How do you know you’re purchasing the right sauna for your home from the right company – here’s a few of the common questions that can help you decide.

Do you want a DIY Sauna kit?

You can build a customized sauna or select from pre-customized sauna kits that provide everything you need to successfully install it. If you’re not a ‘handy’ person, it may be easier choosing an easy-to-assemble kit instead of building your own.

What sauna size do you need?

Some infrared saunas are only large enough to accommodate one person. Decide on a size depending on how many people you want inside at once and where you intend to install it.

Infrared sauna therapy used regularly can help relieve pain in some chronic pain patients, such as those suffering from fibromyalgia or arthritis. Infrared saunas provide soothing, relaxing heat from the inside-outwards, heating your body instead of heating the air around it like traditional saunas would.

Although there are a variety of benefits you might appreciate about infrared saunas, if you’re a patient with fibromyalgia or chronic pain, chances are you’re most concerned with pain relief. Chronic pain is truly a debilitating condition that does not get nearly enough respect in the medical community. Unfortunately, so many suffer from chronic pain and some have their lives completely ruined by it. According to various sports medicine experts, academic studies, and researchers identifying non-opioid pain relief therapies, infrared saunas have the potential to significantly reduce pain even after a single use.

In an infrared sauna, wavelengths penetrate deep into the body. This creates blood flow to muscles, delivers concentrated oxygen, and gives your body the energy it needs to heal. For patient with rheumatoid arthritis and other types of chronic pain, a recommended starting dose for infrared sauna therapy is 4 weeks of two 30-minute sessions per week. A study published in Clinical Rheumatology demonstrated an infrared sauna plan like this resulted in improvements in pain and stiffness by 40 percent on average. Another study published in Internal Medicine suggested some patients experience as much as a 70 percent improvement in pain after only one sauna therapy session.

Understandably, a lot of people interested in installing an infrared sauna in their homes come with some questions. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to select a few of the more common concerns and share the answers here. Hopefully, these provide some insight into how to maximize sauna use in your home and keep your property safe in the process.

Does a sauna need a vent?

For your health and to ensure the heat is functioning properly, fresh air needs to move through your sauna. This will also help prevent mold and mildew, and so yes, a vent is necessary. Near a heater just off the floor is ideal for a vent, with an exit vent on the opposite wall a few feet off the floor or higher.

Will venting cause damage to my home?

Generally no, heat and moisture escaping is a non-issue. It’s a major misconception that saunas can damage a home or building based off its venting. A temperature at ceiling level is approximately 250-300 degrees, which is dryer than most rooms.

Naturally, a person might think walking into a sauna that they’re going in there to sweat and nothing more. Of course you don’t need to be bringing in a bottle of water into a sauna – at least, that’s one way to think. Why would you want to hydrate when you’re going in to sweat – well, here’s why.

When you’re sweating, it’s easy to dehydrate. No one is going into a sauna to completely dehydrate themselves. In fact, when you do that, it could have very negative consequences on your body. Before, during, and after, you want to be sipping on water and keeping healthy. Drinking water’s not going to negatively impact your sauna time. In fact, drinking water and staying hydrated will help you sweat more and lose weight.

Analyzing our body composition, our muscles contain 75 percent water, our brain is 76 percent water, our lungs are 90 percent water, and our bones are made from 25 percent. It is imperative water’s in our systems at all times to keep these parts of our bodies functioning, among other aspects of our health. For example, our bodies transport nutrients to various areas through our blood and our blood is made up of more than 82 percent water. This all means you should be sipping on water throughout your sauna adventures.

There are so many positives to buying a sauna heater for your residential or commercial space. It’s easy to forget however, as a generator or heater, a little maintenance now and again is required. How to take care of a sauna generator is not oftentimes at the top of the list of things to think about, understandably so, however it can add potentially years to the life span of your sauna.

Fortunately, taking care of a sauna heater is relatively easy. Heaters using internal rocks in between heating elements are among the easiest to maintain. A heater using internal rocks just needs to be inspected from time to time, re-setting the rocks as to avoid having to replace the elements inside. Doing this will also cut down on energy costs and potential downtime for your sauna.

It’s natural for sauna stones to shift over time as heating/cooling cycles proceed and water’s poured over them. They usually compact closer to the rock bay. They also tend to crack and crumble which worsens compaction. This limits air circulation which is what’s responsible for supplying heat in a sauna. The result of this is a sauna which takes longer to heat up, increasing energy consumption and operating costs. As if that wasn’t enough, corrosion is caused when moisture ends up trapped next to heating elements. Left unaddressed, eventually, elements fail.

Saunas require minimal maintenance to keep the room looking aesthetically amazing and spectacular for you and your guests. Here are a few general tips to keep in mind.

Clean door handles and floor boards.

Door handles and floor boards get dirty very easily in a sauna environment. Ideally, you want to treat handles and floor boards with a wood sealant or polyurethane finish.

Do not paint, varnish, or stain your sauna’s interior.

