 Hello, it's Alex here from alexfigus.com. Now I'm sitting here in my office as I'm about to jump on a call with Kiven Horsie, the founder of Sunstream Saunas. Now over the last few weeks I've been doing a lot of research on infrared saunas and as a result I've put out some blog articles, infrared saunas, Buyer's Guide, I've put out a lot of videos as well. And I've learned a lot, you know, I've tested a lot of saunas, I've done something with paracens, and I've taken a rather deep dive into the world of infrared saunas. And part of this research, during this research process, I got talking to Kiven via email and I realized pretty soon that he knew a lot not only about the infrared sauna industry but about the technology, the engineering, the science behind infrared saunas. And I thought to myself, you know what, either I publish all these emails or we jump on a call, I record the video and share the conversation with you guys because, yeah, he's gotten a lot of knowledge. And if you're, if you've got a question about infrared saunas or you're looking at buying one or you're wondering, you know, why infrared sauna versus dry saunas or why Sunstream Saunas versus a competitor's product, then you're going to love this video because we're going to touch on a bunch of topics such as why full spectrum saunas may not be ideal and you may not want to use them, how far infrared saunas work, what to look for when you're buying infrared saunas, EMF levels, we talk about a bunch of things and I've got a list of topics here and I can't wait to get into them. So sit back, relax, enjoy the show and I should mention as well, make sure to stay around to the end because Kevin does share a pretty cool special deal with all you folks. So yeah, just they'll be revealed at the end. All right, enjoy. All right. Hello, Kevin. Thank you for taking the time to jump on this call. How are you going today? Yeah, doing good. Thank you, Alex. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me here via Zoom and. Yeah, it's good to find a place to finally talk to you virtually. Well, likewise, likewise. And I know already I'm excited for this call because I'm looking around your setup there, not only do you have a couple of saunas, but I can see a bunch of heater panels and various technology there. So I'm looking forward to going into into all these things in front of you. And I must say, I mean, of course, I have one of your saunas and I've been using it for a while now. And as anyone that's been following my work in my videos and blogs will know, I'm very impressed about the product you've created. But I'm also very impressed with your expertise on not only infrared saunas, but engineering the low EMF panels, things like toxins in the wood and stuff like that. So on today's call, I really want to tap into that knowledge base of yours and unlock some of these knowledge bombs that you have shared with me over email. And hopefully we can help inform and educate a few of the readers and the listeners out there today. So first things first, how did you get into the infrared sauna industry? What's your background? You know, how did you get to where you are today? I first learned of EMD. That's John Klein and a variety of health problems. I wanted the test that Dr. Klein did for me was heavy metal testing. And I came back with pretty high levels of lead, mercury and arsenic. He had an infrared sauna in his clinic. So he had a lot of his patients using the infrared sauna regularly, along with a number of other complementary nutritional supplements. Other great stuff you can do to be toxin heavy metals, but the infrared sauna was certainly a core part of that program. And because it was two hours away, I decided to get an infrared sauna for myself. There was only two brands of infrared saunas available in the marketplace at that time. And a bit of a light bulb went off for me. I thought there would be a need for this and the folks would want to be trying it out. So I initially set up a center here in Victoria, BC where folks could come around and use the infrared sauna. And of course, I was using it myself as well. And we did very well. It was pretty much an overnight success, just with some simple advertising and connecting with the local natural paths here in Victoria. We immediately had people coming around who were keen to be doing sweat detoxing. Why infrared sauna is that? I mean, did you look at steam saunas, dry saunas? I know the doctor you're working with had the infrared sauna, but when you started getting into this from a business point of view, why did you settle with infrared saunas? You know, a big appeal of infrared saunas is that so many more people can use them. They're so much more comfortable than the traditional hot rock sauna. The traditional hot rock saunas that have air temperatures of 180, perhaps all the way up to 220 degrees are quite an endurance test. A lot of folks have difficulty staying in a hot rock sauna. A lot of people feel quite fatigued after being in a hot rock sauna. Whereas the infrared saunas were heating you with the infrared radiant heat. And the air temperatures are much lower. There certainly there still is some air temperature in an infrared sauna. Their combination, we call them infrared saunas, but it is a combination of both the radiant infrared heat along with a certain level of required air temperature. Those two things working together to get you sweating. And really, this is perhaps the number one reason why they become so popular is that they're so much more comfortable, so much more easy to tolerate. More people can use them. You can stay in longer. That's for certain in an infrared sauna. And a lot of people will feel revitalized, refreshed after using IR sauna in comparison with using the hot rock sauna. There's a couple other, you know, critical things about the IR saunas, critical differences that use about half the electricity of a hot rock sauna. So for a given size sauna room, literally, you can use half the electricity to get a person sweating using radiant infrared technology versus using the conventional heat technology where you have just a single heat source, a heater typically sitting in one corner of the room with an electrical element and the hot rocks on top that get heated up and then heat the air. That takes literally double the electricity to get people sweating in the hot rock sauna compared to the infrared sauna. I think that's why infrared saunas become so popular. They're just so much more comfortable, half the electricity and the initial outlay is usually significantly less as well for an infrared sauna, perhaps just half of what you might spend on a full on hot rock sauna that is a much heavier built structure with thicker walls and insulation and just more involved all around. Yeah, right. Because I know people that have used the dry saunas, you know, the really high heat saunas maybe four years or, you know, over a certain period and then they get in an infrared sauna. A lot of them initially think, oh, this is this is easy. It's not very hot. You know, like this is comfortable. But then they soon notice that they start sweating within minutes and often I've heard remarks where people say, I think I feel like I sweat more in an infrared sauna, despite the temperature being so much lower than they would in, you know, other saunas and I don't know if there's a way to quantify that or not. But it is interesting to hear. So what's going on there? If it's not if it's not the high heat environment that's causing the sweat, you know, how come people are sweating so, so, you know, so fast when that's in an infrared sauna, despite the temperature being so much lower, what's the the theory or the technology at play there? Well, one thing, of course, is that with infrared sauna being more comfortable, you can stay in longer. So if you can just tolerate 10 or 15 minutes in the hot rock sauna and then you're done versus the infrared sauna, the radiant heat is so much more comfortable versus that 200 degree air temperature in the hot rock sauna. So just by the fact that you can stay in longer, you're going to produce more sweat. But when we dig into the physics of it, I suppose, the far infrared that most of these heaters in front of me here are far infrared heaters. And far infrared is absorbed really well by water. Starting at the three micron point, which is the beginning on the light spectrum of far infrared, starting at the three micron point, that's where water really kind of it reaches a peak. I've looked at graphs that show you the how water, the efficiency at which water is absorbing different forms of radiation. There's a peak at three microns and then it kind of levels out from there, continues to absorb really well onward into the longer wavelengths of far infrared. So our skin is 80 percent water. Far infrared being absorbed really well by water is penetrates our skin and our skin apparently is one to four millimeters in different parts of our body. That water content, 80 percent water in our skin, is absorbing the far infrared heat that's being put out by these different