Lamppa Manufacturing expands product lines

TOWER— Lamppa Manufacturing is poised to substantially expand its product line here, with new introductions planned in the next few months for both furnaces and sauna stoves— and it’s getting some help from the Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation.
The IRRR board, just last week, approved a $150,000 participation loan to the company, part of a $300,000 working capital package to complete design certification and testing of the new products. The Entrepreneur Fund is providing the other half of the funding package.
While all of the new products should expand the market share for Lamppa’s Kuuma-branded wood heaters, their introduction of a new sauna stove has the potential to revolutionize the sauna stove industry, according to Garrett Lamppa, who has taken over day-to-day operations at the plant from his father Daryl.
Over the past three years, Daryl has continued working alone in their small former plant, but has focused his attention on redesigning the company’s sauna stove to incorporate technology that has already made Lamppa’s Kuuma wood furnaces the most efficient and cleanest burning on the market.
“It’s a true gasifier, the only one on the market that we’re aware of,” said Garrett. “It burns better, cleaner and uses very little wood.” Daryl achieved those results by focusing on controlling the burn process, in a manner similar to its wood furnaces although without the computerized controls.
Indeed, just four or five sticks of wood can burn for hours and is typically enough to bring an entire sauna up to as much as 200 degrees, according to plant manager Dale Horihan. Its high efficiency means that you only need to load the stove once when starting it. You let it catch for few minutes, then shut it down to engage the gasification and it burns with a bluish flame that has even prompted a change in the logo for the stove, with the trademark red flame replaced with one tinted blue. Typically, there’s no need to add any additional wood during the burn, which is another reason the stove puts out so little smoke. “You usually get a lot of your smoke in a sauna when you open the box to add wood,” noted Horihan.
Along with the introduction of true gasification, the company has also expanded the size of the box that holds the sauna rocks— it now holds as much 200 pounds of rocks, giving it tremendous heat retention. “It can still be 120-150 degrees in the sauna the next day,” said Garrett.
While its new sauna stove will cost more than its traditional model, the company is hoping to attract interest from the growing ranks of sauna aficionados as well as urban sauna fans who otherwise might not be able to use a wood-burning stove due to wood burning regulations in many cities. The company is also hoping to tap the commercial market, as an increasing number of spas incorporate sauna into their offerings.
While sauna has always been popular in places like northern Minnesota, with its large Finnish population, the growing awareness of the many health benefits associated with the traditional practice has greatly increased its popularity throughout the world.
“Sauna is hot,” quipped Horihan. That’s been true for a while in Europe, but there is still plenty of room for growth here in the U.S., said Horihan. “The U.S. is probably one of the least-tapped markets right now,” he said.

A new approach
The growing popularity of sauna is presenting new opportunities for Lamppa Manufacturing. The company is increasingly thinking about “the experience” of sauna and is hoping to capitalize on that trend. For the first time, the company is focusing on the aesthetics of its products as well as the function. Daryl, a wood-combustion savant, has relentlessly focused on function, but may have given less attention over the years to the form of the company’s products. Under the guidance of Garrett and Horihan, that’s now changing and it will be apparent with the launch of their new gasification sauna stove that will demonstrate a greater attention to the look of the product than in the past.
The company is also conducting more testing in real world conditions to ensure both the ease of operation of the new stoves as well as their safety. While the company expects the new gasification stove will appeal to hardcore sauna fans, they want the device to be easy to use as well for those customers who are new to the practice.
The company has set up two saunas outside of their manufacturing plant, where they will be able to conduct more testing to ensure safety even in tighter quarters. The most recent of those saunas was built in Hibbing as part of the Bluejacket Career Academy, that teaches students trade skills. Horihan said the test saunas will give the company the ability to gather more data on safety issues and exactly how to best utilize their sauna stoves to achieve the conditions that customers desire, which can vary from those who prefer a very hot, dry sauna, where internal temperatures can be as high as 200 degrees, to those who prefer a “cooler” sauna with lots of steam.
For those interested in seeing the new gasifying sauna stove in action, Garrett said the company will be firing up the stove in one of their test saunas on a nearly daily basis for the foreseeable future and he invites folks to stop by and see if for themselves.
The company is also bringing a former product, an electric sauna stove, back into the market, with significant improvements. They’re not ready to reveal the details about the new and improved electric device, but they have high hopes for the potential of that market, since about 80 percent of sauna heaters currently sold in the U.S. are electric. The company hopes to have the testing and U.L. certification completed by the end of the year.

Vapor Fire 200
At the same time, the company is ready to launch its Vapor Fire 200 wood-burning furnace, which is a somewhat smaller version of its Vaper Fire 100, which was recently re-certified by the Environmental Protection Agency. The Vapor Fire 200 should complete its certification by later this summer, which will make it available for sale in the U.S. market, hopefully in time for the 2023 heating season. That should make for a much better season for Lamppa Manufacturing than last year, when the EPA required that the company re-test and re-certify its Vapor Fire 100 model with short notice, a decision that left the company scrambling to arrange retesting while prohibiting the sale of its primary wood furnace through the bulk of its peak season.
All of which portends a busy future for Lamppa Manufacturing. With new products, along with a ten-year renewal of a 30-percent tax credit for buyers of their wood-burning furnaces under the Inflation Reduction Act, the company is poised for serious growth.
Some of the additions to their product lineup might have hit the market last year, but the EPA certification fiasco was a temporary setback. “Now, we’re going full blast on product design,” said Garrett.