A sauna’s wood absorbs and releases heat and humidity. Any artificial finish will make wood significantly hotter. It also means fumes from the wood treatment could be released into the air, in addition to taking away the softness of the heat and steam. The only exception to this rule is paraffin oil-based sauna wood treatment. This oil has been proven safe to use and has been tested in a sauna environment. It also allows for excess moisture to soak into the wood fibers – exactly what you want.

Jumping into a steam room post-workout is one of the best things you can do for weight loss. All you need to do is sit there, de-compress from a hard workout, and in the meantime, your body will continue sweating and burning calories.

If you’re someone who has struggled with weight loss and/or is looking to get rid of those last few pounds, a steam room might be everything you need to lift yourself over the hump. Now a steam room’s no substitute for nutrition and exercise, make no mistake. Just like you would taking a supplement like fish oil or a pre-workout beverage, this all helps to deliver a strong athletic performance while also helping you control your weight. As a supplement to the work you’re already putting in, a steam room can make the world of difference in lowering your numbers.

Above and beyond the obvious sweating you get in a steam room, it’s also a place where you can come down after a tough workout. You can help bring your mind back down to where it needs to be, refresh yourself, and find that sense of reinvigoration you want to carry on with. Release some extra feel-good endorphins and don’t have to invest any longer in 10-20 minutes post-workout. No matter how busy you might be or how stressed things are, a steam room will help.

 Do it Yourself sauna kits are becoming more and more popular for at-home use among homeowners in North American and abroad. Why so many are buying residential saunas are for various reasons. In the last twenty years, there’s been a marked increase in sauna installation interest. Here are six of the biggest reasons why you may want to consider installing a sauna in your home.

Saves money.

The average homeowner who spends the money installing an at-home infrared sauna usually ends up saving anywhere from $2,000 to $3,200 annually in costs that would go towards a spa or wellness centre.

So you’ve decided to install a sauna in your home. There’s so many benefits to this – relaxation, soothing muscle pain, calming the joints, and lowering stress – we don’t blame you! Before you purchase anything though, you need to know about the different customizations you can make to really personalize your sauna to your needs. For example, there may be different sauna wood panelling types to choose from. Also, a residential sauna is not going to look the same as what you might find in a gym, hotel, fitness center, or other commercial setting. Take the opportunity to personalize yours.

When you purchase any sauna kit, you’re going to receive a pre-framed and insulated sauna room ready for installation. Everything should be cut according to your room’s interior design, ensuring studs are kept in consideration and height does not exceed what you have to work with. In addition to wood type and room size, you can also customize according to preferred insulation type, room specifications, door type and size, panelling as horizontal or vertical, if you want windows, the heater preference, the control type, the floor type on which the sauna will be installed, and whether there are any regulations which need to be met.

Some people don’t enjoy their time in a steam room or sauna which is admittedly oftentimes because they have too much on their mind or because they’re not giving themselves a real opportunity to relax.

Unfortunately, this is very common however as the experts in saunas will tell you, you’ve got to give yourself the time to relax not only the physical body but the mind as well. No matter how much time you’ve set for yourself in a sauna, it should be an experience where you’re not responsible for anything outside of your presence there. Put away the phone, forget about work, don’t think about your responsibilities or what’s weighing you down, and just clear your mind.

How to enjoy your steam room or sauna and getting into the headspace of enjoying the experience, you may wish to start by taking a shower. This helps to settle your mind but is also a great hygiene tool. If your skin is wet before you head into a steam room or sauna, it’s generally thought the experience will be a little more pleasant. That said, you may prefer to go in with dry skin – this is another option. A bench cover or towel to sit on can also help keep your position comfortable.

For years, some of the most knowledgeable people in entertainment when it came to beauty secrets were supermodels. After all, supermodels are considered some of the most beautiful people in the world. If you want to look your hottest, your sexiest, and your most attractive, naturally you would look towards those who are doing it better than anybody.

At the top of the list of the world’s most beautiful supermodels is Cindy Crawford. Although she’s in her fifties now, at the height of her fame in the 1980s and 1990s, there was no one more popular or well-known from the international modeling landscape than Cindy Crawford. These days, even a little older, she looks absolutely amazing. A large part of why has to do with her anti-aging beauty secrets and treatments.

The fight against symptoms of Lyme disease can be a lifelong battle and one that’s tough to win. The infection, rash, fever, and fatigue accompanying the disease contraction is just the beginning of what can happen when Lyme disease is left untreated. Symptoms can eventually move towards as serious as losing the ability to move parts of your face, heart palpitations, joint pain, severe headaches, swelling, stabbing or shooting pain, memory problems, and more.

Here’s where infrared saunas come into play, in treating Lyme disease. Many sufferers of Lyme disease have looked into the possibility of getting for themselves an infrared saunas as they’ve also read up on the ways it can minimize and/or at times eliminate symptoms of the condition. Nevertheless, it’s important to have realistic expectations on what is possible with a sauna. Lyme disease is a bacterial infection which originates from the bite of a tick. The ticks receive the bacteria from infected animals, such as deer and mice, and it is then transferred to humans.

