Infrared Heating Panels

Richie-from-the-Boro

long_pockets wrote: »

No I have no NSH, just know a few people with them, was just interested to know about alternatives and also intrigued by the Mother-in-law's use of a small radiant panel heater.

I'm an engineer so logic always has to prevail, I just can't get my head around why 160w gives her the same comfort level as 1.5KW, perhaps it's just as simple as all the warm air keeps going out the back door with the dog?

Or she could just be lying to me :-)

I contacted the company and got all the usual marketing BS, about being able to solve the world poverty crisis to curing gonorrhoea.

just asking around to see if anyone else is using this with similar results.

I just can't get my head around why 160w gives her the same comfort level as 1.5KW

- you said in an earlier [#90] thread the 1.5KW IR was secondary heating used for 12 hours a day !

#90 - the gas heating is still on and she still puts the gas fire on occasionally, but she now says she's warm and the gas fire no longer gets put on as often as it used to. The heater is only 160w she keeps it on all day from about 8 in the morning until about 8 at night, it's on a stand and angled upward at about 10 degrees the area is about 2mtr x 3mtr and the surface temperature although warm is touchable probably about 70c.

long_pockets

Yes but she was using a 1.5KW halogen heater for the same purpose in the same place, this broke twice (cheap Chinese thing) in the same month.

So no Idea why she gets the same comfort feeling, she's not sat anywhere near it it's just used to warm that area, she's sat at the other end of the room, but what she has said is "there is not so much of a draft"

Any Ideas??

lstar337

long_pockets wrote: »

many thanks for your comments and information istar337, can I assume you are in the heating business?

Nope, not at all.

I'm an electronics engineer working for a company that makes specialised camera systems for the scientific and nuclear industry.

MSE was/is very helpful to me, so where I can I like to give back and hope I am as helpful to others as they have been to me.

long_pockets

Perhaps she was sat in a convection current with cold air flowing over her feet? a bigger heat source creates more air movement, so the smaller heat source creates less, perhaps that's all it is?

lstar337

long_pockets wrote: »

So no Idea why she gets the same comfort feeling, she's not sat anywhere near it it's just used to warm that area, she's sat at the other end of the room, but what she has said is "there is not so much of a draft"

Any Ideas??

If she isn't sat anywhere near it, then I have to go back to my previous thoughts:

It could just be that she thinks it is making a difference therefore she feels it. Kind of a placebo effect.

Tbh, it's the only explanation that makes any sense to me. Other than that it could just be a fluctuation in the outside temperature.

long_pockets

lstar337 wrote: »

Nope, not at all.

I'm an electronics engineer working for a company that makes specialised camera systems for the scientific and nuclear industry.

MSE was/is very helpful to me, so where I can I like to give back and hope I am as helpful to others as they have been to me.

Interesting field of work, I worked for many years in electronic braking development, collision avoidance, VDC, ABS etc.. that was interesting.

I'm now an independent engineering consultant (so sort of self unemployed) :-) semi retired.

Cardew

LisaLJ wrote: »

Hi,

Not sure if this is in the right place but here goes....

I stumbled across a website selling Infrared Heating Panels the other day and was wondering if anybody here knew anything about them? Are they really a lot cheaper to run than "normal" electric heaters and do you get the same (heat) benefit from them?

Here's a website showing what I mean. Website is just an example and not linked for any particular reason. Just found out I can't have links in my posts at the moment because I'm a newbie, so cut and paste!: -

funkyheat.co.uk/infrared-heating

I live in a flat that just has electric heaters, so I am always looking for ways to lessen the cost of heating the place.

We should go back to post #1 of this thread and look at this link.


http://www.funkyheat.co.uk/infrared-heating/


You will see in the comparisons table that the annual cost to heat a 20m3 room is £46.20 with infra-red against £275.52 with an oil filled electric heater.


The clear implication is that an oil filled rad is 6 times more expensive to run than IR.


One wonders about the relevance of a 20m3 room - given no inside or outside temperatures are mentioned.

fishybusiness

Infrared isn't the 'plug and play' option those websites will have you believe.

Do Infrared heating panels work? Yes of course they do, they produce heat energy.

Are they better than other forms of heating? Perhaps both scientific and subjective views all valid.

Buying an Infrared panel for one room of a home is not financially or practically viable.

If a home is heated conventionally i.e. the air is heated, and infrared is used in one room to heat objects, there is a conflict in how the heat is produced and distributed. Add in to the mix timers and Infrared panel thermostats that still measure air temperature for control and it is somewhat a recipe for disaster.

Infrared panel manufacturers recommend the ceiling as the best mounting point to give most spread of heat to objects - many websites do not mention that.

Given room sizes of perhaps 3m long /wide and above, mounting panels on walls necessitates using more than one panel. Increased cost, wiring and thermostat considerations start to get more complicated, and for what?

In the right house, as a project for the whole house, IMO IR panels can be an interesting and maybe cost saving choice in the long term, but for one room additional heating can be sourced much more cheaply.

stator

I do find it rather odd, the idea of sitting in a room and feeling yourself being heated from the top of your head.

Cardew

fishybusiness wrote: »

Buying an Infrared panel for one room of a home is not financially or practically viable.

Sorry to disagree yet again!


However IMO the best use for an IR heater is as an option where 'directed heat' is required for a single person,


As mentioned earlier, they were very common in unheated bathrooms, Something like this:


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Traditional-Infra-red-Bathroom-Heater-1500W/dp/B004TC5Y1A/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1421264833&sr=8-5&keywords=heater+infrared


They could also be used for someone sitting at a bench in an unheated garage.


The above costs £31 and has 500W/1000W/1,500W settings; or you could pay 10, 20 or 30 times more for a fancy IR panel.