Infrared heating panels

rozkday

Has anyone bought one of those new glass heating panels and can you tell me if you found them more efficient in heating than other forms of electric heating, as I am considering buying one, but they are quite expensive ?

penrhyn

From the cheapest to the most expensive, all electric heaters are 100% efficient.

daveyjp

They are as "efficient" as a £10 fan heater. If any company claim their electrical heaters are more efficient than brand X they are being economical with the truth.

What brand are you looking at?

rozkday

Many thanks for your reply, according to the blurb, they are more effective because they heat objects (and people) in the room and not the air primarily, as with convection heat . Does anyone have these?:wave: PS the brand I am looking at is 'infranomic' there are other similar ones

Cardew

rozkday wrote: »

Many thanks for your reply, according to the blurb, they are more effective because they heat objects (and people) in the room and not the air primarily, as with convection heat . Does anyone have these?:wave: PS the brand I am looking at is 'infranomic' there are other similar ones

Lots of people have cheap infrared heaters, they have been in use for many years.

As said above they have exactly the same efficiency as any other electrical heater, and thus give out exactly the same amount of warmth as any other heater - for the same running cost.

Their main characteristic is they 'beam' the heat toward an object or person. Rather like a spotlight will illuminate an object but not give much light to the rest of the room.

That is why infrared heaters are often used for someone sitting at a bench in a cold garage, or even outside on a patio.

So they obviously have applications in the home and could be useful for someone, say, working at a desk and doesn't need the rest of the room heated.

Having read the website - and the German website - I can see no mention of prices.

With the presentation etc, the cynic in me suspects they will cost a lot more than the £20 infrared heaters you can readily buy!!

I wouldn't be surprised if they cost £hundreds!

gazapc

rozkday wrote: »

Many thanks for your reply, according to the blurb, they are more effective because they heat objects (and people) in the room and not the air primarily, as with convection heat . Does anyone have these?:wave: PS the brand I am looking at is 'infranomic' there are other similar ones

Underlined is true, read up on the difference between radiant and convector heaters.

If you live in a drafty house then it may be worth as with convection heaters the heated air is just blown away. What it probably won't do is heat the entire room so you might feel warm but step away from the heater and the temp will drop (+ could save money by just heating a smaller required area ie. you. but - is that it won't make the whole room warm).

But as mentioned above, electrical heating is 100% efficient.

jwdale80

Hi, I have 2 of these panels. My 550 watt panel gives a lovely comforting heat in the small bedroom, and provided its fully thermostatically controlled, it has been using only 2-3 units per day. The 2 kw one uses around 6-8 units when maintaining decent temperatures for 8 hours a day, for a room 40m3. What these companies appear to be saying is not "we can do better than 100% efficiency". What they are saying is that "all other forms of heating wastes heat!", wasting it through the creation of heat layers when warming air. Considering that electric heating is 3 times more than Gas, wasting heat in any particular way would be highly undesireable.
So thats the theory, but no deffinite evidence that the theory works appears to exist other than apparent 'trials'. I don't find them very expensive to run, though this could simply be down to factors such as- the amount of space to be heated, the controlability factor, or the fact that it 'beams heat', rather than heating the entire room (though this has not caused any uncomfortable coldness in any other part of the room).
One thing I can tell you is that if you go to stores such as Amazon, people who have purchased cheaper portable panels 'love them', even though they are slightly more expensive than other types of heater (though still considerably less than bigger companies). No one really talks about efficiency, and neither do the companies that make cheaper pannels. I would consider getting 1 with a decent thermostatic controller, and see how it goes. I love my pannels, but I still carefully program them both to avoid too much of a sting from the electric bill.

Richie-from-the-Boro

rozkday wrote: »

Many thanks for your reply, according to the blurb, they are more effective because they heat objects (and people) in the room and not the air primarily, as with convection heat . Does anyone have these?:wave: PS the brand I am looking at is 'infranomic' there are other similar ones

- read #38 & #40
- then come back & ask questions

Cardew

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

- read #38 & #40
- then come back & ask questions

His post is 2 years old;)

Richie-from-the-Boro

Cardew wrote: »

His post is 2 years old;)

Ta M8 .. .. so its jwdale80 Today, 4:45 AM again, my bad for not checking dates.

fishybusiness

can you tell me if you found them more efficient in heating

I wouldn't try and compare 'efficiency' of infrared panels and other electrical heating systems. Following on, I wouldn't recommend taking onboard the manufacturers claims of efficiency either. They use too many assumptions, often based on house structures we do not have in our country, to create totally meaningless savings.

I have 2 panels also and agree with jwdale80.

If you do consider buying panels, do think about buying timer/thermostats too. You need the ones that are usually used for underfloor heating rather than standard central heating stats.

Also, I believe the glass fronted panels are expensive - £400 plus, there are plenty out there much cheaper.