Hi all - I've been using a slow cooker while practicing & completing my hot stone case studies, and found it very difficult to control the temperature to a constant working temp.
I've decided now to purchase a "proper" hot stone heater, which needs to be thermostatically controlled and maintain a constant temp all the way thru the treatment plus accomodate 50 stones easily.
Can experienced therapists offer me their advice? I've seen the Affinity heater, which altho pricey seems to get good reviews. I'm happy to pay for a product that does the job :).
Look forward to hearing from fellow healthy pagers! cheers, Janice x
I got mine from Ellisons about 6 years ago and its still going strong. I paid about £350 then for the whole set and I know that the prices have come down considerably since then.
I think you get 59 stones in the set, with thermometer, gloves, spoon and netting, but I am sure you can buy the heater alone, but you definetly need a thermometer also.
I turn my dial to full for 8-10 minutes (pre-heat) then down to low and it generally goes to 120 degrees, but sometimes the stones react differently and the temperature is higher or lower, so you can tweak it everso gently and know with confidence what the temperature is by checking your thermometer.
If the Affinity heater is the smallishish one discussed before, depending on your stones, it probably won't hold 50 stones if you use decent sized stones.
I use a 13.5l heater, and I think the round Affinity one discussed before was only 6.8l, unless you are mainly using pebbles, it won't hold 50.
I use a 6.5l Spa Pro stone heater for mobile work and only fit one big belly stone and about 10 normal sized pairs in it. I get more than 50 stones in my 13.5l heater (belly sized down to toe stones)
Hi, I was talking to the lady who runs LaStone in Ireland and she was saying that the insurers Balens were thinking of only insuring the one that they recommend as it has a built in thermostat in it. (its very pricey) Apparently there have been a few claims for burns in the last while. I have the large spa pro (plenty of room for all the stones) but as I haven't been doing that much La Stone work I haven't really got used to it yet. If anyone has operating instructions I would appreciate a copy. I think it is recommended that you use a separate thermostat if the machine doesn't have one.
Regards Aroma Amethyst
I've just ordered my kit from here:
They seem to be selling the same kit as everyone else.
Myarka.
PS I'm nothing to do with them and I haven't received my goods yet. So I'll let you know when they arrive.
Those heaters on the hotstones.co.uk site are Spa Pro copies, they're actually pretty good, a bit more light weight, but fine, I find the large one is actually less bulky than the Spa Pro one and easier to handle.
Re the built in thermostat, they've all got thermostats, even a rice cooker has a thermostat, but a rice cooker has the thermostat set at the wrong temperature for using for hot stones safely. I think the Irish heaters mentioned have a digital thermostat, that's probably what they meant, not just a thermostat. I'm quite happy with my non-digital thermostat heaters with a digital thermometer in the water to keep an eye on it. I've used some digital thermostat heaters in the past and the temp on the display screen and the temp of the stones didn't actually match, the stones were cooler.
I got my from the tao of books and they also have an ebay shop called bodyworkzone.
Hi there 🙂 Here's another option that might be worth a look...