Infrared Heating Panels....Again!

aleph_0

MrInnovator wrote: »

Looking for useful input, not 'stick with gas' as a stock answer.

600 hrs a year of not having to have a gas boiler running sounds to me like it could save money. To progress we need to embrace change.

What about solar panels, ceiling mounting and use of tech?

I'd like to know others experience and thoughts on this.

But gas is roughly 1/3rd the price per kWh of electricity. It's not a dogmatic stock answer, but is a reasonable answer. You have to be making some *serious* savings in energy use to make a switch away worthwhile.

The programmable aspect you discuss can be achieved with *programmable* thermostatic radiator valves - so if you're thinking of cutting down usage by only heating the rooms you are using when you are using them, you need to consider this.

It's not that IR panels instantly heat the room, it's they heat things, so you can be in a cold room, but the IR panels make help to warm objects, like humans. This is why they are/were a popular solution for room being used for locations being used for a short period (playrooms, bathrooms) to provide a feeling of warmth in rooms cooler than the rest of the house, or as spot heating in outdoor-like areas to provide warmth to someone working.

Your example about having to wait for a room to heat up/cool down is misleading. If I was in a room/awake until 11pm, then I would turn the heating off by 10pm and would use the room as it was cooling down from the most comfortable temperature (unless, maybe, if I had guests ).

The thing is, even if you came here saying "I'm electric only, how shall I heat my house", people wouldn't start recommending IR heaters. First priority would be insulation (cavity/glazing/loft). After that might be being more selective about which areas you heat (which can be achieved with Gas Central Heating too), or other technologies such as ground-source or air-source heat pumps (which are, in some sense, actually more than 100% efficient).

These alternative electric solutions are still more expensive than a gas system, though.

If you're saying "I'm planning on living in a house with cold near outside-temperature air, with IR heaters used to try to make me feel warm", then you might save some money. Because you need to be using 2/3rd less kWh than you are at the moment to save money, and that's going to be hard compared to a well-managed/controlled gas system.

MrInnovator

Cardew wrote: »

Why have you quoted my post and then modified it?


I never stated:


'Thanks, I am going to give this a go and monitor it properly. Big challenge will be getting the wife to agree to a panel on the ceiling tho so aesthetics are a factor. I wonder what the price point is in that graph?'

So why have you attributed that statement to myself?

Apologies - error on my part, still getting used to the way the quote thing works - totally unintentional.

MrInnovator

lstar337 wrote: »

If the sun is shining, you would be better off using it direct by letting it through windows and trapping it in the material of the building.

Using PV solar to power heating would be beyond pointless, too many losses.

Don't know that I agree on the too many losses part given that the solar energy is free in the first place (though I accept the kit to capture the energy it is not). I'm just thinking that if you could use the two together you effectively transfer the suns heat to night when you need it most by storing energy in a battery system.

The reality is we have to get off fossil fuels in the long term so we need to start changing now and if we can find ways of doing this that make sound financial sense then why wouldn't we want to do it.

Also shining in through windows is only feasible if you have big windows pointing in the right direction. A luxury most people don't have.

aleph_0

MrInnovator wrote: »

Don't know that I agree on the too many losses part given that the solar energy is free in the first place (though I accept the kit to capture the energy it is not). I'm just thinking that if you could use the two together you effectively transfer the suns heat to night when you need it most by storing energy in a battery system.

The reality is we have to get off fossil fuels in the long term so we need to start changing now and if we can find ways of doing this that make sound financial sense then why wouldn't we want to do it.

Also shining in through windows is only feasible if you have big windows pointing in the right direction. A luxury most people don't have.

What's your aim here? Is it to save money, or save the environment? Unfortunately, they're not the same.

If it's to save money, then the best plan really is to stick with gas, and be more selective about what rooms get heated/when.

Even with solar panels, solar energy is not free, it'll be more cost-effective to export that high-grade energy back to the grid, and import low-grade gas for heat. (ok, I know potentially with the 50% assumed export it can be 'free', but that's just a loophole)

If we're talking about saving the environment, then you will probably firstly want to spend money making your house super-insulated, and invest in an air/ground source heat pump which will have a Coefficient of performance of at least 3 (essentially '300% efficient', your room will get 3 units of heat for every unit of electricity energy used).

Of course, heat pumps don't really make a good capital investment compared to the alternative of gas, but if the environment is your main concern, go for it!

