Is a Halogen or Ceramic heating more cost effective to run in a single room?

70sbudgie

I'm not surprised you react the way you do then, if that is your experience of FIR heating. I agree that their marketing and selling strategies have a bad reputation because that example is not unusual.

However, I have politely ignored the pushy sales staff (who got very excited about retro fitting my entire house) and decided to see for myself what they were like with a single panel on feet that I can move around. 

Like all technologies, application is very important. And I believe they do have a place in the energy saving arsenal, but probably a much more niche usage than their sales staff suggest.

Because they are a different technology to traditional electric panel heaters, when used appropriately, they can require less power to achieve the same comfort level. 

In my home office, a 300W panel, that is close to me works much better than a traditional 2kW direct electric heater and is much cheaper to run. But in my lounge, I calculated that gas would have to be at least 54% the cost per kWhr of electricity for the 700W FIR panel to be the more cost effective solution. And when I want my lounge heated, the gas to electricity cost difference is currently far too big.

They are a much more instant on/ off heat, so there is no way to time shift their input and output.

But at 300W, the small panel appears to be covered by my solar panels, even on a pretty dismal day. (Though not today!)

So if you think an FIR panel would meet your heating (and financial) requirements, I'd say don't be afraid of them. But, equally, do you own research and don't let pushy sales staff convince you that they are a magic bullet. And make sure you have the controls set up correctly, otherwise, like all direct electric heating, they will be expensive to run.

Edelman

The room in question is small.  maybe 8ft by 6ft... so the heater is normally no more than a metre from me.

My old little oil radiator was good, when the room got warm.  But I could have a room at is around 15-16C... and by 12pm, it is still not even near 19C with the oil one.

I tried the central heating this morning, the same issue.  I had it on with the thermo in the room, and it only raised by about 1 degree, in the space of 2 hours.  Now, it is only using abotu 100-150W... but is that still false energy?  2 hours... 1 degree.  Means it will take 3-4 hours to get to a comfy temp.

Whereas, my little ceramic one, with the fan, can get my thermo from 15C to 20C in about 30 minutes.  It seems to use about 1.3kw (got a smart meter).  So while it is using much more energy, it's not for a long time.  

I read there about once it's off it feels cold again.  Not really.  But I do know what you mean about the blowing of heat on the person........... then OFF the person.  It's a bit like walking from a warm shop to the cold.  You suddenly feel cold, even tho, really, it's only been about 3 seconds.

But, Kw/W and time... is it true that no matter what heating source you use, to get the room to a good temp uses roughly the same amount of energy?  Oil, Halo, Gas... based on how quick and efficient they are, vs comfort too.

matelodave

If a room needs 2kwh of heat to bring it up to a satisfactory temperature in one hour, then it really doesn't matter what sort of heating you use except that a 4kw heater should manage it in half an hour, a 2kw heater should take one hour and assuming that there's no appreciable heat loss from the room then a 1kwh heater will take 2 hours and a 500w will take four.

Potentially a 100watt lightbulb would manage it in 20 hours but they all use 2kwh and cost the same to achieve the desired temperature.

As Scotty in Star Trek used to say "ye cannae change the laws of physics)

Where the difference comes in is how you perceive the heating effect, as said above, an IR heater is like the sun, stand in front of it and you'll feel virtually instant warmth (although you back will be cold) similarly a fan heater blowing hot air at you will feel warm a lot faster than say a radiator or convector which heat the surrounding air by convection but they'll all use the same amount of energy to get the room up to the same temperature.