heaters. And absorption is the criteria for generating heat. When we think of light, and this goes back to high school business class, I suppose, all light is either going to be reflected off an object when it hits it, transmitted through that object, or will be absorbed. If it's absorbed, then heat is created. And so again, far infrared just has this property of being really well absorbed by the water in our skin and generating heat. It does go down to deeper levels. So the initial penetration, if you like, is into the skin and creating heat. And then that heat will be drawn down deeper into muscles and joints just through conduction, through blood and through muscle, et cetera. So there is a deeper heat with far infrared. This contrasts tremendously with what happens in the hot rocks on it, where the hot air is just there in contact with the surface of your skin. Hot air doesn't have this absorption underneath our skin. It doesn't have any penetration, so it's heating the surface of your skin. Again, some must be drawn in through conduction, but you don't get that initial penetration below the skin into the water of our skin. That just makes the far infrared a more efficient heat delivery system. Yeah, at the real and most simplistic terms, far infrared saunas are just a very efficient heat delivery system. Yeah, right. That's real interesting. And I hadn't really thought of it that way. But I guess then what that means is if someone isn't an infrared sauna, they they want to maximize their exposure to the panels, don't they? Because they need that light to generate the heat in their body. And then that heat is then creating the blood flow and the sweat effect. So if someone were to get in, I'm looking at that sauna behind you, the bigger one, and someone would get in that and have, I don't know, like two or three people next to them or they would just get into that and then they will lie down. They're not necessarily getting that line down in a dry sauna or a hot rock sauna would work fine because you're exposed to the hot air. And that's what's creating the sweat effect. But if you're doing that in an infrared sauna, you might not be given the maximum benefits, would you? Is that correct? Yes, yeah, it certainly is. So the infrared, you know, we can think of it as radiant heat or we can think of it as invisible light. It is part of the light spectrum. You know, the sunlight that's coming down and hitting the planet here and hitting all of us, that's made up out of visible light, ultraviolet and then all of the different infrared as well. There's near, middle and far infrared. And I think in this discussion, we'll probably touch upon near infrared as well. But so think of it as light and the heaters. You were asking about the saunas here and whether you're sitting or lying down. It is important that your body is in the target path of the infrared. So it's light. It's being projected out from the heaters. And then your body has to be in the target line of that light. It has to hit you to be absorbed by the water and our skin and great the heat. I don't know how great of a shot we have of this sauna. But I think folks can see that the heaters surround you really well. Yeah, we have one very unique feature in our saunas. I've got the door swung open on this sauna. And I believe you can see the we mount one of the large carbon panel heaters here right on our door on this sauna. There's another one right here. So on this particular sauna model, the evolve 30, we've got the carbon panel heaters spanning the whole front width of the front wall. Big heater on the back wall. There's heaters on either sides. There's a foot heater. There's a calf heater. When I designed the saunas, we put the heaters everywhere possible. And it's all about surrounding you as best as possible with these heaters. It's being projected at you. Basically, the more infrared that we can project at you to cover as much as your body as possible, while you're going to heat up quicker and sweat heavier. Yeah, no, and it makes that makes perfect sense. And then it also, once you realize that and then you look at some other sauna infrared sauna companies products and you see that they have panels that go to head height or even higher, or you see that they have thin, thin heater panels spaced out on the wall, then have to think, well, is this really working? You know, because and that's one thing I do like about your sauna is that whole was it the Volvo 360 you call it, your Volvo 360 range, where you have panels on all corners, on all walls of the wall of the sauna. And then you also have it on the on the on the floor and then on the back of the calf. And you are getting you're getting hit from all angles. And it's funny because a friend of mine recently purchased one of your your minis, your one man saunas, and I did that based on based on space constraints, you know, where he was living. And I told him, I said, hey, look, like there's nothing wrong with that sauna. I mean, it's a really good sauna. And in theory, it's maybe a bit of sauna for you because you're getting maximal exposure to those panels. Whereas if you're in a bigger sauna and, you know, someone sits down beside you or, you know, you do sort of lean back a little bit because you've got the space to do it. You the body may be missing out on some of that. I'm some of those precious foam for red rays. So is that I mean, I know from a business point of view, you probably don't want to say this. But in theory, would that smaller one one man's sauna be a better performance sauna compared to, say, a big four, five-seater? So I tell folks that all the time, yeah, and we're never here to try to upsell people to the biggest, most expensive sauna, none at all. And none of our saunas are particularly huge. This is our largest sauna right here. Yeah. And it's just five feet wide. Yeah. But I tell folks that all the time, the mini, it's our least expensive sauna. It's our smallest sauna, but it's it's absolutely one of our most powerful and effective saunas. Yeah. You are closer to more heaters in this sauna, I suppose, than theoretically than any of our other saunas. Yeah. You know, we have some, we have several models with very powerful, very effective, but the mini is great in that regard. Absolutely. If someone is content, you know, if they can fit in there and be comfortable, you don't want to put your legs up. Yeah. You don't want to, you don't want to do yoga. You don't want to do athletic stretching. But if you're content just to sit facing forward, feet on the floor and have a good sweat for 30 or 45 minutes, then absolutely the mini is a great choice. Yeah. Yeah. And we and we I'll also just add, even here with our largest sauna, we really limit the depth of our saunas. Our standard depth is just 38 inches on the outside dimension. It's 34 inches on the inside. And that's very intentional to keep you close to these heaters that are spanning the front wall. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's really interesting because I have your two man Volvo 360 sauna and I also have a clear light, three man sauna. And, you know, again, those that have read my reviews and read my buyer's guide and watch my videos will know why I'm using your saunas over the clear light one these days. But the interesting thing is the two man sauna is it's I think it's actually the perfect size because you've got the foot still in it. So you can put your feet up if you if you want to, you know, there's enough space you can put a magazine or a newspaper beside you and you're not all cramped up. So and then now hearing all this, how you want to be, you want to get maximum exposure to the heater panels and then close proximity. You know, it is interesting. And I think it's definitely a situation where bigger is not necessarily better in this case. So. No, it's not. No, it's not. You know, a lot of the other sauna companies certainly make saunas bigger than this one. Yeah. There's plenty of models on the marketplace that are six feet wide, even seven feet wide. Again, this is only five feet wide. And this is our largest. Our depth is 38 inches. It's very common to see 42 inches even up to 48 inches is not uncommon. But what's happening there is you're you're getting further away from the heaters and you're creating additional volume of air inside the sauna. Yes. And and earlier we're talking about how it's a combination of both the infrared along with a certain level of air temperature required. Those two things working together to warm your body and get you sweating. So by keeping our designs compact, we're keeping it closer to the heaters because infrared disperses rapidly over distance. You know, it's light and and I believe it's the inverse square law. You know, light disperses the intensity of it is dispersing rapidly over distance. So we want to keep you close to the heaters so you get that adequate intensity of the infrared and you don't have an excessive volume of air in that room because it does need to be heated. And then that's where we also run into some limitations with electrical supply as well here