Visiting the bathhouse has been practiced by the Russian people since ancient times. Nowadays, when the majority of residents prefer to move from rural areas to cities, city baths have begun to gain popularity, but traditional steam rooms in the countryside, in health centers and spas, where you can restore your health and relax with friends, remain in demand. Some people still choose a Russian water bath, rich in steam, while others prefer a dry sauna, but they both can bring both benefits and harm to health. Therefore, before going to the steam room, it is better to study the list of diseases in the fight against which it can help or, on the contrary, harm.
Dry steam
At low humidity and high temperature, the warming process occurs faster.
It is better to repeat the steaming procedure two or three times, the duration should be from five to twenty minutes, after which it is better to take a cold shower. When using dry steam in a steam room, the effect of a sauna will be achieved. Since the humidity is low, the body is able to withstand temperatures up to 150 degrees. It is dry steam that is much easier to tolerate by the body.
It is recognized that dry steam saunas will help in the treatment of skin and musculoskeletal diseases. Another plus is the fight against excess weight.
In saunas with dry air, sweating occurs much more strongly, the skin is worked out much more strongly, and the removal of toxins is accelerated.
However, it is necessary to remember that people who have any problems with the respiratory system should not visit the so-called “dry steam rooms”, as they can harm the body.
Advantages and disadvantages of wet
The prepared boiling water should be distributed evenly over the stones, which will facilitate a faster transformation of water into vapor
“Wet” steam is heated air whose humidity reaches 100%. You cannot stay in steam rooms, where the temperature is maintained using hot stones on which boiling water is poured, for more than 20 minutes.
Unlike anhydrous air, moist and hot air acts on the principle of inhalation, making breathing easier. This can reduce the cough or get rid of it completely.
The advantage of a Russian bath that uses wet steam is the ability to regulate the temperature and degree of humidity of the surrounding air. And although the sweat is not released as profusely as during the “dry” procedure, the body warms up better from the inside, and at the same time the metabolism improves.
A steam room with “wet” air can harm people with cardiovascular pathologies, as well as those who are experiencing the acute stage of an infectious disease.
You need to steam properly
It is important to know that you should not drink alcohol either in a bathhouse or in a sauna with dry and humid air. Quite often, a trip to a bathhouse or sauna with friends simply turns into a huge feast. Such celebrations are strictly prohibited, as they greatly increase the load on the heart, and the consequences can be disastrous. It’s better to drink tea or just limit yourself to hot water.
By watering the stones with ordinary water, you can achieve the desired temperature and humidity. The prepared boiling water should be distributed evenly over the stones, which will facilitate a faster transformation of water into vapor. Otherwise, the water will simply cool and flow over the stones. You can also use special essential oils.
Source
Who should visit a wet bath, and who should abstain?
Wood-fired wet baths are worth visiting for those who like to take a good steam bath. Unlike a dry sauna, you can use a broom here, since in the humid air less protective sebum is released and the risk of burns is reduced. A wet bath is also useful for treating joints and colds, but the list of contraindications is a little longer.
A wet sauna is less tolerated by the female body than a dry sauna. It is not recommended to visit the steam room if you have a cyst, fibroids or other diseases of the reproductive system. People who have severe problems with the kidneys, liver and gall bladder should also avoid visiting the bathhouse, since under the influence of high air humidity they can become acute.
Both the dry sauna and the wet bath are undoubtedly popular, as they help in healing the body and have a relaxing effect. But, if there are contraindications to visiting the steam room, it is better to abstain and not cause harm to your health.
Gradual increase in air temperature and humidity
It is important not to overheat the oven. For the firebox, 3 types of firewood are taken:
- pine;
- aspen;
- birch
Pine firewood is rich in resins. They allow the stove to heat up, but leave a lot of soot inside the chimneys. Aspen ones will provide little heat and will burn out quickly, but they will clean the chimney perfectly. Birch gives off a lot of heat to the stove and burns longer than pine and aspen.
A fresh or dry broom is soaked in hot water for 15-20 minutes before use. Source rys-les.ru
Making a steam generator with your own hands
To make a steam generator, a home craftsman will need a container of water, a heating source, a steam line, control and monitoring devices.
A pressure cooker, a cut-off gas cylinder, a decommissioned used boiler, etc. are used as a container. The container must be hermetically sealed and withstand increased pressure.
A tube with drilled holes must be inserted into the cedar barrel.
The heating source can be either an open flame, as in a heating boiler, or electric heaters. The power of the device is selected so that the water boils with a large release of steam. Water boiling is controlled using a built-in thermometer and pressure gauge, and adjustment is done using valves: shut-off, outlet and safety valves. If possible, fill sensors are installed to indicate the lower and upper levels at which steam generation is allowed.
