Kiuas Dry Sauna

Used the infrared box at my gym for about a year and always came out feeling like I'd been sitting in a warm car. This is a different animal. Proper dry heat, sweat starts before you've settled in. Wish I'd stopped paying that membership sooner.

We had a steam pod thing off one of those online sales, the sort where you sit with your head poking out the top. Never got past lukewarm. This is a different class, properly hot and dry as anything. The only thing I'd flag is the warm up. In our laundry it's a good twenty minutes before I'd bother getting in, closer to twenty five on a cold morning.

Wife bought it. I told her she'd bought a very expensive tent and that I'd never get in it. I'm in it more than she is now and she keeps reminding me. Should have kept my mouth shut.

Housemate ordered it without asking and I was ropeable about losing the corner of the lounge. Few weeks on I'm the one texting to ask if she's using it tonight. It also comes down when we've got people over, which was my other worry.

Bought this back in March after a mate up in the Hills had one going at his place. Most weeknights ever since, which surprised me, because there's a rowing machine in the same room I've barely touched since we moved in.

What makes it stick is how little there is to do. Switch it on, go hang the washing out, come back and it's ready. No filling it, no draining it.

The novelty wore off after a few weeks and then it just became the thing I do after work before dinner. The knee that plays up in the cold has been quieter, could be this, could be that I stopped running on the footpath. Either way I'm still at it in the middle of winter, which is more than I can say for most things I've bought online.

Winter in Hobart, so this thing has earned its keep. Started using it in April and I'm still on it nearly every day. The chair is basic... I sit on a folded towel and it's fine. Goes away in the cupboard when the in laws come.

Near enough daily since February and it's held up. Frame's still tight and the tent zips like it did on day one. My grumble is the seating. You're sat upright on a small chair with not much room to shift about, so after a while my lower back starts letting me know. I've taken to jamming a rolled towel behind me which sorts it. Everything else has been better than I expected for what it cost.

It does what it says and I use it most days, so this isn't me having a whinge for the sake of it. Two things though. In an unheated garage up here in June you're waiting a good twenty five minutes before it's worth getting in, sometimes more. And the tent gets genuinely hot to the touch near the element, hot enough that I'm careful where I lean and I wouldn't leave a kid unsupervised anywhere near it. Both fine once you know. I just didn't know.