in North America. We have a standard 15 amp circuit. Some people can install the 20 amp circuit. There's limitations there as to how many amps we can call. So how many watts of heaters we can put in the sauna. And a lot of the time these big grandiose luxurious saunas from some of the sauna companies, they they don't work all that well because they don't have enough power coming to them. The heaters are just that little bit too far away or a long ways away from you. And I'm a believer in the smaller saunas, absolutely. The mini, very, very unique in the marketplace, actually. I'm glad nobody else has copied us on it yet. But it's probably it is one of our best sellers. There's no question the mini and then no one ever complains about the lack of heat or a poor sweat experience in there. Yeah, it's it's quite fascinating, really. OK, so you've touched on a bunch of topics there and there's a few I'd like to dive into a little bit deeper. So let's look at the heater technology. You call them heaters. I've seen people call them light panels, all sorts of names. But I know in your sauna, you use what commonly called the carbon heaters. Is that correct? Yes, and I just realized it on this collection here. I forgot to put one of our heaters, although there's one just here in Arms Reach, Alex, I'll grab it. And I brought a couple different examples of carbon panel heaters. OK, so I've got a question for you. I've done a little bit of research on infrared saunas over the years. And one thing that I know you guys use. You use what you've called your nanocarbon heater panels. Right. What exactly is this? OK, what's a carbon heater panel? And then how is your nanocarbon heater panel different? Carbon is just a very efficient material for radiating heat. So when it's powered up by electricity and then the carbon material gets hot, it's carbon just is very efficient. It has what's called a high emissivity rating. In physics, there's a model called theoretical model referred to as a black body. And a black body is something that is 100 percent efficient. I believe that simply means, you know, 100 percent, whatever energy goes in is converted to radiation. Carbon and ceramics both have very high emissivity ratings that are going to be in the 90 some odd percent, whether it's 92 or 94 percent emissivity. These are very high emissivity ratings. So very efficient at converting the energy, in this case, electricity, into infrared radiation, heat. The carbon panel, you asked, why do we call them nanocarbon? And that's really just a descriptive term. I think you can see that the panel is very thin. So inside this heater panel is a thin layer of microscopic particles of carbon. They're so small, these little particles of carbon that the electricity that heats them up because they're so small, they they're heated by the electrical power and then just immediately release that as infrared radiation. And there's very little energy lost, so it's just it's very efficient. We were talking a few minutes ago about how hot rocks on is take double the electricity to operate, to get people sweating. Well, with infrared technology, I mean, it's very energy efficient. Because these little particles of carbon heat up quickly, release that energy quickly as radiation. We can power these saunas with half the electricity. So nanocarbon is just a descriptive term, really. You know, in the marketplace, you'll see a lot of marketing terms for different companies of different marketing terms for their heaters. They're usually rather meaningless. And I didn't mean nanocarbon to be a marketing term. Really, if it's a descriptive term, just describing the fact that we have these microscopic particles of carbon. Got it. OK, that makes sense. So now how does how does these carbon heaters compared to these other heaters you have on on your table? I know I know that the obvious thing I'm seeing is the thickness. I mean, it's that one on your right there is a couple inches thick. So I know there's going to be benefits from that point of view. But from a point of view, like from the light being emitted, is there a big difference in why did you guys sit on this carbon? You know, I think the main reason I've worked with the infrared saunas for 20 years now. And for the first 10 years, my experience working with the saunas, we didn't have the carbon panels. You know, they came out of Japan and Korea and here in North America when I started working with infrared saunas, we were using, I'll show you in a minute, kind of a dig down here and show you what we were using, but it was a small, little ceramic element. When the carbon panel heaters came along, you know, these are so much bigger on the surface area, the infrared heat is being generated quite evenly all across the entire surface of the carbon panel. When you think of the size of your body and the size of these heaters, well, these carbon panels being big surface area, thin, flat, the microscopic particles of carbon inside, these big heaters are just able to cover a much greater surface area on your body. And to cover you at a much more even and comfortable level of infrared heat as well. So this is not one of our largest ones. This happens to be the heater that we use for the calf and the foot heater in many of our models. We'll put that one down. This one, this one I brought out just to show you quickly. This happens to be an inexpensive cheap carbon panel, not from one of our saunas. And people often talk about the carbon panels. I've heard, I've heard they're cheap. I've heard they're low quality. I've heard they aren't going to last very long. And it's absolutely true that there's a huge range of quality of carbon panel heaters in the marketplace. And this is an example of the lower quality one. You can see that it's it's much thinner. It's flimsier ours. I'll just show you quickly. Our heater panels are pretty stiff, pretty rigid. Strong, you know, they're not susceptible to breaking. They've got they run for tens of thousands of hours. People never wear them out in terms of reduction in heat output. So that was that was the purpose of bringing out the two there. But now that I've gotten to the bottom of the pile here, I can show you what I was talking about earlier. This is an example of a ceramic element heater. So the yellow portion in here is a solid piece of ceramic. It's mounted in the metal housing. There's a little reflector behind it. These guys, in contrast to the carbon panels, they're much hotter on the surface of the heater. Here, you can be looking at 400 degrees to 700 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the watts of the heater. But when you think about the size of this, this little yellow element in comparison to the size of the carbon panels. And I think you can see the big one on the back wall in the Volvo 30 here. You know, you compare the size of this to the size of that. Yeah. The big carbon panel heaters is just so more capable of covering your body, more of your body than what you can do with these. Now, of course, companies that use these heaters put several of them in there. But nevertheless, this is more of a spot heating effect in the sauna. Really hot. If you get too close to them, it can be uncomfortable if you are two inches away and directly in front of these ceramic element heaters. And then it's leaving voids throughout the sauna room. So you'll have a really small, hot, intense source of infrared. And then you'll have voids in the sauna, where there's probably no infrared and pockets of cooler air as well. And I worked with these heaters for 10 years, 1999 to about 2008. I worked with these, the style of heater. And then I learned of the carbon panel heaters, in particular at least some that were coming out of Japan and Korea at that time. And I just loved it the first time I tried it. I thought this is just a nicer sensation in the sauna. I just feel so much more immersed in the heat and feel it all over my body. It's much more even. I don't have to worry about being too close. I certainly don't have to worry about it burning my skin too close to it, which these guys, if you do get too close to the ceramic element, it might leave not a burn, but a red, uncomfortable area on your body. They are behind grills, but. And then this was interesting, just collecting these heaters together. I managed to drop this one and break it, but I left it out here. And I don't know if it can be seen by the camera or not. But it's solid ceramic, right? Yeah. Here's some other examples. So in this case, we're talking about a small concave shape. These in the industry, these are called trough heaters. They come from the radiant heating industry. They have all sorts of uses. They're used to dry paint in auto manufacturing, auto body shops. They're used for thermal forming with different plastics. They've got they're even used apparently for incubators for babies in the hospitals. So, you know, they've been around for decades. They've got all sorts of applications. That's the trough style heater. Just another style that we'd also call a ceramic element heater is a tube. So this white tube