Sauna Heaters
By Anna Lynn Sibal
When we think of saunas, we think of rooms that are so hot that a short time spent inside it will get us sweating like pigs. Open the door of the sauna cabin at your own risk – you will be met by a jet of hot air rushing out of the room, sometimes accompanied by steam, and the people inside yelling at you to close the door.
Heat is an important component of the sauna experience. Without heat, you would not sweat, and what kind of sauna experience is that where you did not shed even a drop of sweat?
Traditionally, heat in the sauna cabins is generated using a stove, firewood and heating stones. Some sauna users find the traditional way of heating the sauna cabin uncomfortable or inconvenient, and this led to the development of modern sauna heaters.
Traditional Sauna Heaters
As mentioned above, traditional saunas produce heat through the use of a stove, firewood and heating stones. The heating stones are “cooked” on the stove for an hour or two. When the heating stones are hot enough, the sauna bathers get inside the cabin, with one of them pouring water on the stones to create steam.
Spa enthusiasts claim that the heat generated in this traditional mode of heating a sauna gives the best sauna experience ever. Some sauna users, on the other hand, find the steam irritating to the skin and to the eyes.
Electric Sauna Heaters
It can be a chore to cook heating stones for bathing in the sauna, and it can also be a chore to pour water continuously over them to create the much desired steam. Thus, some people install electric sauna heaters in their sauna rooms instead of the traditional stoves.
Some electric sauna heaters work like the radiators that we use to keep a room warm during winter. Some, on the other hand, are designed to generate wet steam and induce sweating during a sauna bath, as much as possible duplicating the experience we would normally get in a traditional sauna.
Infrared Sauna Heaters
A third type of sauna heater is that which is made to generate infrared waves. These infrared waves are just like the kind that we get from standing close to a light bulb. Infrared sauna heaters also run on electricity, but unlike electric sauna heaters, they do not rely on steam to generate heat and coax sweating in the bather.
Instead, the infrared waves penetrate the skin and induce sweating from within the body itself. There are claims that infrared sauna heaters are meant to be more therapeutic because of its ability to bring heat deep inside the body, supposedly directly unto the organs of the body themselves.
What Is the Best Sauna Heater?
For sauna traditionalists, it is a no-brainer that the traditional way of generating heat in a sauna room or cabin is the best kind. Indeed, there is something about the traditional sauna that evokes a sense of good health and well-being in a person that cannot be replicated anywhere else.
But this is not to say that electric sauna heaters and infrared sauna heaters are not any good. They are modern conveniences for people who love the feel of being in a sauna but not the smoke or excessive steam that goes with it. No matter what kind of sauna heater is used, the important thing is that we feel relaxed and at peace with ourselves whenever we are inside a sauna. This is what the sauna experience is meant to be.
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