Three in four rental home saunas heated every week
13 April 2018
According to a survey conducted among the residents' panel of the rental housing provider SATO, 74% of respondents have sauna on a weekly basis. The most preferred person to take a sauna with is the partner they live with. The survey covered topics including residents' sauna habits and the significance of the sauna among criteria used when looking for a new home.
This spring the SATO Pulse residents' panel surveyed the sauna habits of those living in a SATOhome. Among those with a private apartment sauna, 39% heat their sauna more than once a week and 35% report they enjoy their sauna at least once a week, while 5% of respondents only use their home sauna a few times a year.
Around one in tree SATOhomes has a private sauna. Those who have a private sauna decide when to use it on the basis of how they are feeling. More than a quarter (27%) report that the best day to take a sauna is practically every day. Less frequent sauna bathers schedule their session for the last days of the week. A third (33%) regard Saturday as the best day of the week to heat up their sauna, while Friday is the preferred day for 17% of those responding to the survey.
Sauna also plays a role when people select their home. A fifth (20%) of respondents report that a private sauna in an absolute must when they are looking for a new home. More than a half (53%) regard a private sauna as a fairly important selection criterion and report preferring a home with a sauna over a home without one if both homes are priced the same. And once people have a private sauna they do not want to give it up. Only 6% responded that they would be ready to give up their private sauna. Among the panellists responding, only 2% reported that they only use the sauna as a storage area.
Even if a private sauna may not be an important criterion when selecting a new home, the demand for a sauna is still high. Among those respondents who did not find a private sauna important, the majority (63%) reported that the building's shared sauna section was sufficient for their sauna needs. Almost all SATO buildings have a shared sauna section.
The preferred person to take a sauna with is the partner the respondent lives with as almost a half (49%) of the responding panellists report that they prefer to take a sauna with their partner. You do not need to negotiate about how often to throw water on the stones or how hot the sauna should be if you take saunas on your own. A fifth (19%) of respondents find that working up a sweat on your own is the best way. Not many (6%) enjoy taking a sauna with relatives or neighbours, while having a sauna with a good friend is a more popular option (15%).
Director Juha-Pekka Järvenpää from SATO says the SATO Pulse survey had 337 respondents, all of whom were SATO residents.
- The majority of the respondents speak Finnish as their native language, and that highlights the importance of sauna in their answers. In our everyday work we have of course noticed that the residents coming from other cultures may not find sauna as such an important part of their homes, says Järvenpää.
Accessible on mobile devices, the SATO Pulse residents' panel is a tool that allows SATO residents to express their views on topics they consider important and to have a say in their housing.
For more information please contact:
Juha-Pekka Järvenpää, Director for Housing and Maintenance, juha-pekka.jarvenpaa@sato.fi,
p. +358 201 34 4062 and +358 40 513 8484
Miia Eloranta, Director for Marketing and Communications, miia.eloranta@sato.fi
p. +358 201 34 4497 or +358 50 441 4221