is ceramic. And inside is a filament carrying the electrical current. These are sometimes also filled with different minerals as well. But still a small element heater that's very hot if you're close to it and not capable of covering your body fully when there's a bit of an ongoing debate has been for the last 10 years, I suppose. Well, well, what's better carbon or ceramic? Both carbon and ceramic are excellent radiating materials. So I don't believe you can say carbon or ceramic is better. They both have very high emissivity levels. They're great radiating materials. The debate is really around small elements of these sorts. Versus a large flat panel. It's really an element versus panel debate, not a carbon versus ceramic debate. Yeah, and going back to what we were saying earlier, where it's all about maximizing exposure to the light, it's clear that a panel is going to be much better or much more suitable for an infrared sauna than just a single element, isn't it? Yeah, you know, the typical thing that was done by so many manufacturers, here's one of the tube heaters mounted in its housing. And the typical thing was to have two of these on the back wall, two on the front wall and one on your calf under the bench, five in total. There are so many saunas made just with that very basic heater layout. Nothing on the side walls, certainly nothing on the door like we do. And that was just a very spotty type heating. And I do speak from experience because I worked with the the trough style heater for about 10 years. So it was all we had in North America and the saunas work. And we had a decent sweat. Yeah. But as soon as I started trying out the Korean and Japanese carbon panels over 10 years ago now, I just thought, well, this this is a better sauna. It's just a nicer sensation. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And especially from a design point of view, you know, there are so much thinner and you can be closer to it without risk of burns and whatnot. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So what about bulbs like incandescent heat lamp type bulbs? I know some people just say, hey, you don't need to spend all this money on fancy saunas and all that. Just get some heat lamps. In fact, I know there's companies out there that market saunas using such heat lamps. Yeah, I know these bulbs do emit infrared light, but they also emit like some some near infrared and even visible light. And some some of the claims behind these bulbs are that those extra light sources even beneficial, you know, it's better than just pure fire of red light. So what's your take on these bulbs and using them as a way to detoxify and sweat? Yeah, that's one item I didn't bring out. I happen to have several heat lamp bulbs here because I've done some testing after I've seen companies advertising saunas with them. I thought I'd better check them out. Yeah. But I think folks know what we're talking about. These are the common heat lamp bulbs. You can get them at the hardware store and the electrical supply. I know my parents still have some in the ceiling in their bathroom. They've been they've been around for decades, absolutely. Apparently they used a lot for small chicken coops as well. And I think they're even used to keep the French fries warm. Right. Yeah. In restaurants, Donald and whatnot. Yeah. Well, I came across the spectral distribution graph. It was it was one of the companies that promotes a little sauna using these inexpensive heat lamp bulbs. The heat lamp bulbs are just ten to twenty dollars. So a couple of companies are promoting saunas using these heat lamp bulbs. One of them had the spectral distribution graph posted up. It was from Phillips. I guess they were getting their bulbs from Phillips. Very interesting to me. The they had about 10 percent near-infrared energy. And then the majority of their output was actually in mid-infrared. Right. Now, earlier, we were talking about far-infrared being the the optimally absorbed by water and the optimal wavelength for generating heat in your body. Mid. So mid-infrared is just below far-infrared as the wavelengths get shorter. Goes from far to mid to near as the wavelengths are getting shorter. Mid-infrared within mid-infrared, which is just a sliver on the light spectrum, this is just one point three to three microns. So this is a very small portion of the light spectrum. But according to the spectroscopy testing from Philips on these heat lamp bulbs, the majority of the output, I think it was about 60 or 70 percent, was mid-infrared. Now, mid-infrared, in my understanding, you know, it's it's OK looking at the graph for the efficiency of water, absorbing these different wavelengths and creating heat. That's where it starts to go up through the mid-infrared range of 1.3 microns to three microns. That's where the graph starting to go up. And then we get to a peak at three microns and it pretty much levels out going through the far infrared wavelengths. So mid-infrared can be said to be doing an OK job of creating heat in your body, but it's not as efficient as the far infrared. And then when the wavelengths get shorter below near infrared, when we then go into visible light, first off red, infrared is below red. So we first enter into the red region in the visible light. This is where the light stops being absorbed. I think we can say pretty much entirely being absorbed and it then becomes transmitted. It then is rather than being absorbed in creating heat, the red light, the near infrared and the red are just being transmitted through our tissue, passing through and not generating heat. I think I'm giving you a roundabout answer because you asked me, what do I think about the heat lamp bulb saunas? And it frustrates me actually because these are the manufacturers of the bulbs, Phillips and Sylvania and a few others, they often label labeled right there on the box. They call it a near infrared heat lamp bulb. But in actual fact, these bulbs put out just a little bit of near infrared, which does not generate heat. And then they put out a bunch of mid infrared, which is so so at generating heat. They put out some visible light. And they have a tremendous effect just on heating the air as well, because these bulbs are screaming hot. I've forgotten the exact number, but there are several thousand degrees on the surface of the glass bulb. The saunas using the bulbs are promoted as a near infrared sauna. First off, there's several problems with that, but it's a contradiction of terms really. I don't see that there is such a thing as a near infrared sauna. You and I both have a lot of experience dealing with near infrared products, you know, panels such as this that use LEDs that put out a specific wavelength of near infrared. So all sorts of great therapeutic benefits to that. Maybe we'll get into it. Near infrared is tremendous benefits. You know, just quickly, it's stimulating ourselves. The mitochondria start producing more energy and this can be great for accelerating healing, but not generating heat with near infrared. So this notion of a near infrared sauna, to me, it's an oxymoron. I don't see that there is such a thing as a near infrared sauna, but it comes from the fact that the manufacturers, Sylvania, et cetera, they call the heat lamps near infrared heat lamps. Maybe that's where it started up. It generated a lot of confusion for consumers. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because, again, like we know that the fire infrared rays, what the body absorbs, it converts the heat, you know, that's the optimal sort of race. And like we've touched on a few times now, it's all about exposure to those rays. It's not being just being in a hot environment with a bulb in the corner or a heater in the corner. You want those rays hidden the body. So even knowing that the bulb has this wide range of spectrums, but even if it did emit a decent amount of fire infrared, again, it's only one little bulb, isn't it? You know, you compare it to the panels behind you in the saunas. They're in a much larger surface area. And it suffers in the same way that the ceramic armor. And these heat lamp bulb saunas that I've seen, they're typically just mounted behind you. Yeah. They've just done one wall. And their folks are told to rotate inside the sauna. They're told to sit one way and there's a little stool and then turn your stool and face the other surface of your body towards the bulbs. I mean, that's the polar opposite of by designs on the saunas, where we've tried to surround you as best as possible. Yeah. Which makes perfect sense. And like you said, they get so hot and funny little story. I mean, we raise checks like we hatch our eggs and then checks. And we grow them up and harvest them at your 10 weeks old. And when I was looking at getting a light, you know, to keep them warm in those first few weeks, you can get the incandescent heat lamp bulbs. But the downside is there's a few downsides with them as one, they put out a bit of visible light. So even at night time, there's life on the animals. And we know how important light is for circadian rhythm and