Steam sauna is a phrase people use for two different things, and picking the wrong one is an expensive mistake because the products are not interchangeable. Sometimes it means a steam room, which is a sealed, tiled enclosure fed by a steam generator at full humidity. Sometimes it means a traditional sauna used with water poured on the rocks, which produces bursts of steam in an otherwise dry hot cabin. The equipment, the installation and the price are different in each case.
A steam room and a sauna are different machines
A steam room runs cool by sauna standards but at saturated humidity, produced by a generator that boils water and pipes vapour into a sealed enclosure. Every surface must be waterproof and the room must drain, which is why steam rooms are tiled or made from molded units rather than lined with wood. A traditional sauna heats air and rocks to a much higher temperature at low humidity, and is lined with wood precisely because wood is comfortable to touch when very hot. You cannot convert one into the other by changing how you use it.
Steam in a traditional sauna
If what you want is a hot wooden cabin where you can raise humidity in bursts, that is a traditional sauna with a rock-filled heater, and the steam is produced by ladling water over the rocks. This is the usual meaning when someone describes wanting both sauna and steam without wanting a tiled room. It is far cheaper than a steam installation because the cabin is a sauna, the heater is a sauna heater, and there is no generator, no plumbing and no waterproofing to do.
Which to buy
Choose a steam room if saturated humidity at a lower temperature is the experience you actually want, and accept that it is a construction project with plumbing, a generator, waterproofing and drainage. Choose a traditional sauna with a rock heater if you want high dry heat with the option of steam bursts, which is the cheaper and far more common home purchase. Buying an infrared cabin because it was listed near the word steam is the mistake to avoid, because an infrared cabin cannot produce steam at all.
Questions people ask about steam sauna
Is a steam room the same as a sauna?
No. A steam room is cooler and fully humid, sealed and tiled, fed by a generator. A sauna is much hotter and dry, lined with wood, heated by a heater and rocks.
Can I get steam in an infrared sauna?
No. An infrared cabin has no rocks and no generator and is not built to take water. If you want steam you need either a rock-filled traditional heater or a steam generator.
Which is cheaper to install at home?
A traditional sauna, usually by a wide margin, because a steam room adds a generator, plumbing, full waterproofing and drainage on top of the enclosure itself.