and 2.8m³ inside, on a 1.67m by 1.2m footprint. The full glass front costs £5,499.99, £800 more than the wooden front.

Inside is 1.49m wide and 96cm deep, which is two people sitting up with the garden in front of them, not lying down. On a cabin this size the glass faces you from a metre away, so where you put it decides whether you look at a lawn or a fence.

It still needs a dedicated 32A supply despite the smaller heater. Warranty and lead time match the bigger Cube: 2 years fitted, 1 year self-built, made to order in 3 to 4 weeks. Polar's carpenters will build it for a quoted £1,200 to £2,000, depending on where you live.

The EMBA is built from 55mm mixed-wood cross-laminated timber, with a darkened panoramic glass front, a thermo-pine finish and an EPDM rubber roof. It seats two on a 1.4m bench, on a 1.51m by 1.43m footprint.

It's £12,995 for the cabin, or £14,758 with a HUUM Drop 6kW, UKU Wi-Fi controller and stones. That's more than double the glass-front Sauna Cube for fewer seats, and the black finish is a special order with a longer lead time.

Finnmark gives 2 years on the cabin and quotes assembly per job. It ships flat-packed for a forklift offload, typically 3 to 8 working days after leaving Finnmark when it's in stock. Buy it if the sauna is the focal point of a designed garden; for the heat alone, the same money buys two cabins higher on this page.