health. So that's one downside. But the other downside is how hot it gets. And you need to make sure that the checks aren't obviously getting close enough to the bulb because they can burn it. But you as a farmer or as someone going out looking after them, you have to be careful as well. And I've got a little one year old now. I don't really want him going out there and grabbing for a check and then getting burnt. So the alternative is you can get a more expensive ceramic heater panel, which is what I ended up getting. And again, there's no visible light. It's warm, but you could touch it. I mean, you don't really want to, but you can come into contact with it. And, you know, you're not going to end up with a big blister on your head. So it's kind of interesting how that, you know, you talk about all these things and I see it not only in my sauna and life, but also in my farming life. But what I want to touch on was you mentioned that near infrared panel. You mentioned near infrared light and you see how that panel uses, well, you see how there's many benefits with near infrared light. And again, anyone that's been on my blog and read some of my articles will, you know, I've covered this topic in great depth. So we don't need to cover it again today. But you mentioned a keyword and that was specific wavelength. It's like that near infrared panel there uses LEDs to generate light at a specific wavelength. Typically, you know, it might be 850 or a little bit higher. I need a little light. Now, we know, I mean, a lot of the research on photobiomodulation or red light therapy shows that, you know, specific wavelengths at X dosage for X time creates all these health benefits. But I've seen a lot of, a lot of sauna companies will use some heater technology panels in their sauna that does generate near infrared light. And then we'll come out and say you're also, you know, by using our saunas, you're also getting the benefits of near infrared light. But I've looked into this a little bit deeper. And like you mentioned before, the amount of light isn't huge. I mean, typically there's a little bit of near infrared light there, but it's mainly the mid or even far infrared light. And secondly, it's not necessarily coming in at the wavelengths that we know that science is showing to be effective on the body, right? So it is a little bit of, what's the word, greenwashing. I know that's technically not the right term here, but it is a little bit of... I think they're riding, you know, riding on the coattails of all the research. That's the way I've seen it. You know, maybe going back about five years ago, when I started seeing sauna companies talk about a full spectrum sauna, where they had taken a far infrared sauna and the far infrared is generating the heat. And then done different things, use different devices to add some near infrared. And then, and the marketing term that was born was full spectrum sauna, essentially a far infrared sauna with a little bit of near infrared at it. And it's been done through, with different means, you know, some companies will take a little panel of LEDs, you know, something like this and just mount this on the wall. Okay, one company essentially makes a hole or cut out in the middle of their carbon, far infrared heater and then just mounts a little panel, something like this. And these LEDs will put out a single wavelength of near infrared. And they'll term that a full spectrum sauna. Another thing that's caught on, I think there's three or four companies using this style of heater now. Yeah. And this is a quartz halogen heater. I'm probably not close enough to the camera, but inside of this housing is a glass tube with a filament in there and filament and the glass tube being filled with halogen gas. Now when that's heated up, this is doing, it bears a lot of similarity to the simple heat lamp bulbs we were just talking about because this will emit quite a range of different wavelengths. This will create, this will create some visible light. And it puts out some near infrared and some mid infrared and some far infrared. And so the companies that are using these quartz halogen tube heaters along with a carbon panel heater such as ours, similar to ours with the far infrared, they'll call that a full spectrum sauna. There's these different versions of a full spectrum sauna on the market. But there's several problems with it and you were alluding to one of them where if we go back to the specialized therapeutic devices that are using LEDs and putting out essentially a single wavelength, you know, near infrared and red light therapy, PBMT, photobiomodulation therapy, also referred to sometimes as LLLT or low level laser therapy, started up in the 1960s, I think it was 1967 when someone first stumbled across the fact that I think it was a red light laser had particular benefits to it. The lasers are monochromatic. A laser, I think is the only device that can emit one single frequency. An LED, I believe it's a very narrow range. I believe it's about 30 nanometers wide just. So they're considered to be a single frequency as well, an LED. These are the only two devices that will emit a single wavelength. And my reading on the scientific literature, and you might want to add to this, but my reading has been that all the research has always used a single frequency to stimulate our cells, to stimulate the chromophores, our light receptors of our cells that respond to wavelengths in the mid 600 nanometers being red light or in the mid 800 nanometer range being the invisible near infrared ourselves responding to these particular wavelengths. But all the research, all the experiments being done with a laser or with an LED emitting a single wavelength. And then along come some of the sauna companies using the heat lamp bulbs or the Cortellogen style heater with a wide range, a little bit of near infrared can't deny there's a little bit of near infrared, but not a single frequency like a laser or an LED, but rather all of the near infrared range. And I don't know about you, but I've never come across a study that used a heat lamp bulb or Cortellogen tube heater to achieve the kind of benefits, the photobiomodulation therapy benefits that are achieved with a laser or an LED. Yeah, no, I'm the same. And I have to admit this has been one topic that is real. It's taken me a while to get my head around, but like you mentioned, all the data is on the infrared light is rather specific, you know, down to the particular wavelength. And I know I got caught up many years ago when I first got into the infrared health space, infrared sauna space. I, you know, I got caught up in the marketing hype and saw full spectrum and thought, all right, well, you know, that uses near and mid and that has to be better, right? And that was the path I went down. And the sauna I purchased had carbon heaters with the phone for red light. And then it had one or two halogen heaters at the front. Now, you know, fast forward a few years and I've gone down many rabbit holes around red light therapy or photobiomodulation and learned a lot about that. And now I realize, you know what? Like the benefits of red light and their infrared light, this is my understanding. I found at specific wavelengths, at specific dosages. And, and you've got to be close to it. Yeah. Pardon me for interrupting, but you've got to be close to it. Yeah. The light scatters rapidly, you know, often here's another device. And this, this one's emitting red light. This one is used, you know, you press it right into your tissue so that the photons of light will get through your skin and then transmit down into your tissue. Yeah. And that's a good point because you mentioned earlier, like the the drop off an intensity at distance, right? Like that, that happens with all light sources. And we know that those full spectrum panels or elements or light bulbs, what do you want to use that are often very hot at close proximity. So to get the therapeutic benefit of near infrared light, you know, you may need to be very close to that light bulb, which is just impossible. You're going to burn yourself. So then you have to move away to a safe distance. And now all of a sudden you may need to stand by that element for an hour or two hours to get this, the right amount of dosage. And even then we don't know if the fact that you're not just getting that specific wavelength, but you're getting a wide range of wavelengths, you know, are you going to get the same benefit? And then also the other fact there is heat, like because there is going to be some mid and fire infrared in there as well, the body is going to heat up, obviously, or the tissue is going to heat up. And then you're probably going to sweat. Now all of a sudden does the moisture on your skin, you know, is that going to mean some of those near infrared rays are not going to, you know, penetrate as deeply. You know, it's such a complex system. And I think people that just, and again, I was in this position myself. So it's just taken me a lot of reading and a lot of time to unravel it, but it's very easy to just get caught up in that