A Quick Note on Materials, Glue, and Off-Gassing

When you’re investing in a sauna for your health and your family, materials matter. So does honesty.

Lately there’s been some noise in the market about sauna construction claims. Companies saying “no glue used” and then customers finding… glue. We’re not going to name names or speculate about what happened there. But we can tell you exactly how we do things at High Tech Health, because that’s what we’ve always done.

29 years, same ownership, same standards

We started this company in 1997. Same family. Same management. Same mission: build the cleanest, safest infrared saunas we can, and be straight with people about how we do it.

A lot of our earliest customers came to us through environmental medicine doctors. People dealing with chemical sensitivities, chronic illness, detox protocols. They couldn’t afford to guess about what was in their sauna. Neither could we. That’s shaped every decision we’ve made since.

So let’s talk about glue

Yes, we use glue. A small amount, in specific places, for good reason.

Our saunas use tongue-and-groove construction, which already minimizes the need for adhesives. But where we do use glue, it’s a biodegradable, water-based wood glue. No harmful solvents. Similar to what a carpenter would use on fine furniture. And here’s the thing: properly engineered wood joints that include glue are actually more stable over time than relying on nails or staples alone. Wood expands and contracts with heat. Good joinery accounts for that. Glue helps.

The real question isn’t whether a sauna uses glue. It’s what kind, and whether it’s fully cured before it ever reaches you.

About off-gassing

Off-gassing happens when something is still liquid or actively evaporating. Once glue has cured, it’s inert. It doesn’t emit anything.

Here’s our process: we use a water-based, biodegradable wood glue. No formaldehyde. No volatile solvents. No toxic chemicals. It’s the same type of glue you’d find in a high-end woodworking shop, not the industrial adhesives used to hold together sheets of plywood or pressed wood composites. Those adhesives often contain formaldehyde-based resins that can off-gas for years, especially when heated. Ours doesn’t.

The glue is applied, the wood is pressed, and it cures for at least 24 hours. That happens days before a sauna is ever assembled, tested, or inspected. By the time it ships, that glue has been solid and stable for a while. No smell. No emissions. No residual chemicals releasing into the air when you turn up the heat. From a materials science standpoint, fully cured non-toxic wood glue in a dry infrared sauna just isn’t a concern.

What actually matters more

Honestly? A bigger issue in a lot of infrared saunas is the heaters. Some companies use carbon heaters wrapped in fiberglass. Fiberglass can soften at high temperatures. Heat it up over and over and it may start to break down and off-gas.

We don’t build our heaters that way. Ours are designed to run clean and stable at sauna temperatures without introducing materials that degrade over time.

No plywood. No particle board. No hidden layers.

Every current High Tech Health model is built with solid, single-species wood construction. No plywood, MDF, particleboard, or composite panels hiding anywhere. That’s not a marketing line. It’s just how we build. Solid wood roofs. Solid wood panels. Built to hold up as the wood naturally moves with heat.

We run every unit through multiple quality checks before it ships. Fit, finish, function. We catch problems before you do.

Our promise is pretty simple

We’ve been doing this since 1997. We’ve never changed ownership. We’ve never chased trends or cut corners to hit a price point. Our customers have always been people who need to trust what’s in their sauna, and we’ve built our reputation by earning that trust one unit at a time.

We care about building the healthiest sauna we can. Not the flashiest marketing. Not the biggest ad budget. Just honest construction, honest materials, and honest answers, even when those answers are a little more complicated than a slogan.

If you ever want to know exactly what’s in your sauna and why, just ask. We’ll tell you.

Warmly, The High Tech Health Team