Home Infrared Saunas - What is the Right Temperature?
There are several temperature settings for different types of Infrared sauna. For a traditional or steam sauna, the heat setting is a high of 160 F to 200 F. This setting is the appropriate setting for a steam sauna as the body is heated through convection. Which is heating the air around the body to heat the body, the room temperature would have to have a high heat temperature so as to deliver the beneficial heat of a steam sauna. This 160 F to 200 F temperature of a steam sauna, will give the needed sauna heat benefits to a person but only on a limited period of time of 10 to 15 minutes at most, because the person inside the sauna room will be very uncomfortable due to the intense heat of the steam sauna room. To enable a person to have a longer duration of sauna heat, after 10 to 15 minutes, the person should leave the steam sauna and get a quick shower and then get back to the steam sauna for another 10 to 15 minutes. Persons with fragile health are not encouraged to try this kind of sauna due to the uncomfortable heat that they have to endure.
On the other hand, the appropriate temperature setting for an infrared sauna is only 120 F to 150 F. This temperature, although much lower than steam sauna, can give a more intense and deep penetrating heat to the body. This is because the infrared heat rays are directed to the body and not on the air around the body. Likewise, this will provide for a cooler and more comforting therapy session inside the sauna room. In this regard, the person having therapy can even lengthen his or her stay inside the sauna to fully enjoy more the beneficial infrared heat rays being emitted by the sauna infrared emitter plates.
This appropriate temperature setting for an saunas which is much lower in comparison to a steam sauna, can likewise be beneficial to the homeowner in terms of power consumption. It is estimated that for a 30 minutes infrared sauna session, the average power expense will only be 7 cents.
The lower temperature of an infrared sauna is beneficial to persons who have high blood pressure, and those persons who have breathings disorders. Even health care centers and hospitals have now their own infrared home sauna to provide for their patients the beneficial effects of an infrared sauna operating on a lower appropriate temperature setting.
We know about the so-called “infrared†saunas, most of which are made in the People’s Republic of China from clearly inferior materials, but these are not the genuine saunas in the Scandinavian style.
Although both types of sauna have electrical heating elements, that’s where the similarity ends. In the traditional heater, these elements are hidden inside the cabinet, where they heat the air as well as a mass of special stones. This allows for a nice consistent heat and the Finnish custom of “loylyâ€, which is the sprinkling of water on the stones and which can change the environment in the sauna dramatically.
The “infrared†heaters have exposed heating elements, so that the heat radiates directly onto the bather in sort of a one sided fashion. Most important, these “infrared†heaters have a much lower capacity, so the complaint we hear most often about them is that they fail to attain the heat typical for a genuine sauna, especially on the part of the bather’s body that’s turned away from the heater.
Obviously, you also sacrifice the ability to sprinkle water on the heater, and we’re not even certain that it’s actually healthy to expose one’s self to such direct radiation, or how enjoyable such an experience would be, compared to the traditional sauna.
We can, however, tell you that the traditional Scandinavian style saunas are centuries old (they used to heat them with wood, before the advent of electricity), and their safety and therapeutic efficacy is well established.
The Chinese are spreading some pretty wild claims about their infrared saunas, and they’re also spreading falsehoods about the traditional Scandinavian style saunas, although, to be completely fair, the article above does neither.
The U.S. market is flooded with these cheap saunas from the PRC, and our own sauna sales are down as a result. If you can fill a ocean container with these saunas, you’ll more than double your money. It’s a great temptation. They’re dirt cheap if you buy them over in China in bulk.
They’re just not up to the quality we represent. We don’t want any goods coming back in our face. One fellow sauna vendor confided to me that he had received a shipment of these Chinese infrared saunas, and that they were all underwired - the gauge of wire was too small to carry the load - making them a real fire risk.
As with tainted toothpaste, poisonous pet food and lead painted children’s toys, some of these saunas are downright hazardous! But you don’t have to take my word for it. How about the Electrical Safety Authority in Ontario, Canada? See…
http://www.ofm.gov.on.ca/english/Fire%20Safety%20&%20Public%20Education/Recalls/2006/Saunas.asp
Our biggest issue is with the false claims being made for these saunas. They give all sauna vendors a bad name. Several vendors we’ve seen make wild weight loss claims - 600 to 800 calories burned from sitting in one! One site we saw claimed that 30 minutes in their sauna burns nearly as many calories as running a marathon!
Come on. Use your common sense!
Unfortunately, weight loss claims for any type of sauna are just hype (sorry folks!). Your body just loses water, and it’s dangerous to lose weight through dehydration (are you listening wrestlers and jockeys?). See what a real doctor has to say about it at…
http://www.weight-loss-professional.com/infrared-radiant-heat.html
…the list of misrepresentations goes on and on.
Take whatever you read with a grain of salt, and use your common sense when evaluating claims.
http://www.almostheaven.net/aho/heavsaun.htm