marketing hype. And I know I, that's the problem. That's the problem. We have too many companies that I think their marketing departments, you know, they have vivid imaginations. I think they just wanted to ride on the coattails of all the research, you know, decades of research using lasers and LEDs and showing lots of awesome effects from this. I think you've experienced some. I know I've experienced some personally as well. I use this, I use this device and other devices quite regularly. Anytime something's hurting on my body, that's just an injury. I've used this a lot on my throat for a problem I've got with the soft agitis. I find it very helpful. That's just from acid reflux. And I find it helps my throat feel a lot better. Yeah. The just putting, you know, a panel of LEDs on the wall of the sauna, or one of these wider spectrum devices like a heat lamp bulb, or the quartz halogen to Peter just mounting it on the wall of the sauna, projecting it out into the air. It's not a single frequency. It's the wide band of the near infrared. You're probably too far away from it. Yeah. Maybe you could get close enough to this one. Yeah. Maybe you could put your tennis elbow, say in front of this one, and it might be okay. There's some purpose that was just mounted on the wall, but there's all kinds of limitations there. You're not going to maneuver any part of your body you want in front of this. It's certainly not going to magically treat your entire body with near infrared, which is what I think is the impression that is left when folks advertise these full spectrum saunas. I think they're giving people the idea that the sauna is, you know, magically giving, treating their entire body with the near infrared, but that's essentially impossible. And I don't mean to babble on, but you mentioned one other thing there quickly, which I think is very important. If your body is covered in a layer of sweat, our skin has a natural defense mechanism to reflect. Most near infrared. I meant to dig up the numbers before our talk today, which I didn't manage to do. So I'm not sure exactly what, you know, there's lots of near infrared in the sunlight. That's true. But our body, our skin has a natural defense mechanism to reflect a lot of near infrared. Too much near infrared can be damaging. Yes. So when we, when it's used therapeutically, you have to have the device close to you, you know, perhaps something small like this being pressed right into the skin, because you've got to get it through the skin. The photons of light have got to get past our natural reflective property of our skin, past the skin, and then transmitting deeper down into tissue and stimulating ourselves. When we were talking about having a layer of sweat on your skin, I would think is likely just to add to that skin's reflection of the light or blocking of the light. Apparently, apparently if our body is warmed up, the light doesn't transmit through our tissue as well. If we're warmed up rather than when we're just at normal temperature. Yeah, right. Yeah, I mean, a lot of limitations and flaws with, with mounting the heat lamp all through the quartz halogen tube heaters and the saunas for the purpose of delivering the PBMT as, as you and I know a reasonable amount about and yourself in particular, I know you've dug into it. People that I had done all sorts of testing on all the different LED panels. Yeah, it's, and I think as a result of that, like I've got a lot of readers who, who obviously follow my stuff for the red light therapies, tests I do and articles I publish. And now when I look at saunas as well, I often get people emailing me saying, well, do I really need to buy a sauna and a red light therapy panel? Can I not just go out and get one of these, you know, full spectrum, the thermal, the heater light bulbs or, you know, panels or whatever, whatever's been marketed at the time, because then the theory is, well, I'm getting some there infrared and maybe even visible red light from, from that bulb. Plus I'm getting the, the heat, you know, the mid and the fire infrared. So I'm getting all in one package, but more, more must be better. And I, you know, that's the marketing strategy. Yeah. And it sounds good. You know, we've looked at the science behind PBMT. And then we're taking that knowledge that you and I have regarding that. And then looking at the saunas and thinking, this doesn't gel. Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's, it's very easy to see that argument and be like, oh, that makes sense. I'm going to save myself a bunch of money and just use one device. And it was something that I, again, like I was looking into myself years ago, I was like, why do we need specific things? We're probably both on the same page where you're better off having specific devices or specific technology for, for each purpose. So in this case, you'd use a sauna like yours, which has primarily, uh, all, uh, fire infrared light. And then you use that for the heat, the sweat, the detoxification benefits that, that light brings to the body. And then on the other hand, you use a near infrared light panel such as the LED panel you got there, which emits near infrared and maybe red light at a specific wavelength and doesn't put out any heat. So you can get in close contact with it. And, um, you know, you use one for one job and the other for another job. And if you try to blend them, you probably get nowhere and you might be wasting time, money. And in fact, you could even be potentially doing harm because I know there is some research out there around the near infrared, um, you know, like you mentioned overexposure and whatnot. Um, so, yeah, there's a fair, there's a significant body of research out there. I haven't covered it all, but I've seen enough papers now regarding, um, you know, the hazards of excessive infrared. A lot of, uh, scientific papers are, seem to be calling for, you know, I, they use, they often use the term IRA because rather than near mid far, it's a IRA BC. So they're often talking about IRA and photo aging of the skin. And a lot of papers seem to be calling to, you know, review and look at IRA again, acting much more kin to UV that can have damaging effects to the skin. There's, there's a condition that's known as Baker's arm. Uh, folks who have their arms in and out of hot ovens throughout their careers and they have photo aging effects and skin damage from that. And that's attributed to the near infrared that's inside of these hot ovens. Folks who work with molten metal and molten glass and high rate of cataracts. And again, maybe photo aging to the skin. Uh, again, that's attributed to near infrared from the exposure that they have. Yeah. And that's fascinating because generally those sort of issues were often related or believed to be related to the UV, like, which is completely different end of the spectrum. So, I mean, it is very fascinating and that's why after I've looked into this a little bit more now, I'm like, I don't want a sauna with near infrared in it. I'd rather have a sauna that's primarily far infrared. And then I know I can get my, the benefits of the near infrared using the near infrared panels, the LED panels. You're just going to do that for a few minutes, as you know. Yeah. Five or 10 minutes. Yeah. The idea of doing near infrared in a sauna, you know, most of us are using a far infrared sauna having a good sweat, spending 30 to 60 minutes. No matter of minutes. As little as two minutes. This device right here, when you push the on button, it just turns on for 88 seconds. It delivers four joules in 88 seconds and that's one dose. This is the mini version of the device that was used in the NASA studies developed by a company called Quantum Devices. This is the warp 10. They use, they also had a bigger version that was the warp seven. But this is a lot of technology in here. It delivers a dose, 88 seconds, four joules. That's it. That's the dose. So the idea of mounting the devices again, the heat lamp bulbs or the quartz tube heaters on the wall of the sauna and exposing yourself to that that's not what is suggested in all the research. Yeah, not at all. Yeah, that's fascinating. All right, look, we're getting towards the end of this call. But what I wanted to do, I do want to touch on a little bit more about your particular sauna. So I've got a couple of questions here and we'll get through them and maybe we can always come back another day and go through some other questions of it, but looking at your saunas now. So when I did my test in, I've got an emf meter here. Sure, it's not a professional standard one. I was only a couple hundred dollars a cornet meter, but I have had it compared to a geo vital consultant who had his multi thousand dollar meters and the readings were very, very similar. He was quite impressed. So I'm not going to say that my numbers were, you know, take it to the lab. You know, these are the best numbers out there, give a pretty good indication of how much exposure is coming from a device. Now I use that meter to test your panels. And I have to say, I was very surprised because the emf numbers