How do Infrared heaters work?

Make your room a 360° radiator

Radiant heat is invisible light.  In the same way that lights are sited to light a room, Herschel Infrared heaters emit heat to directly warm the walls, floor and ceiling of a building (the ‘thermal mass’). Once the thermal mass is warm, the building itself retains the heat for a period of time, so the heater only needs to be on to top up.

Most of other forms of heaters are convection heaters which primarily heat volumes of air, which then has to transfer its heat to the building in order to warm the thermal mass. The problem is that hot air rises to the ceiling (where you don’t want it) and easily escapes with draughts and open doors. The direct transfer of heat to the building is why Herschel is more efficient and saves energy compared to convection heating.

It also more comfortable because you don’t have cold floors and stuffy air.

Heat we were designed for

Infrared is completely safe and is, in fact, the same wavelength that our bodies absorb and emit. Humans are radiant objects.
More than 60% of our sense of comfort or discomfort is governed by our radiant heat gain or loss. Only 15% of our sense of comfort is governed by air temperature and movement.

This means we usually feel warm if we’re absorbing heat from our environment and often feel cold if we’re radiating out our own body heat to the outside world.

For most people, if the environment around us is more than 26C or less than 16C, we feel discomfort, because we are either gaining or losing too much body heat.

So, if we warm the walls, ceiling and floor of the room we are in (not the air) to at least 17c and ideally to around 22c, our bodies will stop perceiving that we are losing heat and we will feel warm and comfortable.

This is the objective of infrared heating: to build up “thermal mass” in an environment and let it keep you warm.

Air is an unnecessary link in the chain

Convective heat sources only heat the air and not the environment. Air has a lower ability to transfer thermal energy to a surface and warm the environment, radiant heat has a higher rate of heat transfer per kilowatt than convection, so you need less of it. This results in a lower kW requirement and lower running times and is why infrared heating saves energy.

Our latest testing at Salford University Energy House has carried out an identical test comparing a Herschel Infrared panel to both an air source heat pump and a standard electric convector heater.

The results highlight how infrared can offer high levels of thermal comfort at lower air temperatures. When total costs of ownership are also considered over the lifetime of the heating (purchase, installation, running, maintenance, replacement) infrared presents a very compelling picture.  Full details are on the below link.