Long-term, the National Grid will need more storage capacity. But in the short term, it makes sense to just export the electricity you've generated, and import when you need it, rather than storing yourself.

Cardew

aleph_0 wrote: »

If we're talking about saving the environment, then you will probably firstly want to spend money making your house super-insulated, and invest in an air/ground source heat pump which will have a Coefficient of performance of at least 3 (essentially '300% efficient', your room will get 3 units of heat for every unit of electricity energy used).

Of course, heat pumps don't really make a good capital investment compared to the alternative of gas, but if the environment is your main concern, go for it!

.

Agree with the thrust of your post, but would take issue with your statement about the achievable COP for heat pumps.


I don't know if you have been following the debate about heat pumps in various threads on MSE. The important point is that the Energy Saving Trust(EST) commissioned a 12 month trial of lots of houses with both air and ground heat pumps. The results were little short of a disaster!


So they allowed the various manufacturers to make 'interventions' to improve the performance and carried out a further 12 month trial. Some of these 'interventions' were major modifications - even a new heat pump in some cases.


After the further 12 month trial finishing last year - with manufacturers in attendance - the Average System Performance(i.e. COP of the whole system) was:


GSHP = 2.82 - the lowest being 1.6!!


ASHP = 2.45 the lowest being 2.0


It is reasonable to assume that many houses without the benefit of the manufacturers supervision over the trial period will achieve lower COPs than those above.


So your contention that heat pumps:


" will have a Coefficient of performance of at least 3 (essentially '300% efficient', your room will get 3 units of heat for every unit of electricity energy used)."


is not supportable IMO.


Quoting a COP of 'at least 3.0' is rather like quoting car manufacturers mpg figures - i.e. not achievable in practice.

lstar337

MrInnovator wrote: »

Don't know that I agree on the too many losses part given that the solar energy is free in the first place (though I accept the kit to capture the energy it is not).

There are huge (energy transfer) losses. PV solar is not very efficient at all. The conversion to electricity is pointless for the task of heating a home. While talking about cost, when you buy a PV panel, you are effectively just paying for your energy upfront, it is not 'free' in the true sense of the word.

MrInnovator wrote: »

I'm just thinking that if you could use the two together you effectively transfer the suns heat to night when you need it most by storing energy in a battery system.

Battery storage comes with its own huge losses, without mentioning the absolutely huge capacity you would require for heating.

A better prospect would be a thermal store. Power generated is immediately stored as heat to be released when required. I don't know enough about these to comment on capacity or efficiency issues they might have.

MrInnovator wrote: »

The reality is we have to get off fossil fuels in the long term so we need to start changing now and if we can find ways of doing this that make sound financial sense then why wouldn't we want to do it.

The trouble is that they rarely do make financial sense, it is normally a choice to save money or the environment.

MrInnovator wrote: »

Also shining in through windows is only feasible if you have big windows pointing in the right direction. A luxury most people don't have.

Windows maybe, but some part of your house will be pointing at the sun, and that will heat the fabric of the building. This process will yield a better result than any PV-->Battery-->Heater combination.

aleph_0

Cardew wrote: »

So your contention that heat pumps:


" will have a Coefficient of performance of at least 3 (essentially '300% efficient', your room will get 3 units of heat for every unit of electricity energy used)."


is not supportable IMO.

Ah, thanks for correcting me. I've read a little, and was aware of the risks that a badly designed/implemented system can end up with a bad CoP. But I wasn't aware that the real-world performance was dropping that far below the theoretical performance, and bad results in such a showcase are quite worrying. I should have quoted a lower number.

Dominic_Simonnet

I have read the above posts, and must say chaps you are completely missing the point of Infrared Heating, and yes i am from an infrared heating company Bee Infrared.

Just to clear a few points:-
1. Infrared heating panels wont effect your remote! lol
2. They wont give you cancer (read this on another post)
3. They supply a healthier heat as you are not using convection which picks up dust from the floor and passes it around the room as that is how convection heating works. So if you get sore throats, suffer from dust allergies both suffered when in a central heated home, then infrared will help a lot.

In reference to how effective they are:-
Its down to maths chaps.
The saving gained by switching to infrared heating is that you are no longer trying to heat the air in your home, you are heating objects which in turn radiate heat back. This is far more efficient as air cools very quickly and objects take longer and thus will be radiating heat back into a room.

