Infrared heat
 

Q: Do infrared space heaters actually save money as claimed?

I don't understand infrared heat. Supposedly, a unit like the Dr. Infrared Heater---

https://www.amazon.com/Dr-Infrared-H...s%2C344&sr=8-5

---heats up the objects in a room rather than heating the air. Why would I care if the books in my bookcase are warm? Also, these units have a fan, implying that they're heating the air?

They use 1500 watts, same as other electric heaters, so I don't see any savings, unless they use electricity so efficiently that they don't run as often as other types of room heaters.

I'm looking for the cheapest way to heat my office, given that a 1500-watt space heater costs about as much to run per month as an air conditioner.

Because the ''books'' will radiate the heat back.

Our Three-Season Cottage Has No Ceiling, but Warms-Up Well with Infrared...
 

We have two antique infrared heaters. The newest is probably 60 years old, whose simple design is seen in this modern version.

At only 800 watts, the newer heater not only warms everyone in our Wolfeboro "Great Room", it'll continue to keep this "Open Design" toasty all night if I forget to unplug it. (Neither heater has a fan). The heat is adjusted by moving to a different chair! :laugh:

A suggestion: Don't aim it at a refrigerator, or everything in it will be frozen... :(

A second infrared heater has its reflector made of handmade decorative polished copper from the 1920s, and I don't dare use it!

Less convenient is our third infrared heater that is fitted to a propane tank.

Propane versions to heat people outdoors are everywhere on the Internet.

Indoors, your best bet is a modern 800-watt electric infrared heater:
https://5.imimg.com/data5/AX/CV/QT/S...er-500x500.jpg

I recall sometime in the past reading about probably infrared heaters in picture frames, crown moldings and other accessories. These heaters are used in commercial warehouses and auto repair facilities and others where they are often open to the outside.

_________________________________

I am a retired workaholic and continuing aquaholic

The radiant (infrared) works more like your wood stove.
While the conventional element heater works on convection.

A convection heater really needs a fan to be effective in any real manner... while the radiant might have it as an additional transference for the heated air around the unit - sort of like adding one of those little fans to the wood stove.

I think the most efficient is wearing either thermals or sweat pants and shirt, with wool socks and slippers... then adding a throw to cover your lap... and either a chair that has heaters built in... or an electric heating pad.

That way, you only add the heat you need, and it is so close to your person that it becomes the most effective in getting the job done without heating the ''books''

That link isn't working. I'm curious to see it.

Cold Sensitive?
 

I forgot that a small 750 watt convection heater is adequate for a medium-sized closed room.

Here's a modern radiant heater (at 800 watts) at Amazon that will warm up an entire living room:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon...._QL70_ML2_.jpg

I've mounted mine about 7½ feet above the floor, and removed the wire guard for more heat transmission.

To double your heating capacity, aim it at your wood stove. It will re-radiate heat long after youve turned the radiant heater OFF! :cool:

Even in Florida, I'll have chilly days at the computer. Try a small heating pad under your feet, but wear shoes or slippers, as it'll be HOT.

Everybody's different, but if my feet are warm, I'm a happy camper! :)

It's not legal to "cook the books". ;)

ApS, the link to the actual Amazon page, not the image, would be helpful.

This is interesting: "To double your heating capacity, aim it at your wood stove. It will re-radiate heat long after you've turned the radiant heater OFF!" Can you explain how this works? Do you mean the wood stove absorbs and holds the energy from the heater, and releases it later? Does this really make a significant difference? It seems odd to put an electric heater in the room with the wood stove, since that space is usually overheated.

No, they aren't any more efficient than any other resistive electric heater. What you do get is increased perceptive and real warmth as the infrared energy warms your skin and clothes. But at the end of the day, it doesn't make the room any warmer than another 800 watt electric heater.

I've used infrared, really good for making a person or area warm that it is pointed at. I personally don't like the "cooking me" feeling of an infrared pointed toward me. What I prefer are oil filled space heaters. They heat up, nearly all have 3 heat settings where low is around 400 watts, medium 800, and high closer to 1500 IIRC. They don't project the heat like a resistance heater with a fan but the key is to turn it on before you are using the room and leave it on if you are only going out of the room for a few hours. They are completely safe while other space heaters are not.

Heating the Floor, NOT the Ceiling...
 

I'll disagree. Radiant heaters project heat at everything within the area of its reflector. In my case, even the wood floor is warmer!

Presently typing in a warm bedroom, I have a 1500w convection heater running. When I stand up, i find most of the heated air was warming the ceiling! Opening the door to the "Great Room" (no ceiling), i walk into a nice warm moderate environment. Putting a hand on the wood of the sofa nearest my antique radiant heater I find that it has warmed up--so much so, I worry about preserving the finish!

