Infrared Sauna Heaters
Infrared sauna heaters are becoming a popular choice for people wanting the ease and convenience of a sauna experience at home. They have a number of benefits over the more traditional sauna heaters that produce steam.
Benefits of infrared heaters
- Run at lower temperature - this makes it a more pleasant experience for users.
- Low running costs - As they are lower temperature, the costs of running these heaters are lower.
- Quick and easy - there is a much shorter warm-up time. Infrared sauna heaters are typically ready in about 10 minutes. This is ideal for home use where users will make use of the sauna several times a week.
Heater set up
A traditional steam sauna has one heater that is positioned in the corner. An infrared system is different. There are a number of heaters (sometimes called emitters) that are placed around the room. If you are building your own sauna you can work out the number of heaters required. Calculate the cubic capacity of your sauna (length x width x height). You will need 17 watts of infrared heaters for every cubic foot in capacity. So multiply the cubic capacity by 17 to get total power required. Now divide your total power required figure by the wattage of your heater to get the total number of heaters needed. Typical wattages of infrared sauna heaters are 150-250watts.
How FIR saunas work
Far infrared (FIR) waves are part of the spectrum of natural light. Although they are invisible to the naked eye they have various physical effects, one of which is to cause warming of the body. This effect can penetrate into the upper layers of the body's tissues and result in sweating. This process is totally safe unlike exposing yourself to the sun with its harmful UV rays. In fact it is so safe that premature babies in hospital are warmed using infrared equipment.