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"It makes it a pleasure to work on the cars no matter what the weather is like outside"

In 2017 Shropshire and Welsh Borders Chairman Nick Cliffe installed Herschel Infrared heaters in his garage to protect his Jaguars from condensation and keep them warm.

“Back in summer 2017 I had sold the carcoon in which I used to keep my Healey 3000 and installed insulated roll up garage doors to keep my E-Type and XKR protected from the winter weather. But heating was a problem so after much research I came across an article on a classic car owner who had used far infrared heaters mounted high up on his garage walls; this was the first I had heard of this so found the manufacturer was a UK company called Herschel and availed myself of all their technical info. Infrared heaters work by converting electricity into radiant heat and is part of the electromagnetic spectrum where the heat provides the same feeling of warmth as the winter sun on your face and the heat from a coal fire. It is even the same form of heat emitted by your own body.

This direct transfer of heat from the heater to the object or thermal mass (you, your car and the room around you) without heating the air in between presents a huge advantage over more traditional types of heating. The worst cause of rust in garaged cars is condensation, formed when the car body is colder than the air around it and much of this happens inside panels where you can’t see it. To me it made great sense to heat the car rather than the surrounding air so I gave them a call, providing the volume measurements from which they worked out that I needed two 1950 watt Aspect IRXL3-1950 wall mounted heaters.

A pleasure to work on

In the two years that I have been running these heaters I have found them to be super efficient and it makes it a pleasure to work on the cars no matter what the weather is like outside. The cars are not cold to touch as the heat gradually permeates the whole body. The worst cause of rust in garaged cars of course is condensation, formed when the car body is colder than the air around it and much of this happens inside panels where you can’t see it. So it makes great sense to heat the car rather than the surrounding air.

I found that it was the car bodywork that provided the ambient temperature so even when it had been extremely cold outside and then suddenly warmed, causing concrete to ‘sweat’ there was zero condensation on the cars. One important question I asked was whether the infrared heat would have any fading effect on either paintwork or more particularly upholstery and I was pleased to learn that these remain unaffected as there is no ultra violet present. HOW MUCH?? I purchased these in October 2017 and the Aspect heaters came to £958.00. The controls came in a pack termed as an IQ Single Zone heater control pack and cost £138.00, both including VAT; shipping was free”. Nick Cliffe, JEC, December 2019.