Sauna Dekor is a spa fit out company in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, delivering the thermal, wet and MEP scope of a spa — sauna, steam room, hammam, cold plunge and the services behind them — either under a main contractor or directly for the owner. This page is written for the people who tender the work: developers, main contractors, project managers and design consultants who need to know what sits inside a spa fit out package, what stays with the builder, and which interfaces decide the programme.
Manufacturing since 1987, now in our 40th year, with projects delivered in more than 35 countries and a quality management system certified to TS EN ISO 9001:2015. On hotel and mixed-use sites we usually carry this scope as a spa subcontractor to the main contractor, so the wet-area package is tendered, engineered and installed as one trade rather than split across a tiler, an electrician and an equipment supplier.
What a Spa Fit Out in Dubai Actually Covers
The single most common source of variation on a spa package is an unwritten assumption about where the scope line falls. On a typical Dubai project it falls here.
Inside our package:
- Shop drawings, technical submittals and material samples for consultant approval
- The thermal rooms themselves — sauna cabin, steam room, laconium, caldarium and rasul chamber
- The göbek taşı and the kurna in a hammam, including the heated core and its feed
- Steam generator and controls; the halogenerator and brine feed where a salt room is in the brief
- Benches, doors, glass, marble and mosaic finish inside the room envelope
- Room lighting, temperature and humidity sensors, and the control panel
- Cold plunge tank, chiller and filtration where specified
- Commissioning, operator training and handover documentation
Outside our package, with the main contractor:
- The room shell, structural slab and any level changes
- Waterproof tanking and screed falls to the gully
- Floor gully and the drainage run back to the stack
- Dedicated electrical supply terminated at our panel position
- Treated make-up water line to the plant room
- Extract ductwork and the fan beyond our terminal
- Fire detection and suppression on the Civil Defence loop
If the tanking or the falls are wrong, no steam room finish will survive them. That is why the wet-area substrate is inspected and signed off before our first delivery reaches site, and why a late change to slab level is the most expensive variation on this package.
The MEP Interface: Power, Water, Drainage and Extract
Four interfaces hold up spa programmes in the UAE more often than anything to do with finish. Each one has to be resolved on a drawing, not on site.
Power. A steam generator or sauna heater needs a dedicated circuit sized to its load and terminated at the panel position we nominate. Sizing follows room volume, not floor area, and a high ceiling or a large glass front moves the figure materially. The load schedule has to reach the electrical consultant before the distribution board is fixed.
Water. The steam feed needs treated make-up water. Coastal UAE runs largely on desalinated supply, which is soft, so the scaling risk here is lower than inland Gulf cities — but blended and recycled supplies on some developments are not, and the specification should state the treatment rather than assume it. Where a hydrotherapy pool, vitality pool or cold plunge shares the plant room, the balance tank, its overflow and its make-up have to be located and drawn at coordination stage, because the tank is the item that most often has nowhere to go once the plant room is built.
Drainage. Every wet room needs a gully with falls to it, and the steam generator needs a blowdown drain that is not the same run as the room gully. Both are the builder’s scope and both are routinely missing from first-issue drawings.
Extract. The extract terminal inside the room is ours; the duct run and the fan are the MEP contractor’s. The pair is dimensioned together, and the room is designed to be dried down between sessions rather than sealed — that single decision determines whether the finish lasts.
The Thermal Rooms in the Package
A spa fit out brief in the UAE almost always mixes a European thermal sequence with a hammam, and the two are built differently.
A hammam is a masonry and stone room. The göbek taşı is a heated stone platform with its own heating circuit and its own structural loading; the kurna basins need hot and cold feeds and a waste. None of that can be added after the slab is set, so the hammam is the room that has to be fixed earliest in the design programme.
A laconium runs dry and moderate — a heated room with radiant surfaces rather than a heater and stones. A caldarium runs warm and humid with a mild steam input. A rasul chamber adds mud application, a rinse sequence and a wash-down regime, which means its drainage and its surface specification are closer to a shower room than to a steam room. A salt room needs a halogenerator, a brine feed and a substrate that tolerates salt aerosol; the fit-out detail there is a different trade from tiling.
