What is emissivity?
Emissivity is the ability of an object to emit or absorb energy. Perfect emitters have an emissivity of 1, emitting 100% of incident energy. An object with an emissivity of 0.8 will absorb 80% and reflect 20% of the incident energy. Emissivity may vary with temperature and spectral response (wavelength). The hotter an object is, the more active its molecules are, and the more infrared energy it emits.
As ceramic infrared heaters are smaller than carbon panel heaters, they produce much more heat per square inch of heating surface, therefore providing more valuable infrared heat.
What’s really important is intensity
Far infrared heaters do not differ in the type of infrared they produce but do differ in the amount of infrared that they produce. Infrared heaters are made with different qualities of carbon and ceramic materials and with different manufacturing processes. There are cheaply made, poor performing heaters and there are high quality, high performing infrared heaters such as DuraWave. The test of an infrared heater is its radiant efficiency, its ability to produce high levels of infrared heat.
The performance of a Carbon Panel heater is determined primarily by the concentration of energy/electricity in the panel. In the infrared heater industry this is referred to as Watt Density. Many of the Carbon panels installed in saunas today are based on Low Watt Density panels. As we know hotter panels or elements produce higher levels of infrared. High Watt Density Carbon panels are created with sophisticated manufacturing processes involving microscopic droplets or fibres of carbon. The specialised nano forms of carbon originate in Japan and very few companies possess the technology to process the carbon and produce high performing carbon heater panels. They are also very expensive to produce.
Fortunately it is easy to tell which type of carbon panels the sauna uses.
Low Watt Density panels are easily identified in that they cover much of the inside walls of the sauna and extend high up. These inexpensive Low Watt heaters waste power in unoccupied areas of the sauna.
Many of the saunas on the market today simply connect to a standard 13amp outlet. It’s essential that this limited power source is utilised by high quality heaters.
The DuraWave infrared heaters supplied by SaunaMed are High Watt Density ceramic heaters. They provide an average emissivity of 92% peaking at 96%. They are simply best the choice available. Coupled with the patented EMR technology they are unbeatable.
Remember if you are in a sauna and able to put your hand on a carbon heater and leave it their comfortably you are using a Low Watt Density sauna and will be exposed to a low density of infrared waves.