Looking into it, there’s a surprisingly large amount of beauty care and skincare treatments that originated in the Middle East. Many beauty rituals we often take for granted with no knowledge of where they came from usually come from cultures such as Egypt’s, North Africa, or various regions of the Middle East.

Nail polish.

Nail polish comes from Egypt although at the same of ancient civilizations, they tended to use stained bright orange or red with henna dye made from dried leaves of the Lawsonia inermis plant. This is a far cry from the type of nail polish we use today. This same sort of dye was also applied to hair as a form of natural hair dye.

Gym memberships are expensive and after a long day’s work, you don’t always want to hop on the treadmill or have to go lifting hundreds of pounds just to get your fitness goals done. Saunas and other alternatives might be just right for you, if you’re someone who doesn’t always have energy or time to get a workout in. Take a quick look through this list to see where you’re at regarding these possible fitness options.

At-home yoga.

At-home yoga is a great opportunity to stretch out muscles you wouldn’t normally use and strengthen your core. All you need is three to four sessions a week. At-home yoga can be done in as little as twenty minutes or less and can be performed before bed. Nothing’s required outside yourself and a yoga mat, should you prefer one. Even better, there’s no membership. There’s plenty of YouTube videos, instruction, and yoga programs available online.

A steam bath does so many things to help hydrate and clean the skin. If you’re not already employing steam bathing in your skincare regimen, it can be a great and inexpensive way to promote healthy skin. Some claim there’s nothing as nourishing, cleansing, or as luxurious as a steam bath. Here are just a few of the reasons why.

Cleanses the skin in a natural way.

A steam bath naturally opens your pores and helps to loosen the dirt accumulating here. Combined with a cleanser, you can really open up those pores, soften and remove blackheads, and ultimately be left with a much smoother surface.

Steam rooms come with many health benefits. You may notice steam rooms located in gyms, spas, and similar environments. A steam room is ultimately an enclosed space in which sweating is stimulated. The room is heated by steam, varying the temperature according to preference although most enjoy it settled somewhere around 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Steam rooms are compared to saunas because of how both involve sitting in a small, heated room with several health benefits they lay claim to. There are many differences however. The primary difference involves the type of heat used with saunas using dry heat while steam rooms employ a generator filled with boiling water. A sauna relaxes and loosens the muscles however does not carry with it the same humidity as a steam room. Here are some steam room benefits you can look forward to.

Saunas are being used by Hollywood elite, Instagram influencers, and hopefuls to help communicate a sense of taking care of one’s self. The ‘sauna selfie’ as they’re calling it is truly something that’s caught on in a big way.

When it comes to Instagram trends, some are sillier than others. Saunas are far from silly, with amazing benefits. They also give a reason to flaunt your glowing skin in a bikini or show off what you’ve been working on at the gym. For celebrities like Rita Ora and Liz Hurley, it’s one way to show an interest in health and wellness, and help reflect that on one’s own personal brand.

Steamy selfies on Instagram can range from sexy to silly, and is a great way to let loose. Thankfully, infrared saunas come with many benefits which is perhaps why they have attracted so many celebrities, Instagram influencers, and accounts seeking the next viral post. Being in a sauna, you’re heating up muscles, reducing stress, detoxifying, and giving your body a little bit of a workout just by sitting there.

The body removes toxins through two pathways – the kidneys and the skin. Toxins exit the skin through sweat, hence the purpose of steam baths. As little as five, ten or twenty minutes steam bathing can sweat out a surprising amount of toxins. At the end of your session, this leaves you looking healthier and feeling better.

How to take a steam bath involves first drinking plenty of water. Walking into a situation where you’re going to be sweating a ton, you don’t want to be dehydrated. Drink a couple glasses of water prior to entering. Ensure your body’s been washed to clear out dirt from one’s pores. Keeping pores open will prevent acne or spots from developing.

EMF health concerns are mentioned by some first-time users of infrared saunas and it’s understandable as to why. The recommendation has always been to avoid invisible rays from microwaves, smartphones, and any other sources of radiation. To knowingly expose one’s self to EMF might seem like a bad idea but EMF is used for a reason in an infrared spa and sauna environment.

Traditional saunas use things like coals, heated rocks, or steam to create an environment of extremely intense heat. Today, traditional saunas employ the same approach except use wood stoves, electric heaters, or carbon or ceramic heating elements. These sort of saunas and steam rooms do not use any electromagnetic frequencies (EMF). They deliver several benefits as well, including detoxification, deep tissue relaxation, increased blood flow, and cardiovascular benefits.

When using a steam room or sauna for the first time, some are apprehensive about the amount of sweating involved. After all, not everyone is comfortable with the idea of sitting there and sweating. This is a surprisingly common thought among some introducing themselves to the benefits of sauna use.

If you’re concerned about sweating, don’t be. Everyone sweats – that’s what the room is there for. Even better, sweating is great for the body. We sweat to cool ourselves. Sometimes, it’s an immune response to certain illnesses. It’s also a detoxification method, giving heavy metals and harmful substances a way out of the body.