Think of the sun heating the tarmac on roads, you get a heat haze due to the radiant heat put into the road from the sun, go back to the road after the sun goes down and it is still warm and radiating heat! The same principle applies to objects in your home.

Once the thermal mass of a room/building has been brought up to temperature then it is far more cost effective to maintain the heat as they are objects not thin air.

The British standard for working out how much convection heat is required to heat air in a room within a building is the following BTU calculation:-

Room Height x Room m2 x 156 / 3.142 = KW required to heat room

For example as above 110 m2 room with a 2.9m ceiling height results in the following:- 2.9m x 110 x 156 / 3.142 = 15.838KW

Using Infrared Heating we don’t need as much KW due to the fact we are not heating air but objects

Based on a room height being no greater than 2.99m the following calculation is what is required to heat a room with infrared:-

m2 x 50w = 5.5KW

So the saving is 10.338 KW based on a 110m2 house with ceiling height 2.9m

Additional Savings from ZONE HEATING.

Due to the fact that IR heating comes up to temperature very quickly you can shut down parts of your home until you need them thus providing you with more savings.

Hope this helps clear it up.

lstar337

Dominic_Simonnet wrote: »

They supply a healthier heat as you are not using convection which picks up dust from the floor and passes it around the room as that is how convection heating works.

Via dust circulation?

Dominic_Simonnet wrote: »

So if you get sore throats, suffer from dust allergies both suffered when in a central heated home, then infrared will help a lot.

Or you could clean your house, another healthy option.

Dominic_Simonnet wrote: »

In reference to how effective they are:-
Its down to maths chaps.
The saving gained by switching to infrared heating is that you are no longer trying to heat the air in your home, you are heating objects which in turn radiate heat back. This is far more efficient as air cools very quickly and objects take longer and thus will be radiating heat back into a room.

If the heat that I absorb is just as quickly radiated back out into the cold air filled room, where is the gain?

Dominic_Simonnet wrote: »

The British standard for working out how much convection heat is required to heat air in a room within a building is the following BTU calculation:-

Room Height x Room m2 x 156 / 3.142 = KW required to heat room

For example as above 110 m2 room with a 2.9m ceiling height results in the following:- 2.9m x 110 x 156 / 3.142 = 15.838KW

Using Infrared Heating we don’t need as much KW due to the fact we are not heating air but objects

Based on a room height being no greater than 2.99m the following calculation is what is required to heat a room with infrared:-

m2 x 50w = 5.5KW

So the saving is 10.338 KW based on a 110m2 house with ceiling height 2.9m

So we use a British Standard to work out the convection figures, what standard are we using for IR heating?

Even when you factor in your dubious figures and the cost of gas compared to electricity, gas would still be cheaper.

15kWh x 4.5p (for gas) = 67.5p

5.5kWh x 15p (for electric) = 82.5p

Dominic_Simonnet

In answer to your reply..

Via dust circulation? NO as that is not how infrared heating works, please see wikipedia.

Cleaning you house has nothing to do with it,....

We are talking on a micro level and as the convection process rotates the air around the room circulating, it is moving dust and drying out the air, this is why people suffer in central heated rooms. Infrared does not work this way.

You emmit around 100w of heat as you generate it from your body, a Wall in your home doesn't move, thus doesn't generate heat.The gain, is that when you convection heat a room it is doing so by heating air, air will not penetrate objects only heat the surface where as Infrared penetrates all objects and heats from within, this is exactly why INfrared was first commercially used to dry the paint on tanks in the war, as conventional methods was taking to long and we needed to get the tanks out on the battlefield.

Ref your calculations... you state...
15kWh x 4.5p (for gas) = 67.5p

5.5kWh x 15p (for electric) = 82.5p

Correct if we where measuring an electric convection heater against a convection gas heater.. but we are not we are measuring it against infrared, which penetrates your building and thus needs less time ON to keep it at the same temperature.

Hope this helps clear it up, on a personal note, i ran oil heating in my 4 bed house with single glazed windows for 2 years, when i purchased it my oil bill was £170 per month in the winter months. I switched to Infrared and my heating electric bill as measured is only £110 per month and another benefit is if my boiler breaks i get shouted at from the wife, if an infrared panel was to go down, i still have heating in all other rooms.

If you provide me your email addresses i will send you an independent report from a German university.

In the rest of Europe they have been using Infrared heating for sometime especially in Austria where it is the norm. Dont make the mistake of thinking its hype just because its new.