Q. What is the difference between the sauna and the Russian bath - banya?
A. The Russian banya has nothing to do with the Finnish sauna, unless we take into account that both have heat.
First of all, the temperature in the banya is not allowed more than 75°С, at the same time the humidity may reach 70 %, which is otherwise in the sauna, where there temperature may reach 130°С while the humidity does not exceed 5-10%.
Secondly, the Russian banya does not allow any exhaust ventilation – otherwise all the salubrious vapour will be released. As for the sauna though, it is merely impossible to stay in it without the exhaust ventilation, as the heat would be simply unbearable.
In the sauna, the person sweats due to high temperature, having his or her body system heated only superficially, for you can hardly remain there for long, whereas in the Russian banya your body gets heated to the bones, due to the steam and the bunch of twigs, normally of birch, used to slash the body.
The human body experiences a stress in the sauna, since neither the temperature, nor the humidity are comfortable for the person. On the contrary, the Russian steam bath’s humidity is like outside (60-70%), and the temperature is not too high. The heating is done mainly through the steam. As is known, steam is a heat conductor – it heats the body to the bones, that is why the Russian steam bath is considerably better for health.

Q. If the cold air blows around the stove reversely, will the parilka (steam room) be warmed in this case?
A. We tried to cool the walls of the stone stove as much as possible, because in the Russian banya, it is essential not to overheat the indoor space. It’s ideal when the temperature in the steam room is 50°C and the stone fill in the stove reaches 500°C, which is not at all easy to achieve. If someone is used to harm his body system when the temperature is 120°C, it’s possible to open the lower ashpit during the stoking, and the boost air charging will partially blow about 400°C into the steam room thus creating heat there in just ten minutes.

Q. What is the boost air charging needed for?
A. It is required to cool the stone stove walls and increase the temperature of the flame, which gets the efficiency higher. Also, what’s important, oxygen is not burned out, since the air is supplied from outside.

Q. Why do you think an ideal steam room should be revetted – faced with stones?
A. There are three advantages unattainable in a wooden steam room:
1. Steam is absorbed in the wood, which means that in one or two minutes steams penetrates the slots, pores and microcracks, thus holding only for a short period of time, so that one has to pour pails of water into the stone stove. Our steam room is hermetically sealed and we can achieve a “vacuum” effect. We only boost the hot air, and the air is sucked out only when the door opens;
2. The heavy weight helps hold the temperature ideally, that is it virtually impossible to overheat the steam room – the five to ten tones of stone absorb the excessive heat and then gradually give it back;
3. When using our stone steam room we achieve the utmost salubrious effect, because the tonnes of jadeite when heated emit the metasilicic acid (H2SiO3), ions of sodium and some microelements, among them zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), selenium (Se), silver (Ag) and others – nearly 60 as a whole, which when absorbed with the air breathed in or through the skin, get into the blood flow. When reaching the cerebral cortex, the ions normalize the central and vegetative nervous systems, the functions of the endocrine glands, and has an anti-inflammatory effect and inhibits bacterial growth.

Q. Why is the Russian banya better for health and more preferable for the human body system?
A. Despite all the benefits of taking a sauna or a bath, the organism experiences stress from the temperature drop and humidity. When in the sauna mode, the temperature exceeds 100°C, while humidity is not more than 20 %, and not every person can stand it. It is all different in the Russian steam room, where humidity does not differ from what is normal outside ranging from 40 to 70 %, and temperature being not too high, normally not more than 70°C, therefore the Russian banya has a health-improving effect. It’s best to compare the sauna and banya with baking bread. With the high temperature, the crust of the bread gets burnt, while the crumb, the soft part, will not have time to get baked properly. That is why in the banya, the person gets heated to the bones, not only due to the sparing temperatures, but also humidity, since steam is a good heat conductor.

Q. If the stones are red-hot, then the aromatic oils that get on them burn out. How can the fragrance of herbs be achieved in the steam room in this case?

A. It is necessary to feed only pure water into the reactor, in order to obtain overheated, or “easy”, steam, in parallel. You can splash the herbal potion or essential oils on the jadeite facing of the Mironoff M3 stone stove (with the jadeite temperature not more than 150°C there). As a result, you get high-quality “easy steam”, with the salubrious aromas and without burning.

Q. Why do you offer stoves of only one type, while all consumers may all have various steam rooms?
A. Thanks to regulated supply of air and fuel, Mironoff M3 can create different bath modes – Russian, Finnish, Turkish etc., and it makes no difference what area your steam room has. It may vary from 4 m2 to 40 m2. The stove may occupy less than one sq.m and weigh more than two tonnes. As they say, good reserve has never been useless, and there will be no excessive heating, either on the small area or big.

Q. Why does the stone stove Mironoff M3 excel all metallic and brick stoves in steam quality?
A. When water falls on the burning hot surface, it results in a mini-explosion, thereby the water turns into the mix of air and drips of water. The higher the temperature of the surface is, the smaller the drips are. The inside filling of the stone stove Mironoff M3 can be heated to the temperature of more that 500°C, and the diameter of the discharge outlet in the reactor is 50 mm, which allows to increase the internal pressure in the reactor up to 30 atm. Under such pressure, air and water are being mixed at the molecular level, and it allows receiving fine-dispersed, superheated “light” steam, which can be received neither in brick nor in metallic stoves.

Q. Why does your stone stove produce more cubes of steam than any other stove?
A. Any explosion, whether it be an explosion of trotyl or instantaneous production of steam, generates equal pressure in all directions. To receive steam in a brick stove, it is necessary to open the stove door and to pour some water upon the hot surface. The water, being poured on the hot stones, turns into steam, but only about 30% of the produced steam goes to the steam room, the rest strikes against the internal walls, goes out through the seams and microcracks in bricks, or in other words, goes up the spout and through the ashpit, destroying the bricks. That is why in bricks stoves it is necessary to use a lot of water. In the stone stove Mironoff M3, the self-contained cast-iron reactor with the only hole with diameter 50 mm is installed; the width of its walls is 20 mm, which allows withstanding of the high pressure. The steam has no other way to go but the steam room, and dozens of cubes of the fine-dispersed steam go right where they are required to go, admiring even the most experienced lovers of bath with steam room.

Q. Why do you recommend to make the ceiling in the steam room not less than  2.5 metres?
A. When one pours some water onto the stones, fumes of steam immediately head up, and its thickness beneath the ceiling reaches a meter and more, and this means that in a low room the man's head will be submitted into the heart of the steam layer, the man will feel discomfort. In Russian banya, a factor of primary importance is sufficient quantity of vapour, so the higher is the ceiling the more steam can be saved beneath it. One may then only pour the vapour with the help of birch bunch and enjoy.

Q. Why the oven made of 20X23H18 steel costs 50% more than an oven made of stainless AISI430 12X17 steel?
A. 20X23H18 - is a heat-resistant stainless steel that is used at the most important places in blast furnaces, where it should withstand high temperatures and aggressive environments.  Due to high content of nickel the price of this type of steel exceeds 400 rubles per kilo. For instance: usual chrome-rich stainless steel (the one other banya producers made their ovens of) costs 70 rubles per kilo; and this is 6 times as less than 20X23H18.  That's why our ovens made of this steel cost 50% more expensive, but the life of this oven isn't limited.