What It Really Took to Open Arctic Heat Retreat

Lessons From Our First Two Years in Business — Part One: The Early Days

Two years ago, we unlocked the doors of Arctic Heat Retreat for the first time. It's hard to fully describe what that moment felt like after what it took to get there, but I'll try, because I think the story of how we built this place is one worth telling honestly.

This is Part One of that story. It covers the early days, the assumptions we made before we started, and the realities that hit us once we did. Fair warning: some of it is painful to revisit. But if you've ever thought about starting a business, or you're simply curious about what goes on behind the scenes of a place you visit, I hope you find it useful.

It took eleven months, from June 2023 when I first put pen to paper on a business plan until May 2024 to open our facility. Looking back, I'm amazed we pulled it off and even more aware of how naive I was going in.

The following is what I thought we were going to do, versus what actually happened once reality set in.

Assumption 1: We could start barebones and keep it simple.

My original vision was modest: a curtain-enclosed change room, a small pre-existing shower, and a couple of recirculating cold tubs ordered online. My rationale was straightforward: no one was operating a facility like this in the Fraser Valley, so we didn't need to be luxury. I just wanted to provide the pure benefits of hot and cold therapy and see if people responded.

The Reality:

The moment you start talking to the people who actually build and regulate small businesses,  tradespeople, inspectors, health authorities, you realize how quickly a "simple" vision becomes complicated. Our plumber told me, more than once, that our facility might not even be able to operate due to the lack of space and the existing plumbing configuration in our unit. He'd seen it happen: people sign leases, start building, and discover the infrastructure won't support what they need.

The standards required to open a facility like ours are high. And high standards mean limited options and higher costs at every turn.

Assumption 2: Plumbing costs would be minimal.

I thought all we needed was two recirculating tubs and an outdoor hose. Simple. There was already a shower and bathroom, so those would cover our bases.

The Reality:

We needed a fully tiled, drained, and curbed area around the tubs so water couldn’t spill into the rest of the space. The tubs also needed direct drains and dedicated faucets because, in the Township of Langley, cold plunge tubs are classified as bathtubs and had to meet residential plumbing code. So no, a simple hose + plunge set-up was not going to fly.

On top of that, the costs kept stacking up in ways we never anticipated. Fraser Health required handheld showerheads at each tub for cleaning compliance. The Township mandated copper pipes for our water intake instead of PVC — still not entirely sure why, but at least they look cool. The pre-existing bathroom and shower had to be completely rebuilt to meet accessibility code. Because our tubs don't cool themselves, we plumbed in an ice maker. And for drainage, we had to have our concrete X-rayed and cut. Each item felt like its own separate gut punch.

Assumption 3: The renovation would cost around $60,000.

When we signed the three-year lease we were feeling reasonably confident in this number.

The Reality:

Once you've signed a lease, there is no turning back regardless of what the costs become. And the costs kept coming. We had to raise money on the fly, continuously. Four investors became fourteen as we tried to keep the project alive. Banks liked our business plan but would only commit to $10,000 loans, when we needed much more than that. Many lenders won't even look at you until you've been operating for two years. It leaves you wondering how anyone ever starts a small business at all.

We revised our estimate upward from $60,000 to $150,000 as the build progressed. Then, near the finish line, another bill arrived for $50,000. The final cost of opening Arctic Heat Retreat was over $200,000, more than three times what we originally projected.

Assumption 4: We'd run sessions with four to six people sharing two recirculating cold tubs.

This was the original business model: multiple guests, shared tubs, different temperatures available simultaneously.

The Reality:

Fraser Health regulations required us to use fresh water only for cold plunges, no recirculating systems unless we wanted to spend $70,000 per tub on something custom made. Because of this, we had to return the tubs we'd already purchased. The supplier initially wanted a $4,000 restocking fee, but we managed to get out of it after confirming they had been falsely advertising the tubs as "commercial grade."

What came out of that regulatory setback ended up defining who we are. Every guest at Arctic Heat Retreat now gets their own tub, drained, cleaned, and refilled with fresh water before every single session. No shared water. No chemicals. It is, by any measure, one of the highest cleanliness standards in the industry. It was an experience win for our guests and a revenue challenge for the business, but it is now something we're genuinely proud of. There's more to the cold plunge regulation story, and I'll cover it in a future post.

Assumption 5: Jurisdictions and contractors would move efficiently and want to help us succeed.

We expected that Fraser Health, the Township of Langley, and the tradespeople we hired would be motivated to keep things moving. We had bills to pay. Every delay cost us money.

The Reality:

This was the hardest lesson of all, and the one I want to be most direct about if you're thinking of starting a business: no one cares about your timeline as much as you do. That's not a criticism of any individual, it's just the reality of how bureaucratic and trade processes work. People do not factor your lease costs or your lost revenue into their schedules.

You have to become a squeaky wheel. Sometimes you have to be flat-out annoying about the most pressing items, because the people who need to move fastest are often the ones moving slowest.

Here is one example I will pull from the deep recesses of my memory, where I've tried to bury it:

Arctic Heat Retreat could have opened an entire month earlier, in April 2024 rather than May. The only thing stopping us was faucets. Not permits. Not inspections. Faucets… to fill the tubs. We waited a full month for the faucets we had ordered, when we could have installed any temporary faucet to hold us over during our soft opening. That one month cost us approximately $4,000 in rent and roughly $10,000 in revenue as our first month of operations generated about that much. Fourteen thousand dollars, gone, because of faucets.

That memory is staying buried after this.

The broader pattern repeated throughout the build: a two-week wait for a tradesperson to gather regulatory information cost $2,000 in rent, and they came back empty-handed. Three months waiting for Fraser Health to finalize cold plunge regulation standards cost approximately $12,000. These delays compound, and the lost revenue on top of the direct costs is money you will never recover.

The lesson isn't that these institutions are malicious. It's that the world does not operate at the pace a new business owner needs it to. Getting comfortable with that reality, while still pushing hard against it, is one of the most important skills you can develop.

Assumption 6: Once we opened, it would get easier.

After everything it took to open, surely running the business would feel manageable by comparison.

The Reality:

Running a business is different, not easier, than opening one. Opening the business required meeting deadlines, satisfying jurisdictional standards, and staying patient when so much depended on other people. In comparison, operating the business requires learning from patterns: do more of what works and cut what doesn’t. Both stages demand constant creativity and crisis management. It never gets boring, rarely gets simple, and always requires adapting to new circumstances. As the owner of a small business, all of the hardest tasks and problems end up in your lap, all while making sure the cash flow is there to pay your employees.

And yet, we're here. Two years in. The facility we built, with all of its unexpected costs, regulatory curveballs, and renovation-related trauma, is something we're genuinely proud of. The Fraser Valley's first fully approved sauna and cold plunge facility. This healing practice changed my life, and now I was finally able to share it with my community.

In Part Two, we'll get into what we've learned since actually opening our doors: the operational lessons, the surprises, and what two years of running Arctic Heat Retreat has taught us about business, community, and this unique corner of the wellness industry.

Thanks for reading,

Wyatt