HUUM Hive Wood Series Sauna Stoves

The HIVE, Now Burning Wood

The HIVE is the heater that made HUUM famous — a cylindrical cage packed with stone, the elements buried deep so what you feel is heat radiating through mass instead of blowing past coils. The HIVE Wood takes that same body and runs it on fire. No electrical service, no controller, no breaker. You build a fire in the firebox at the base, the heat rises through the column of stones, and you get the soft, humid löyly the HIVE is known for — off the grid.

This is the stove for the buyer who wants the HUUM aesthetic and a real fire. Off-grid cabins, lakeside saunas with no power run, or anyone who'd rather tend flames than tap a phone app. If you have power available and want the same cage-of-stone look on a circuit, the electric HIVE is the wired sibling, and the full HUUM electric heater range covers the rest of the lineup. The trade-off with wood is the chimney: a wood stove can't run without a code-compliant flue, and that's a build decision you plan around from the start.

Sizing: 13kW vs. 17kW

The HIVE Wood comes in two sizes, and the choice is driven by your room volume.

• HIVE Wood 13kW — 199 lbs of stones, covers 212–459 cu ft. The right call for compact-to-mid-size rooms: small outdoor cabins, 2–4 person builds, anything under roughly 450 cu ft.
• HIVE Wood 17kW — 287 lbs of stones, covers 283–565 cu ft. The high-output option for big rooms: larger outdoor cabins, group saunas, builds pushing past 500 cu ft.

If you're still picking the room itself, the bigger outdoor builds the 17kW is made for live in our outdoor barrel sauna range.

When you're on the line between the two, size up. Glass doors, tile, and cold exterior walls all pull a room's effective heat demand higher, and an undersized stove is one you'll fight to get to temperature on a cold day. The 17kW's extra 88 lbs of stone mass also buys you a more forgiving heat curve and longer löyly between water pours.

Interior Feed vs. LS Through-the-Wall Feed

The HIVE Wood comes in two feed styles, and you choose before the walls go up. The standard interior-feed version loads from inside the sauna — you open the firebox door in the hot room, add a log, and close it. The LS version feeds through the wall: the firebox door sits on the outside of the sauna, so you load wood from an adjacent room, a porch, or the changing area without carrying cold air, bark, and ash into the bathing space.

Interior feed is simpler and works fine when the firewood lives near the sauna and you don't mind tending the fire from inside. LS is the upgrade for outdoor cabins where the loading door faces a covered porch, or any build where you want the firewood and ash kept entirely out of the hot room. The HIVE Wood LS is offered at 17kW. Decide early — the feed style determines how you frame that wall.

The Chimney: Required, Not Optional

Every HIVE Wood needs a chimney kit. A wood stove vents combustion gases up a flue, and that flue has to be the right configuration for how it exits your sauna — through the wall, through a flat or angled ceiling, or up through a barrel roof. The chimney also has to maintain proper clearance to combustibles, which is set by local code. This is the part of a wood-stove install where a professional eye matters most. Our sauna installation guide covers the planning side, but always consult a licensed professional for chimney, venting, and clearance requirements — they vary by jurisdiction.

If you'd rather not source the flue components separately, the HUUM wood-burning heater packages bundle the HIVE Wood with a chimney kit matched to your roof or wall configuration in a single order. For most buyers, that's the cleaner way to go.

Stones and Steam

The HIVE Wood's character comes from its stone load — 199 lbs on the 13kW, 287 lbs on the 17kW. The fire heats the column of stones, and the stones radiate that heat into the room and hold it. When you ladle water over them, the room fills with humid löyly instead of a brief hiss of dry air, and the mass means recovery between pours is quick. Fill the basket fully with rounded olivine — a half-filled HIVE Wood doesn't deliver the steam the design is built for. You can source the right volume from our sauna stones collection if your stove doesn't ship with them.

HIVE Wood vs. HIVE Flow

HUUM makes a second, newer wood line — the HIVE Flow — and it's worth understanding the difference before you commit. The HIVE Wood is the original cylinder: classic HIVE cage look, higher peak output (up to 17kW), built to drive big rooms hard. The HIVE Flow has a taller body and carries a larger stone mass at a lower kW rating — the Flow 9.8kW holds 330 lbs of stones, more than either HIVE Wood, which gives it softer, more sustained löyly even though its headline wattage is lower.

So it's not a better-or-worse call, it's two heat characters. Choose the HIVE Wood when you want the iconic cylinder, maximum raw output, and the high end of room sizing. Choose the HIVE Flow when you want the most stone mass per kW and the gentlest, most even heat. Both are honest wood stoves; they just lean different directions.

What to Order Alongside

Plan on the HIVE Wood stove + a chimney kit (or buy the bundled package) + sauna stones if not included + a water bucket and ladle as your minimum. Confirm any clearance shielding your local code requires. If you're comparing the HIVE Wood against the broader category, the wood-burning sauna heaters collection shows where it sits next to other brands' stoves, the Harvia wood-burning packages are the closest competing bundles, and the complete sauna heater lineup puts wood and electric side by side.

HUUM's warranty is valid only through authorized dealers like Topture — grey-market stoves from third-party resellers frequently aren't covered even when the product looks identical. We're an authorized HUUM dealer, ship free, and our team's available if you hit a question on sizing, feed style, or chimney configuration during your build.