| ▲ | helsinkiandrew 5 hours ago |
| There’s a saying in Finland that foreign "saunas" are not true saunas at all, but rather just "untypically warm rooms". The experiments where at 73°C which is a lot hotter than most gym/hotel/spa saunas I’ve been in outside Finland |
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| ▲ | tauntz 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| As an Estonian, anything below 80°C is considered a "kids sauna". 80°C - 90°C is a cold-but-workable sauna and proper sauna starts from 90+°C. I'd assume it's the same in Finland as we share a lot of the sauna culture. |
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| ▲ | omnimus 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This would be same in Germany and eastern european countries too. But it really depend on humidity. High humidity saunas don't have to be hot and get tough pretty quicky. 100c dry sauna is lot more manageable than 60c humid sauna (atleast to me). | | |
| ▲ | tauntz 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Indeed, humidity matters a lot. Most our saunas here are löyly (in Finnish) saunas, so you get a rollercoaster of dry - humid - dry cycles. Once you get to 100+c and throw a good amount of water on the stones, it can get quite challenging to endure :) Everybody has their personal preference of course. For me, the sweet spot seems to be a moderately humid sauna at 93c. At that point, the löyly is not too harsh yet but is still hot enough to make you feel alive :) | |
| ▲ | PaulDavisThe1st an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | My steam room (at home) at 116F/47C is close to the upper limit of bearable for me. But that's a lot more humidity than even a humid sauna. |
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| ▲ | nextlevelwizard 22 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | 90+ sauna sounds painful. Are you actually throwing water? Because even with 80 the steam is pretty hot |
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| ▲ | ttiurani 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Also while 73°C is a proper sauna, there are plenty of hotter ones. 90°C is closer to what I'm used to at my apartment building's common sauna. I do take two breaks when I'm there for 30 mims though. |
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| ▲ | mrgoldenbrown an hour ago | parent [-] | | What percent humidity? That is just as important as temperature for understanding how tolerable a particular sauna is. |
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| ▲ | KellyCriterion 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 73° hot? Here in mainland Europe, a "classic fin sauna" is usually at least 90°++ |
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| ▲ | yeahforsureman 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Would those be "dry saunas" or proper ones where you're allowed to throw water on the rocks? Adding humidity ('löyly') is kinda the point, and 73°C might be just fine for a small sauna, giving you a nice punchy löyly. | | |
| ▲ | KellyCriterion 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > hrow water on the rocks? Depends on the location!
Very often, at public locations there is a "saua master" taking care, in smaller locations I have seen people handling this on their own. And in one location there was a sign: "no private watering due to electrical issues" | | |
| ▲ | mesrik an hour ago | parent [-] | | I think I've heard US it's mostly no water at all on stove and Germany I've heard they have had these sauna-masters who come and cast water on stove. Neither of these are practised anywhere in Finland at least. But there are at least one Finnish swimming bath where they had to limit steam competitions and made a button controlled mechanism to administer water instead of free usage. Not because electrical shock prevention but because bad human behaviour per se. |
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| ▲ | kakacik 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes every sauna I have ever been to in Europe (spas, various gyms) have electric heater with stones on top. Infra saunas are only for cheapest installs at home and usually dont generate enough heat. Also, 80° celzius minimum for proper saunas, I have been to >100 celzius ones and its a struggle to remain for 15 mins inside. Another point - I consider the after-part most crucial for health benefits to me - as-cold-as-possible long shower or even better a similar dip pool. Few days after that my cold resistance is significantly higher. Just the heating of body in sauna I can reach also ie with cardio workout or free weights, which brings tons of other benefits. | | |
| ▲ | mesrik an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | That "electric heater stones on top" is usually called stove, "kiuas" in Finnish :) When needing to define type of stove, it's electric stove, wood heated stove. Latter has two types, which continuous wood burning is still common (this stove you can add burning wood during bathing) and older not so much any more used before bathing heated type stove which you cannot add wood while bathing. Oldest type is smoke-sauna, which doesn't have chimney at all. Wood is burnt in stove when heating, then when burnt enough sauna is ventilated first and then bathing starts. But all these different heating elements are commonly stoves, just adding electric-, wood-, or smoke- stove is added context requiring. Infra saunas then have those lamps of course, no stove there. | |
| ▲ | gehwartzen an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is one of the primary reasons I use a sauna; the cardiovascular benefits. I hate doing cardio exercises at the gym or elsewhere. |
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| ▲ | kikimora 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Anything beyond 90 C is not a sauna :) Better to have 90+ and hot steam as in Russian sauna (banya) :) |
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| ▲ | ludicrousdispla 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| you can sous vide beef and pork at a lower temperature than that |
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| ▲ | koolba 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I knew a guy that would bring a steak sealed in a vac seal bag to the gym and leave it in the sauna while he worked out. One hour later he was done working out and it was ready to eat too. Not sure I can actually recommend it to others but the novelty was interesting till they nearly kicked him out of the gym. | | |
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