Sauna and steam rooms are the two that most often get value-engineered late, and the two where that decision shows first: an undersized generator against room volume never holds setpoint, and no finish specification compensates for it. See our hammam and thermal room range and our spa interior design approach for how the rooms are specified.
Approvals, Compliance and the Local Framework
Spa fit out work in Dubai and Abu Dhabi sits under the same approvals chain as any wet-area fit out: municipality building approval, Civil Defence review of fire detection and means of escape, and utility authority sign-off on the electrical and water connections. Free-zone and port-area developments run their own approving authority instead of the municipality, and that changes the submittal route rather than the technical content. Practically, this affects our scope in two places — the fire loop must reach the room, and the equipment we import needs conformity documentation in place before it will clear customs. Both belong in the programme from the start rather than in the last month.
Programme, Commissioning and Handover
A single sauna or steam room typically runs 6–10 weeks from approved shop drawings to commissioning, including manufacturing at our Türkiye and European facilities and installation on site. A full thermal suite runs longer, and on hotel projects the package is scheduled against the construction programme rather than in isolation.
Commissioning is a witnessed sequence: generator output measured against room volume, temperature and humidity held at setpoint over a timed run, blowdown and drainage proven, sensor calibration recorded, control panel and BMS points mapped. Handover carries as-built drawings, conformity documentation for the imported equipment, O&M manuals, a spares list and operator training. Warranty is 24 months on the scope we supply and install, with maintenance contracts available afterwards.
Tender Line Items for a Spa Fit Out Package
So that returns can be compared like with like, we price the package as discrete line items rather than a single sum:
- Design development, shop drawings and technical submittals
- Thermal room supply — sauna, steam room, hammam, laconium, caldarium, rasul
- Marble, mosaic and stone finish inside the room envelope
- Steam generator, halogenerator, controls and sensors
- Cold plunge tank, chiller and filtration where specified
- Freight, insurance and customs clearance
- Site installation and site supervision
- Commissioning, operator training and handover documentation
- Warranty and optional maintenance contract
Send drawings and a room schedule and we will return a scope matrix set against them, marking every line as ours, the builder’s, or shared. That document, more than a rate, is what keeps a spa package on programme.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a spa fit out company do that a general fit-out contractor does not?
The thermal and wet rooms are an engineered package, not a finish. A general fit-out contractor can build the shell, tank it and tile it; the sauna, steam room and hammam need generator and heater sizing against room volume, sensor and control integration, a defined extract strategy, a heated göbek taşı circuit in a hammam, and a witnessed commissioning sequence. We carry that scope and coordinate it with the builder’s.
Do you work under a main contractor or directly for the owner?
Both. On hotel and mixed-use projects we normally sit under the main contractor as a nominated or domestic subcontractor. On private and standalone projects we contract directly with the owner and coordinate with their appointed consultants.
Which scope stays with the main contractor?
The shell and slab, waterproof tanking and screed falls, the floor gully and drainage run, the dedicated electrical supply to our panel position, the treated make-up water line, extract ductwork beyond our terminal, and the fire detection loop.
How long does a spa fit out take?
A single sauna or steam room typically takes 6–10 weeks from approved shop drawings to commissioning. A full thermal suite takes longer and is programmed against the main construction sequence.
Do you cover Abu Dhabi as well as Dubai?
Yes. We deliver across the UAE, and regionally into Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the wider Gulf. For the Saudi package and its code framework see our steam room and sauna builder page for Saudi Arabia.
What documentation comes at handover?
As-built drawings, conformity documentation for imported equipment, O&M manuals, a spares list, commissioning records and operator training. Warranty is 24 months on our supplied and installed scope.
Working With Us
For the full picture of what we manufacture, ship and install in the emirate, see our sauna, hammam and spa contractor page for Dubai, our commercial spa scope, and our spa contractor and developer overview and the full services list. Completed work is on our projects page.
Contact Sauna Dekor Spa Solutions with drawings and a room schedule, and we will return a scope matrix and an itemised proposal set against them.
