Infra Red electric wall heaters, any good?

Is anyone using Infrared heaters in their home, what are your thoughts?

just thought I would give an update on my IR radiators now that they are in use and we have moved in. To summarise we have 5 ceiling mounted plain panels - 4 in bedrooms and one in the children's play room and 3 wall-mounted decorative panels in our living space. The ceiling mounted ones are fine - discrete and do the job and obviously surface temperature is not an issue.

The decorative ones are beautiful and as I hoped blend into the background and do not look like heating - the one comment is that the mirror effect is a but smoked mirror. None of them heat right to the edge which would help with accidental touching. Although they are hot to the touch they don't burn. You just move your hand swiftly away. It is actually really pleasant to walk past one of them and get a whiff of warm air. They are also mounted relatively high which also means that you don't touch them really and are safe for small children. This has been echoed by friends that helped us move in - "vous chauffez comment? Eh purée!"

They moved the overall temperature of the (newbuild) house up by 2 degrees in 3 days and have dropped the humidity by 30% in a week. We are currently on a cosy 21 degrees constantly but are trying to work out how long it takes to come up to temperature so that we can drop it at night and during the day.

James a quick note on induction. I have never used it before - it took me 2 meals to adjust and I would never go back.

Sorry, meant in the sense of cleaning them when they are not on but missed half the sentence. What my friends were comparing with is most other heaters that get full of dust and whatever that usually smells even if you vacuum cleaning it away before using them. These things are supposedly scratch proof but they are not out to test that as far as I know. When they are on, the surface temperature is pretty high which makes it good that they are mounted high.

How about the surface temp, you said touching them was ok? blurb states surface temp of 85-100 deg C, any thoughts?

We have no opportunity of trying water but it will be interesting to see how our friends' scheme works out. The husband is an electrician, does industrial installations rather than domestic work, and has been very much involved with the other couple going off mains power project. At first he was sceptical but now the two couples are on a par with each other. Seeing the sauna and now having seen their i-r panels, which are what I would describe as clear glass, and how they look properly installed as well as the feel, I am more impressed. I found it strange that several of the companies selling them showed the panels mounted high on a wall in a smart room, then there was a cable dangling down to a point just above floor level! With better installations they look fine. Touching them is fine too. I would like to know more than he explained about it, thus far I know the radiation is beneficial generally rather than harmful but in the long term? Things like that. He also explained that the prices have dropped by around 50% from when they were installing them in industrial buildings in the Paris region before they moved here six years ago. Mind you, he said that the cheaper Chinese models are not very well examined anywhere so whilst he has not heard negative reports simply pay a little more and buy European made ones. The usual format, I guess.

Thanks for the report Brian, I'll start on it when I have a few mins spare. Water power, love it, loads of good generators out there, fun and money saving!

Now we're getting hot! We decided to have a look at some friends' i-r panel heating. When they bought several of them they were offered a discount on further purchases. So they chose a sauna for a couple of k. I-r too. We were only passing by so did not stay long enough to have a go. They say that having had it for 16 months, having used it at least once a week (two people at a time) it has not made a big dent in their power bill.

I wish we had some money to spend! They spent less than €2k for the whole house and their guest house outside plus around the same on the sauna. Total bill somewhere under 4k. They are following the lead of other friends and going power independent with pv and solar but also have a small stream about 8m from the house where they have permission to put in a turbine already because there is an old mill pond with a lock and drop they can convert. Their guesstimate is going down to zero power bills in two years plus having an ambient 30° (a bit too much for us to ever dream of) heating and a log burner for winter boosts and looking 'good'.

No problem and with your email addy...........half a sugar in mine please ;-)

john@le-pre.co.uk

ta

brian I would be interested to see the article - to see if we have made the right choice, especially as it is too late.

email address is teainfrance@gmail.com

Many thanks

Katie

John that would be really funky to see..

Need your email to send you the pdf.

Please Brian, like to read it and am very grateful for James bringing this heating to my attention and of course other contributors for their input. Maybe I could use my thermal imaging camera on Katie's when they move in to see how the house makes out heating wise?

Can you summarise the results for me please? I can't view it.

That link costs US$35.95 for the article. I used my own university's library to get it, an eight page article on pdf. I do not want to do anything to breech copyright, so anybody who wants it ask me.

OK - for all those who enjoy nothing more that a good academic scientific paper - here is the link to the study of infrared heating vs oil fired in a house in germany - enjoy !! It isn't the same report that i read initially as I am sure that that one was a study of two apartments in the same building - but i think this has the same end results

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544211002726

I’ll let you know in about 6 months. Not movinmoving in til the end of the year :wink:

That is all impressive stuff! Now to find some money but for now both sites are bookmarked! :-D

Thanks Katie :)

James all from the UK. The decorative ones from www.welltherm.co.uk who have done a really great deal for 3 heaters including wifi controls and free delivery to north France. My bog standard ceiling ones for the bedrooms have come from www.infraredtechnologies.co.uk as I am not sure we will really need them in our nearly passive house.