Swell Sport · Practical guide

Writing simple sauna house rules for adult guests

A useful sauna rules card tells adult guests how to leave, stop normal operation and get help. Keep it short enough to read before entry, with the actual property details and owner-approved control instructions filled in.

Swell Cedar Cube 2 in a home setting.

Keep the card about action

Use plain wording and a clear location outside the sauna. Avoid a long welcome message, a list of supposed health benefits or a required time to stay. The card should still make sense to someone who has never seen this controller.

Rules are not medical clearance or a replacement for the equipment manuals. Before inviting someone, resolve any personal suitability question separately. UNSW-hosted sauna guidance recommends medical clearance before trying sauna for people with heart disease, low blood pressure, diabetes or medication use. ^[1]

During pregnancy, avoid saunas: Pregnancy, Birth and Baby specifically advises avoidance because of overheating, dehydration or fainting concerns. ^[2]

Copy and complete this adult-guest card

You may leave or skip sauna use at any time. Exit route: __. Resting place: __. Drinking water: __. Host today: __. Contact method: __. Ask the host before changing settings. Normal stop control, demonstrated before use: __. Do not change installer settings or use someone else’s app account.

Keep the heater and its surroundings clear. Do not put towels or clothing on it or use the sauna to dry them. For the Fenix equipment example, Harvia warns against drying clothes or towels in the sauna because of fire risk and requires a room/heater-surroundings check before starting. Assign that check to the host. ^[3]

Leave the sauna if you feel dizzy or nauseated. Tell the host and rest somewhere cool; seek help if you do not feel better after a short rest. This wording follows sauna-specific expert commentary and is not a target to approach before leaving. ^[1]

Add a separate emergency panel

Property address: __. Access instructions for responders: __. Phone location: __. For urgent medical help call 000. Heatstroke is an emergency; confusion, seizures or loss of consciousness require urgent attention, not another session or a wait for an app reading. Healthdirect identifies these as serious heatstroke signs and directs urgent medical callers to triple zero. ^[4]

Keep this panel visible without needing a guest to unlock the owner’s phone or enter the sauna again. Review the address if the card is copied for another property. A correct emergency number alongside the wrong street address is not a finished card.

Test the card with the equipment off

Ask another adult to point to the exit, locate the normal stop control and explain how to reach the host. If they hesitate, improve the wording or add a labelled photograph of the actual control. Do not ask them to explore menus or deliberately provoke a fault.

The host must check the filled-in operating step against the exact supplied manual. A blank field is an unfinished handover, not a prompt for the guest to guess. Do not insert a generic button sequence from another sauna simply to make the card look complete.

Approve and maintain the local version

Add owner approval __, date checked __ and equipment/manual revision __ at the bottom. Replace the card after a controller change or when the host/contact arrangement changes. Keep a copy with the manual so the household can see what guests were told.

This template is for private adult guests. It is not commercial operating approval, a liability waiver or guidance for children. The useful deliverable is a short, locally verified instruction card—not a promise that following house rules removes every risk.