Setting Up A Hot Yoga Studio - 5 Points To Consider

Fully insulate the room

Hot Yoga Design - 5 Points To Consider

 Whether you are looking to build a brand new, purpose built hot yoga studio, or add heating to an existing yoga centre to provide an additional offering to your customers / clients / yogis, there are 5 things to consider:

 Read Original Article Here

 Or Go To Our New Hot Yoga Studio Design Website

Insulation: 

Make sure the building or the room you intend on heating will be very well insulated. Making a good investment into double glazed windows, and adding additional insulating fibre to the ceiling and the walls will 1) keep the heat in the room once the infra red heaters have done their job in bringing the ambient temperature up to 30-42 C, and 2) you will save money in the long run.

Heat Recovery: 

A heat recovery system works by simply adding a small percentage of fresh air to the room through duct work. The heat recovery unit will retain up to 80% of the heat of the room, while at the same time introducing fresh air into the room, and exhausting stale air. Traditionally, you would have used a ventilation system that wouldn't have heated the airbut instead just brought in fresh air, however, you would have lost all of that valuable heat during extraction, and on a cold day you would have to reheat the air that enters through the inlet.

 

Within the heat recovery unit, there is a wheel that turns very slowly. The hot air that is in the room is piped (ducted) to the wheel, and the wheel captures the hot air. As the wheel turns, the hot air is moved over to the pipework where the fresh air is entering the inlet duct. The mix of fresh air and the heated air is pulled into the room giving the room warm and fresh air at the same time, so you only really lose a very small percentage of the air you have spent money on heating. The heat recovery system is refrigerant free, very economical and will help keep the room fresh and will reduce the amount of money you will have to spend on reheating the room.

Heating: We recommend using infra red heating panels for the heating of the studio for these main reasons -

Infra red waves are the same type of waves that are emitted from the sun, which means the warmth you experience is natural and comfortable

FRICO EZ200 - Hot Yoga Heater

1. They are easy to install - no pipework, no moving parts, they come with brackets
2. They are easy to control - one thermostat rigged up to one circuit
3. You can move them if you want to change the design of the room
4. They blend in with the design of the room - they are designed to be discreet
5. The heat is instant - you can feel the infra red heat when you stand directly under the heater
6. There energy efficient and green - no harmful gases or emissions, perfectly safe
7. The infra red waves emitted from the heaters will be absorbed by the surfaces and the people within the room. It has been stated that the human body can absorb 98% of the infra red waves that are emitted from the heaters, meaning you can literally feel the heat from within and the heat will not go to waste.

In addition to using the infra red heaters, we also recommend using a high quality industrial fan heater to increase the ambient air temperature so that when people are walking in and out of the room, the air that has been heated can be maintained at the optimal temperature. The fan heater can be wall mounted or portable making it easy for you to control the temperature as the class is in full swing.







 The yogis will experience an all round feeling of wellbeing as their body warms under the infra red waves. The muscles will warm up and feel more supple allowing the client to move into deeper stretches earlier in the class. For those wishing to take their yoga practice further, performing yoga moves under the influence of infra heat can be very beneficial. Likewise for those just starting out, hot yoga can be a great introduction to the practice and may prove to reduce the chance of injury due to the muscles being warmer and more pliable at the beginning of the class.

Humidity: 

As the colder months get closer, it will be important to monitor the level of rH (relative humidity) in the room. In a nutshell, for humans the comfort level of rH is 40-60%. In countries where there is a lot of rainfall (like good old Blighty) there is less need to add humidity to achieve the above levels of rH. However, when the winter does strike and there is little rainfall, the rH of the air can drop to below 40% - without the humidity in the air, it can mean your clients may feel the dryness in their airways and complain of breathing problems.

Steam Humidifier

They may also complain of not sweating enough, or that it doesn't feel hot enough - the temperature may be high enough, but the added humidity is not there, making it feel cooler than it actually is. So, to combat this problem, simply add a steam humidifier that is capable of bringing the humidity back up to around 50% on the coldest and driest day of the year. In addition to the health benefits of using a humidifier for the room, it will also get people sweating sooner. The added humidity to the room means the sweat will not evaporate as quickly off the skin, and the body will be working even harder to push the sweat out from the limbs, through the skin.

The Room: 

The best and most effective type of room to use would be a room with no external walls, in order to keep the heat in. However, this would a be rare find, so we need to have a look at the shape of the room itself to maximise the performance of the hot yoga studio. Ideally, the room will be shaped like a box, have a ceiling height of betweem 2.1 and 3 metres with a hard floor to reflect the infra red waves from the heating panels. Any nooks and crannys should be covered up, sealed and boxed in if possible to allow for the heat to travel through the room, and heat all of the surfaces. Having windows can affect heat loss, unless they are triple glazed.

Sunrise Yoga - Ideal Room

Finding a suitable room to use for hot yoga can be difficult. The most important things to consider are the following:

1. Three Phase power supply is available
2. A D2 Planning Licence is in place
3. The Landlord has agreed to using it as a hot yoga studio

There are many calculations that are involved in specifying the type of heat recovery, heating and humidification needed for a successful installation. We have experience in providing tailored packages for hot yoga operators, so feel free to get in touch for a professional and accurate quotation.



Or, read this blog post outlining The House of Yoga and their new project: Read article

A few of our customers: