loft insulation and far infrared heating

tosker

I live in a very tiny stone-walled single story cottage, and have used a multi-fuel stove as my main heating for 20 odd years. The loft joists are boarded over, and the boards are bonded to the ceiling below, and I have never bothered about insulation as there is no thermostat with a stove, so no savings to be made.

Now I am thinking of replacing the stove with far infrared heating panels, so would then have thermostatically controlled heating, but am I right in thinking that as these panels heat solid objects rather than the air, loft insulation would still not be a cost saver?

There is a lot of mess in the loft, accessed through the only bedroom, and I really want to avoid having to empty it, but will if it would really make a difference.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Cardew

If you consume xkWh in a room, derived from any form of electrical heating, the room will heat up by exactly the same temperature. Therefore you should take the same steps to prevent that heat escaping.

tosker

but it's my understanding that far infrared panels do not heat the room, but only the solid objects the heat reaches, so there is no hot air to rise into the loft

is this not correct then?

Ectophile

If the air in the room is freezing cold, then everything in the room that is warmed by the heaters will simply lose their heat to the cold air.

And what temperature do you think the thermostat is going to be measuring?

Cardew

tosker wrote: »

but it's my understanding that far infrared panels do not heat the room, but only the solid objects the heat reaches, so there is no hot air to rise into the loft

is this not correct then?

There are several threads and many posts about IR heating which I suggest you search for and read.

These heaters are often marketed as if they give out more heat for the same consumption of electricity and they simply do not. ALL electrical heating is 100% efficient and, as stated earlier, x kWh used in a room by these heaters produces exactly the same amount of heat as any other electrical heater.

That is not to say these IR heaters don't have their uses. They have been around for many years as they can 'direct' almost instant heat at a person. Before the days of central heating they were used in bathrooms, or for a person sitting at a bench in an unheated garage.

If you are interested in using them throughout your property I suggest you buy one for a few pounds at Argos or similar and try it out. Some of the prices of IR panels are just a joke.

G_M

tosker wrote: »

I live in a very tiny stone-walled single story cottage, and have used a multi-fuel stove as my main heating for 20 odd years. The loft joists are boarded over, and the boards are bonded to the ceiling below, and I have never bothered about insulation as there is no thermostat with a stove, so no savings to be made.
.

What a wierd sense of logic!

Without insulation, hot air will rise into the attic and be lost. The room will get colder. This will happen whether or not there is a thermostat fitted!

If the room gets colder, either
* you will feel colder or
* you'll put another log on the fire

If you'd had insulation you could have either
* felt warmer or
* saved the log for later.

The thermostat is neither here nor (apparantly) there.