were pretty much rock bottom. I mean, I have my cornet meter programs using building biology health standards and it's color coded, green, yellow, red from the side. And when it picks up a reading, it will say, you know, is it safe or is it dangerous? Yeah. And all your numbers electric, magnetic, microwave, obviously, all your numbers were in the green and there was very, very little movement between switching the sauna on and off, which it was insane because, you know, when you think about the electronics in the sauna and how big these panels are, I didn't expect that. So what have you done because I know a lot of companies say, oh, they're low emf and yes, some of them are low, but they're still, they're still emf being admitted there. How did you get yours? Pretty much not low emf, zero emf or no emf. What have you done there? Well, about 10 years ago, we introduced a heater. We weren't the first sauna company to do this, but we were certainly one of the first. We introduced a heater that hugely reduced the emf magnetic fields. That was about 10 years ago. Now, whenever you run any electrical current through a wire or through a heater or any electrical appliance, there's actually two different fields that are created. There's the terminology that I use. You will see different terminology, which makes things a bit confusing, but a common terminology is emf referring to the magnetic field . The second field that's created by an electrical current is the electric field. And that's often abbreviated as EF or ELF. So for 10 years, 10 years ago, we managed to reduce the emf magnetic field drastically, bringing that down to an average of less than one milligos across the surface of our area. Just recently, it's a year ago now, that we finalized the design on a new heater and several tweaks to the wiring throughout our sauna, the power box of our sauna, really the entire electrical system. And this new system, I call it EHS, it also reduces the electric field. So our sauna's now for 2020, it was 2020 that we phased it into all of our sauna marbles. These are, this is our new EHS line, canceling out both the emf magnetic fields and the EF electric fields. I think we did a great job of it. We've got the electric fields down to essentially nothing. A lot of my test readings are zero. It might be this, and this is volt per meter is how the electric fields are measured. A lot of my readings are zero. It might be one, two, three, four volts per meter. This is incredibly low, just incredibly low for electric fields. So we're very proud of that. Very happy about accomplishing that. I certainly don't take all the credit we, you know, we brought in a PhD and electrical engineer from the university. He worked with our in-house engineer. It took a while. I was at the factory contributing, had a few ideas of my own and it was a team effort for certain and it took some time and we finally got these electric fields down to incredibly low levels. The EHS term, I borrowed that from the term electrohypersensitivity. Got it, yeah. Yeah. It was a surprise seeing how a lot of the numbers were and I know a lot of people in the biohacking space, you know, in the health and wellness space becoming very aware of the whole, you know, the potential issues, health issues of non-native BMS and a lot of people are looking for devices and technology now that there's low in EMS, wearables, people don't want to use them because it's always pulsing, Bluetooth and stuff like that. So it's definitely, the market is waking up to this issue and I think, yeah, I think you've done something that is quite impressive with how hello, virtually non-existent, there's numbers up because, you know, people buy a sauna for health, right? You're not buying it to use on a Saturday night like for entertainment purposes, you're typically buying a sauna for the health benefits you're going to get from it. So, you don't want to be buying something that you could be sitting in and exposed to an extremely high, you know, stressful EMS load. It's just, there's a big disconnect there. So I think it's great knowing that there is a product out there that not only is a great infrared sauna, but it has virtually non-existent EMS issues. So, that's very cool. And yeah, it definitely makes me feel. The thing about the EMS is that, you know, we have you surrounded by the heaters in the sauna and the heaters are large as we were talking about. The EMS, not this heater, not our heaters, but in so many of the saunas that haven't done anything, any development with your heaters to reduce magnetic fields, they'll have a significant magnetic field coming off this heater surface and it comes off the entire surface. It's not just one spot or one strip. It's the entire heater surface that it potentially can be coming from. And then you're sitting in the small sauna room, you know, hopefully you're having a good sweat for 30 or 40 minutes and doing that two or three times a week. Potentially, that is a lot of EMS exposure. Everything electrical, almost everything electrical, produces some magnetic fields that if it's your refrigerator, well, you don't stand beside your refrigerator for three lengths of time. The sauna, we want people to be using the saunas to get in there. They add up to a few hours each week and indeed that could add up to a lot of magnetic fields. If you don't have a heater technology that's eliminating it. Yeah. Very cool. I've got one other question. This is a bit of a personal question. It's more my own interest here. Your saunas come with a bunch of free accessories. And I think it's awesome because some other companies charge extra. They upsell you to buy these like a back support rest and a foot bench and stuff. Your saunas come with the foot bench. They come with the back support rest, back rest. They come with. They also come with a few other items that I know I've seen in saunas but I'm not 100% sure of why people use them and the benefits. So the first one I want to ask you about is the hat. The sauna hat. What's the idea behind it? Well, it's a shame. A shame we don't have one here at the moment to show everybody. But the wall felt sauna hat is keeping direct heat off your head. Yeah, nothing new. You know, I probably came out of Europe very common in traditional sauna use and the hot rock saunas. And my understanding is that it helps keep you a little more comfortable by keeping direct heat off your head. The head just being a bit more sensitive. So wearing the hat the wall felt sauna hat off your head. So you're feeling a bit more comfortable. I know a lot of folks will wear it to protect their hair. Perhaps there's a I don't know, I experienced this myself but maybe a dry effect on the hair from going in the sauna. So the hat is going to protect your hair a little bit. Do you have that? I've probably got any hair to worry about that. I can't say. And then also keeping heat in your body because we do release a lot and lose a lot of heat out of our body through the top of our head and the sauna hat will help keep the heat in your body. So by keeping the heat in your body and by remaining a little bit more comfortable you can probably stay in a bit longer and then overall sweating more. Got it. Yeah, because I know when I was in Finland traditional sauna houses there and I saw a lot of the guys using those hats over there. So I know there must be a good reason behind it. I haven't I'll try it in a few sauna sessions I do this week and see if I feel different or see if I notice my hair doesn't get as dry. But that's cool. And see if you can stay in a bit longer. See if your endurance is greater with the sauna hat. But for me I find it is. Really? All right. Yeah. It may be a subtle difference, but I believe it makes a difference. All right. And then the other question I had is the essential oil glass. I mean it just looks like a shot glass. Now I know you're not going to be doing tequila shots in the middle of your sauna, but the idea out here is you put essential oils in and it will burn off. Again, I haven't used this. So how exactly should it be used and what's the theory behind this? Right, right. I'm not an expert in aromatherapy. You know this is often referred to as aromatherapy where different essential oils are used such as lavender or eucalyptus. Eucalyptus is probably the most common commonly used in saunas and steam rooms. So I can't speak at length regarding aromatherapy. There's so many different essential oils that are reported to have different benefits for people. Our unit is simple. It's a little wooden holder. It hangs out in front of the heater. The wooden hold, yeah the wooden holder has a small, essentially looks like a shot glass. Most folks are putting a bit of water and then there are essential oils on top of that. And the heat the radiant heat coming off the heater is going to vaporize I suppose that oil. It is subtle. This is not as strong as having say a diffuser where you're creating that fine mist. And perhaps an aromatherapist a real purist might argue that ours is too subtle it's not strong enough. I'm not sure for it to be to have a true aromatherapy effect. Nevertheless, lots of our customers use it without a lot of our customers use it and they like it. Yeah, no, I wanted to chat to you before I use it because I wasn't too sure if I was meant to add water or not to it. So I'll definitely try it because yeah, I mean even just that pleasant smell when you get into the sauna I'm sure that will be nice. But those included accessories I know you also come with a brush and a towel really good sauna towel the foot bench like I mentioned the back support it's cool. There's a lot of things included in the price which again made me I was very impressed with your not only the technology but the package deal and the price and everything like that as well. So on that note give me the elevator pitch as to why someone should buy your sauna compared to a competitor's sauna. What's the top two or three reasons why you're the best sauna on the market? Well, I think our claim to theme is really delivering more infrared radiant heat to your body. Certainly that must be the most important thing of an infrared sauna. How much we call them infrared saunas how much infrared is it actually delivering for you? You know, there are limitations with infrared saunas particularly here in North America. We just have the 15 amp circuit. Some of our models are built on the 20 amp circuit. There's only so much electricity there. It's easy and there's lots of examples in the marketplace. It's easy to build an infrared sauna that doesn't work all that well that isn't delivering a lot of infrared to your body. But I think we've done a good job of it by surrounding the 360 degrees particularly with our front mounted heaters. Also with our heaters being lower so our heaters are sized in a particular way. They just come to your neck shoulder height about here on most folks. We're trying to make the best use of this available power that we have. We want to aim this radiant heat at the mass of your body right? The bulk of our body is here in our torso. I don't believe it's necessary to aim it here at our head. Our head doesn't make that much of a mass. So to make the best use of the somewhat limited amount of power the heaters are low shoulder neck height we want to do 360 degrees and that just results in delivering more of the infrared radiant heat to your body. That's what it's all about. That's how these saunas work. That's how they heat you up. That's how they raise your core temperature and stimulate your immune system and induce the heavy detoxing sweat. We've got to heat you up well and most people would like to experience that quickly and have a heavy sweat and not sit in a poorly designed infrared sauna that takes a long time to heat up and then just have a moderate sweat. So first and foremost it's the experience in the sauna that I'm proud of just delivering more infrared and then of course the construction is important we don't want toxic materials in the sauna. Our saunas are 100% solid wood. Most of our models are constructed with hardwood basswood such as the Vol 30 behind me here. The mini smaller in size smaller in price we do use the less expensive hemlock lumber for the mini but the hemlock is okay you have to take a little more care with it. The hemlock is okay point being that we're using 100% solid woods either basswood or hemlock we don't use any plywoods we don't use any particle board. We do everything we can just to minimize the synthetic materials that go into the sauna. Plywoods contain formaldehyde I mean almost always there's a few very specialized Plywoods I believe that can be manufactured without formaldehyde but typically plywood has formaldehyde in it and the manufacturers are always enticed to use more formaldehyde because it speeds up the curing time and they can make it quicker and it's cheaper for them. I don't believe Plywood belongs in a sauna at all. It is commonplace in many brands to see Plywood this helps speed up the manufacturing of the saunas to use the sheet of Plywood in the floor the roof, the ceiling we don't use any a couple other things regarding non-toxic materials we we use a particular wood glue manufactured in the U.S. brand name tight bond it meets the FDA criteria for food contact safety it's absolutely a non-toxic water-based wood glue that's used for things like cutting boards and salad bowls we have a finish on the exterior of the sauna with formaldehyde free water-based low sheen to it most of the infrared saunas the cheaper brands in the marketplace are using an oil-based finish on the exterior of the sauna and most of the brands will have a mystery glue people can call up different companies and ask what kind of glue are you using and most of the companies won't be able to answer that for you very cool it's definitely not only a well-designed sauna but it has to be one of the healthiest saunas on the market if not the healthiest saunas on the market so it's been a great hour or so and I know I've got a lot takeaways from this and I hope the people watching have also learned a few things so thank you for your time and thank you for sharing all your expertise if someone wants to know more about your saunas where should they go who should they call and I think you mentioned as well you might have a special deal going at the moment how do they find out more about that or what do they have to do we get our Sunstream Saunas in Canada the US we have a warehouse in Canada and another warehouse in the US to ship the saunas all across North America Sunstream Saunas are warehoused in Melbourne, Australia in Auckland, New Zealand so for any of your viewers and readers these are where the saunas are available and they're available in America and Sunstream Saunas, New Zealand Australia and talk to Mark who I know you've connected with and yes we are very happy to offer we've got an extra $100 off our regular off the sale prices I should say not the regular prices but an extra $100 off our current sale prices for folks who have tuned in to the content that you've been good enough to put out about the saunas they can mention that they are a follower of Alex Fergus and be happy to apply that discount awesome that's a great deal so that's $100 off the special prices which is amazing so thanks for doing that I'm sure a lot of people are going to take that up so do you have a website phone number what's the best way for people to get a hold of you or Mark sunstream saunas.com website I'm at sunstream saunas.com for North America I'm not going to remember Mark's website because you guys have got those long extensions on the end I'll put links below so people watching this just check out this too many dots it's pretty easy to find even if someone in Australia or New Zealand ends up on your site I'll redirect them anyway otherwise just message me and I can put you in touch our Facebook page has lots and lots of photographs on our Facebook page the YouTube channel is a good place to go to see some of the EMF video testing and of course for YouTube videos Alex said I'm happy that you've done for us I should mention though if you are looking to buy any infrared sauna I've got my review short check them out but check out Kevin's videos on his YouTube channel because some of your tests with your thermal imaging cameras and comparison tests and EMF testing it's pretty cool it just proves how well designed this sauna is and the technology that I've used definitely recommend checking that out obviously if you have questions and reach out to Kevin or myself I've been using this sauna for a couple months now so I'm happy to share my input from my side but again thank you so much for your time, thank you for sharing all of your expertise and knowledge and bringing all these panels and accessories to the video today and it was great and I look forward to when we can do this again some other time that we could have touched on but this would have easily gone on for a couple of hours so we have to cut it here but again thank you and enjoy the rest of your day thanks so much Alex thank you how good was that I told you Kevin you a thing or two about infrared saunas if you like this video give me a thumbs up be sure to hit subscribe if you do want to know more about these sun stream saunas obviously you can go to the sun stream website and I'll put a link to that below I've done a few videos I've done a written review on my evolved two man saunas from Sunstream Saunas that's over at AlexWiggles.com I'll put a link to that below as well but yeah have a look at some of the other videos I've published, I've tested the EMF levels I've compared my Sunstream with the clear light saunas so yeah check that out if you are in the market for one of these saunas if you have a question for myself leave that below head over to sunstreamsaunas.com and contact him and yeah if you are going to buy one be sure you tell them that you heard about them through AlexWiggles.com and you're going to get an extra sweet deal I think it was $100 off their special prices which is pretty neat so anyway I'll leave it there again give me a thumbs up if you like this and be sure to hit subscribe bye