When lockdown first began, one of the things that I missed the most was going to my local hot yoga studio for exercise.
- I was fortunate that many of my teachers began teaching classes online via zoom, but it was not the same without the added heat.
The heat in a hot yoga class provides many benefits, such as increased flexibility, reduced inflammation, and extra calories burned. When I attempted doing yoga without the heat, I didn’t feel as flexible as I normally did, and I didn’t feel like I got as good of a workout. Using my central HVAC system to heat yoga sessions would add commas to my energy bill, but standard home furnaces aren’t meant to handle the desired temperatures for hot yoga (over 100 degrees fahrenheit), plus, I didn’t want to heat up my entire house for a 90 minute workout. I decided to buy a portable space heater for my yoga room. There are a few main types of space heater available, all with their own benefits. Ceramic forced air heaters heat up quickly, but tend to be a little noisy, as they use a fan to circulate air over heated ceramic coils. OIl filled space heaters are quieter, as they don’t contain any fans, but they can take a while to heat up and circulate the hot oil around the unit. I decided to purchase a radiant heater, as they are the most quiet, and the most energy efficient out of the options I explored. Now that I have my own hot yoga room, I can practice whenever I want without having to heat up the entire house and raise my energy bill in the process.
Geo heat pump