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Comment by stevekemp | Hacker News Reader

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The delta here is your understanding of what a sauna is (or your understanding of the definitions involved), not the reality of what a sauna is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna#Modern_saunas

> In a typical Finnish sauna, the temperature of the air, the room, and the benches are above the dew point even when water is thrown on the hot stones and vaporized. Thus, they remain dry. In contrast, the sauna bathers are at about 60–80 °C (140–176 °F), which is below the dew point, so that water is condensed on the bathers' skin. This process releases heat and makes the steam feel hot.

This just means the surfaces are dry. The commenter said the air is not dry.

Putting water on hot stones in a sauna does not raise the humidity nearly as much as you think it does.

Sounds like it doesn't have to be wet to be a sauna.

> A sauna is a room or building designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions or an establishment with one or more of these facilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna

There are different kinds of saunas. Nobody gets into a 90c humid sauna, that would just kill you.

Oh I can assure you, millions people in the northern europe do exactly this ;)

EDIT: I guess it depends on your definition of "humid". But 90C and regular water infusions are pretty common sauna conditions.

I mean yes it depends on your definition of humid but if your definition of humid is under 20% RH then that's not in agreement with any other humans on the planet and if it's over 50% RH then no, millions of people are not doing this because they would die. Our bedroom is at 50% RH because under that our baby's skin dries out. There's no way anyone is sitting in a 90 C 50% RH sauna for any appreciable amount of time. They would die.

I guess I am a revenant - I get into one regularly in my basement.

Haha no, I been in 90c saunas many times. Can I stay there for a long time? Heck no. But some people can and it doesn’t kill you (maybe if you have some preexisting condition)

the point is the humidity. hot saunas need to be relatively dry otherwise your sweat won't evaporate.

No, it seems saunas have very low relative humidity except for briefly after you splash the hot rocks. "Relative" is the key term there: the absolute humidity is high, but the hot air can accept much more H20 and it will suck moisture off your body. So it is a dry environment according to humans.

According to this company plus some sketchy math I just did, the relative humidity can swing between 15% and 40%: all over the place, but generally pretty dry. https://www.vaisala.com/en/blog/2024-12/can-you-handle-heat-...

Yeah, I’ve taken hundreds of (Finnish) saunas (both electric and woodfired) and they all have one thing in common: they’re dry. It’s a bit more humid when you throw water on the rocks, but it generally stays between 10-40% RH. This is a good thing, as 90% RH at 90C would be uncomfortable to say the least.

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