Beautiful sauna with IKI wood-burning stove

WHAT MAKES a GOOD SAUNA?

A ONE-MINUTE GUIDE ON HOW TO GET the BEST LÖYLY AND MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR SAUNA HEATER

How to Use IKI sauna heaters

 WARNING: Not all sauna heaters can do this.

If you’re going to do sauna, why not make it a good one? There is no reason for your sauna to be a small dingy room filled with dry heat and no air flow. Sounds like a nightmare to me and I love sauna.

THE ANSWER IS IN the LÖYLY

Modern saunas are beautiful well lit sanctuaries with good ventilation and great löyly. What is löyly? Löyly is the hot steam that evaporates from the sauna stones when water is poured on them. Löyly is the very essence of sauna, without löyly you have no sauna, just an uncomfortably hot room. To get löyly you need to pour (not throw, mind you) plenty of water on the hot sauna stones. Needless to say, the more stones your electric or wood-burning sauna heater carries the better löyly you’ll get.

THE WORD LÖYLY [ˈlø̞y̯ly] IS AN ANCIENT FINNISH HERITAGE WORD THAT MEANS SPIRIT, SOUL, OR BREATH, WHICH STANDS AS A METAPHOR FOR THE STEAM EVAPORATING FROM THE HOT STONES AND SPREADING IN THE SAUNA LIKE A HOT BREATH WARMING YOUR SOUL.

When you have great löyly, meaning enough hot stem in your sauna to make it a luxuriously humid spa-like wellness retreat able to relax all your senses, the temperature of the sauna does not need to be as hot as is often believed. 150 – 175 F is an ideal temperature for you to fully enjoy sauna.

If you have tried sauna before but decided it is not for you, you probably just went to a really bad one. What makes good sauna is a great sauna heater, obviously. A great sauna heater that makes amazing löyly. Read more: How to Sauna like a Finn

WHAT MAKES a GOOD SAUNA HEATER?

A good sauna heater carries a lot of stones in order to produce a maximal amount of steam (löyly). A mess structure on the sauna heater also helps to get the most löyly out of your electric or wood-burning sauna heater.

If you’re looking for the best wood-burning sauna heater around you might want to take a look at IKI’s amazing selection of the best wood-burning heaters in the world.

Or if you are in the market for an electric sauna heater, that works just as well, take a look at IKI’s beautiful designer electric heater selection.

 

Back to blog

1 comment

I can’t express how happy I am with my Iki heater. After years of searching online kits, I decided to just do it right with Iki. You can tell the quality of the product from the moment you turn it on for the first time. It just works! The steam is incredible, the temperature control is precise, and it is very reliable. I’d recommend anyone use Iki.

David Jaramillo

Leave a comment

Please note, comments need to be approved before they are published.