The pandemic has taught us a lot over the past 18 months. One of the most important things we have learned is how to be flexible and adapt to what’s happening in our world. This is exactly what yogis all across the world have done to make sure they got their hot yoga fix while all of the hot yoga studios were shut down and at reduced capacity.
Because of the pandemic, the popularity of home hot yoga boomed and became a huge hit! In order to better serve our customers, we continued to innovate and launched our plug-in hot yoga heater as well as a variety of other home hot yoga packages which let yogis bring the hot yoga studio into the comfort of their own home. Our heaters were even featured in New York Magazine!
There are many things to consider when outfitting your home hot yoga studio with our infrared heating panels. In this in-depth article, we will go over everything you need to know about heating your home for hot yoga.
1. Choose Your Room
Common places where our customers have installed heaters for their home hot yoga rooms have been in their garages, basements, attics, sunrooms, spare bedrooms, and even bathrooms. Below are some photos for inspiration!
2. Analyze the Envelope of your Home Hot Yoga Room
This is the square footage, ceiling height, insulation, windows, and anything else in the room which affects the heat retention. We want to make sure there are little to all other factors being equal, a room that has less square footage will require fewer infrared heaters (less wattage) to reach a hot yoga temperature.
For example, to heat a 200sq ft home hot yoga studio will require about 6,000W to go to 100-105+ whereas a 100sq ft studio will only require 3,000W. If you think of your space like a bathtub where your room is the tub, the water is the heat, and the drain are the single-pane windows, air vents, gaps under doors, and poorly insulated walls where heat can escape. In order to get your room to your desired temperature, you need to make sure that heat cannot escape easily from these places in your chosen room.
A less insulated garage with concrete floors and single pane windows will require more heaters and a longer time to get to your desired temperature due to heat loss and the thermal density of the concrete floors. We recommend choosing rooms that are smaller in square footage, with well-insulated walls, triple pane windows, and vinyl flooring.
When evaluating your budget for purchasing an infrared heating system for your home hot yoga room, the envelope of the room is the biggest factor that will influence how much heat is needed.
3. Power requirements
To heat a spare bedroom (~100sq ft) to a hot yoga temperature requires more power than you can plug in to outlets. The limitation for plug-in options is ~1,500W which is about as much power as a hair dryer. To reach a hot yoga temperature of 100-105 degrees in an average insulated 100sq ft space requires 3,000W. Why not use (2) 1,500W plug-ins? The reason is that it will trip the breaker in your electrical panel, it’s too much power and overloads the circuit.
The way that the infrared system is installed is with new wiring on a 240V circuit. This is the same voltage that a clothes dryer or electric stove operates at. Every home in the US has 240V available, and this is what is needed to provide adequate power for your infrared system in your home hot yoga room. You can learn more about installation FAQ here, and we’re always available as a resource if you or your installer have any questions.
4. Choose and Order Your Heaters
Based on your room size and power capabilities in your home hot yoga room, you can now choose the heaters that will be right for you. Heating Green has a variety of different packages you can choose from based on the envelope of your space.
Anything from wall or ceiling mounted as well as plug-in options are available. Below are some popular picks! Keep in mind that we can customize a package for any room and that every room is different. If you have any questions at all, feel free to contact us.
5. Additional ideas on how to create that hot yoga ambiance.
In addition to the benefits of infrared heat, some home studios like to add additional options to enhance the ambiance of their home hot yoga studio.
A common addition is a plug-in humidifier to increase the humidity level of the room. This is more common for the Bikram 26/2 style of yoga than it is for Vinyasa. It also can depend on your climate i.e. if you experience cold, dry winters, a humidifier can help balance out the humidity level.
Another option that home hot yoga studios add is an insulated floor which has a bit more give to it than a traditional hardwood floor. Our favorite is a Fuji Floor Tile with the 3/4″ high-density option.
We recommend making this space a place where you can relax and unwind after a long day. Our customers have created some amazing spaces over the years. Everything from plants, essential oil diffusers, salt lamps, cedar plank tongue-and-groove ceilings, and pops of energizing color. Check out our Pinterest board for more ideas!
You can learn more about the features and benefits of our infrared heating systems in our Yoga Studio Guide, and if you’re unfamiliar with what infrared heat feels like, here’s a map with some of the 1,000+ commercial studios that use our infrared systems. Feel free to visit a studio in your area to feel what the heat is like.
We use the same commercial-grade infrared heaters for home hot yoga studios, and you can learn more about the difference they create here. We’re here as a resource to answer any questions and help make your home yoga studio a reality. Contact us at sales@heatinggreen.com or 360-715-4328 to learn more.
Written by Jeff Abel, Vice President of Sales, Heating Green