The safety valve, through which excess pressure is released, is an important element of the safety system. Its selection and adjustment should be approached with special care. If a safety valve is not installed, there should be no shut-off valves on the steam line to limit the steam output. The tank is filled with water through a connection to the water supply or to a separate expansion tank located above the boiler.
High-pressure pipes made of stainless steel, cast iron or metal-plastic are used as a steam pipeline. The material must be chemically neutral and not emit harmful substances when heated. It should be remembered that a boiler under pressure is a source of increased danger. It is no coincidence that such an organization exists - boiler inspection. The design and operation of a homemade steam generator requires experience, knowledge and skills.
The place where the steam generator will be located must be dry and well ventilated
The main advantage of the steam generator is that its design can be gradually complicated by adding controls. Which, in turn, allows you to vary steam production over a wide range of volume, temperature and dispersion, selecting the most comfortable conditions for the individual user.
Video: homemade steam generator
Brick stoves for baths
Brick sauna stoves are stoves with thick walls. In the firebox area, the thickness of the walls should be one brick, the remaining walls can be half or a quarter of a brick thick. To build brick stoves with your own hands, a certain type of material is used. Only red burnt brick will do. This type of stove is most often heated with peat or wood (in some cases, stone or charcoal is used).
Work principles
Wood-burning heaters for brick saunas take longer to warm up than stoves running on gas or solid fuel. Therefore, when building with your own hands, you should consider the following factors:
- The brick oven should be heated at least three hours before washing;
- After the brick oven has warmed up and reached the desired temperature, you need to allow the fuel to burn out completely and only then begin the procedures.
Due to the operating principle described above, brick sauna heaters are classified as intermittent stoves. One of the significant advantages of a brick oven is that it can heat up to 700–800 degrees. Therefore, the use of brick stoves is advisable in rooms with a volume of more than 30 cubic meters.
A brick stove for a bath can work on a different principle. This type of furnace can be either periodic or continuous. The difference lies in the design of the heaters.
Brick ovens mainly use a closed type. Sauna stoves with a closed heater have the ability to maintain the temperature in the room for a long time. This is explained by the following reasons:
- A closed heater contains more stones;
- A brick wall retains heat much better than a sheet steel wall.
Thus, it is the sauna stove with a closed heater that gives the highest and most stable temperature in the bathhouse.
Brick heater
Brick stoves for periodic saunas are capable of heating stones up to 800 degrees, but you can steam in a sauna only after the fuel has completely burned out (to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning).
A continuous brick heater heats stones to a temperature of 500–550 degrees. This option of constructing a stove with your own hands is more labor-intensive, but allows you to steam while the stove is operating.
Advantages of a brick heater
Brick kilns have the following advantages:
- They keep warm for a long time (after the stones have heated up to the optimal level and the stove has stopped heating, the stones are able to maintain the desired temperature for another 7–9 hours);
- Compared to a metal stove, a brick stove is more fireproof.
If you wish, you can build a brick oven with your own hands. To do this, you will need a brick laying scheme - ordering. If the master is inexperienced, then the best option is a standard procedure; it is unlikely that you will be able to draw up a diagram with your own hands. If the standard order is not suitable for some reason, then you need to order the development of a scheme from an experienced craftsman. In this case, the order will be drawn up individually.
Metal stove heater - design and features
So, a metal stove is a type of stove that is made from sheet steel. The walls of these furnaces, as a rule, have a small thickness - 5–10 millimeters. A metal stove can also be cast iron, in which case the wall thickness is usually 3–5 millimeters. Cast iron walls can be single or double.
Sauna stoves can operate either on electricity or on liquid or solid fuel. Furnaces powered by natural gas are also available.
A metal furnace is a continuous furnace that operates on the principle of constant combustion of fuel. A gas heater for a bath, as well as stoves operating on liquid fuel or electricity, are equipped with an automatic temperature control system for fuel combustion. This system allows rational use of fuel or electricity.
The optimal volume of a bathhouse heated by a stove is 25–30 cubic meters. This figure is due to the fact that the temperature in continuous furnaces does not exceed 300–350 degrees.
In metal stoves, in most cases, open heaters are made. In such a stove, the stones are placed outside, not inside, and the pipes are heated to the required temperature by heating the chimney and the walls of the stove.
To achieve maximum effect, the sauna heater stove should be positioned so that the stones are heated by the top plate and side walls. But in some cases, the specifics and features of the layout make this option for installing a heater impossible.
Open type heater
The advantage of this type of heater device is that the steam disperses to the sides evenly. The optimal volume of one fill is 0.7 l . To calculate the frequency of water fills, you need to take into account several factors:
- The volume of the steam room.
- Volume and gradation of stones in the heater.
- Features of steam room thermal insulation.
Advice! To prevent a sharp rise in room temperature, avoid getting large amounts of water on the stones.
Advantages of a metal furnace
The advantages of stoves made of sheet steel include the following:
- This oven heats up quickly (within one and a half to two hours).
- This design has less weight, therefore, a bathhouse with a lightweight foundation is allowed.
- Occupies less area.
- Installing such a stove with your own hands is less labor-intensive (compared to installing a brick one).
- You can steam while the heater is operating.
Diagram of a homemade metal heater
How to get “dry” steam
In order to obtain “dry” steam, as a rule, electric sauna heaters manufactured in industrial conditions are installed. In this case, the stones are heated by the heating element, so pouring water on them is strictly prohibited. As the stones heat up, the temperature in the steam room increases. It can reach 85–90 degrees or more, but the steam remains “dry”.
Advice: This option is quite acceptable, but it must be said that it is more suitable for a sauna than for a classic Russian steam room.
Also, when installing a metal stove with your own hands, you need to know that it can also be used in rooms whose volume exceeds 30 cubic meters. But in this case, the operating life of the heater is significantly reduced and fuel consumption increases.
Instead of a preface
In the code of punishments of most countries, the most severe are associated with counterfeiting banknotes. And this despite the fact that rarely does anyone manage to make any decent fortune in this field - being the head of, say, MMM or Enroll, you can steal immeasurably more, and the terms given (if given...) are just as much less. This oddity easily recedes if we take into account one important detail: counterfeiting treasury bills destroys faith in them and thereby encroaches on the FOUNDATIONS of statehood itself. Well, in the field of knowledge, encyclopedias have always been the same basics... In our life, besides the bathhouse, there is a place for everything, including misunderstandings. They, like spices in cooking, sometimes greatly decorate our existence: peace after a won argument is one of the few real pleasures: you find a fact, the truth; and this is already an act of true creativity - art and science have been doing the same thing since centuries. Whatever the intensity of passions, everything calms down and nature reverently listens to the truth: someone dragged the Encyclopedia!!
And what, one wonders, can you believe after, if in one of them you read:
“The sauna, a bathhouse heated by DRY STEAM, has firmly entered the everyday life of the Finns...”
Encyclopedia “Around the World”, article “Finland”.
This myth has already penetrated here, into the holy of holies. Another ten to twenty years and it will become a scientific fact for historians of the future! We will discuss why this is a myth and how relevant it is within the framework of ontology.
Useful tips
The benefits of the bath have been proven many times, but it should be remembered that the steam room produces a physiotherapeutic effect on the body. Therapy involves consultations with doctors and dosing. What is good for a young and healthy person may be harmful for a person weakened by illness or age. Physiotherapeutic procedures can lead to exacerbation of chronic diseases. When visiting a steam room, you should pay attention to your well-being.
If you feel discomfort or pain symptoms, it is better to exercise reasonable caution and reduce the time you spend in the steam room or change the steam parameters towards softening
Despite the simplicity of steam generators or steam cannons made by yourself, do not forget about maintenance, checks, and regular cleaning. The salts contained in the water will settle in the form of scale and impair the operation of the devices.
Open fire stoves require increased fire safety measures. The use of electricity for heating elements is a direct indication of compliance with safety regulations when operating electrical appliances. Incomplete combustion of fuel and smoldering lead to an increased concentration of carbon dioxide, and even to the release of carbon monoxide. Therefore, the removal of combustion products must pass through a cleaned chimney.
The steam room door should open outward and not have locking devices. Switches should be installed inside the steam room to stop the steam generator. It would also be useful to have a signaling device to attract attention in case a person becomes ill and cannot leave the steam room on their own.
Safe for the body and extreme temperatures in the bath
The highest temperature in the bathhouse that the human body can withstand is 120℃. And extreme (dangerous threshold for the human body) – 150℃. These temperatures are not used in public baths for restricted visits. They are used in bath attendant competitions. Under normal conditions, it is extremely rare for anyone to steam at a temperature of 120 degrees Celsius. But this is enough for experienced bath attendants. Still, the optimal temperature in the bath is 90-100 degrees.
Bath-sauna under glass with access to the pool - the best solution for contrasting procedures Source weboptimize.ru