The iron wood stove--starting empty and cold--can be heated by any heater, and continue to re-radiate heat after the electric heater is turned off. Of course, it's hardly efficient to use elecricity in that manner! Density is key. Placing the largest dense material item (iron anvil or granite boulder) in front of your radiant heater will soak up heat and re-radiate for a short time. That's also the principle that drives soapstone wood stove manufacturing.

Back in the 50s, I lived in a house that had "radical" radiant heat embedded in the floor. Even with a foot of snow outside, you could walk around barefoot, T-shirt and shorts. (And cool ears). :)

Here's Amazon's radiant heaters from $17 to $3000:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=electric+..._ts-doa-p_1_16

For operating cost my vote is for a mini split.

This assumes that it was given to you as a gift.

You can disagree all you want, but 800 watts is 800 watts. You'll be warmer if you move your resistive heater closer to you. They are not efficient ways to heat your home.

I think the key is personal perception of being warm. The "house" and furnishings don't care if they are at 70 or 65 degrees where YOU do. So, if your heating system targets YOU like infrared heat, that seems like an efficient use of the power required. If you have to bring the whole room up to 70 degrees before you feel comfortable, you are going to spend a lot more money to accomplish that. Of course if you get up and move out of the infrared target zone, you will immediately feel colder since the rest of the house is not as warm. There may also be a real consideration to the feeling of being "cooked". Some may find it uncomfortable others may not care.

All in all, it seems like a personal preference. Maybe you can save a few bucks with infrared while you are sitting in the living room reading a book for a couple hours. If you tend to be moving about a lot, it won't work as well.

I am considering radiant floor heat for an addition. Because you are standing on the source of heat, evenly distributed across the whole floor, you feel it more directly compared to many spot sources of heat. Further, since it is a broadly distributed heat, there are no hot spots near a source. I'm still checking into it.

I just put electric radiant heat in a new bathroom. Seems to work well, has a programmable thermostat so we can have it pre warm the floor before we wake up, then off for the rest of the day. (We have forced hot water heat, but keep the bedroom cool (and bathroom).

Radiant floor heat is awesome. Not fast response like forced hot air or hydronic baseboards, but nice level heat.

One misunderstood thing about heating and efficiency is that each time you go to heat a room, after letting it cool down, you are heating all the furnishings in that room. So if you turn down heat (or turn it off) at night and it drops to say 58 degrees, when you go to heat it in the morning the furniture, desks, everything has cooled off and you spend the first part of the heating cycle re-heating all those furnishings. In commercial office property we get tenants that think they are helping by turning down heat at night, we politely ask them to leave the heat where they want it, or click it down 2-3 degrees at most (some like that burst of heat when they arrive in the morning and turn it up), to turn it down more than that is actually less efficient. This assumes decently insulated, reasonably efficient heating systems.

That doesn't apply to space heaters so sorry if I'm off topic. Can we agree that an electric resistance element, whether in a fan driven space heater, oil filled radiant space heater, or infrared space heater, are the least efficient ways to heat a space?

As I understand it, electrical resistance heaters are actually the most efficient as 100% of the energy becomes heat. The issue is cost of energy vs. other sources, right, making it a question of economical vs. efficient?

We have a 100% electric house—electric stove, water heater, dryer, and all electric baseboard heat (other than wood stoves up and down). The ONLY reason I'm investigating heating alternatives is that electricity costs have increased beyond other energy sources.

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You are correct from a physics perspective, but from a cost perspective, electric resistive heating is the least efficient use of your money. Which is what most discussions about heat refer to , at least from my view.

Some people are fine with this. Also, I'm not saying people shouldn't use these devices, they can make a cold house more comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't freeze pipes by going to extremes.

Agreed—I was addressing the semantics given the discussion about infrared vs. radiant, etc. above, and also because even the discussion of economy isn't simple.

For example, my electric heat is controlled by individual thermostats in each room. This allows me to heat the rooms I want to while also not messing up the balance with the wood stove.

Also, electric baseboards are maintenance free, user-replaceable, and last virtually forever as opposed to furnaces, handlers, etc. needing to be replaced every 10-20 years or so and maintained annually/semi-annually.

The calculations can be complex, especially in years that oil and NG/LP prices are high.

Added: there was recently a discussion about gas prices on my town's forum and how people were driving to another town to save $.30/gallon without realizing that the savings (and free time!) were wiped out by the extra driving.

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The "drive 15 miles to save $1.73 on filling the car" phenomenon is as old as gas stations. I'd say a few generations ago it was even more prevalent. More of a psychological study since it never actually saves money.

Thinkxingu, great point by you on my post, when I said least efficient I should have clarified, thanks for doing so.

It really is an interesting subject, and a variety of factors enter in. Is someone looking for the lowest environmental footprint? The lowest cost? The answer varies of course based on the goal.

In my experience it is more cost efficient to heat a space with a central heating system, if you want to supplement with a space heater for a few hours now and then go for it. Where I think people end up kidding themselves is when they keep the central heat at 50 and use a few space heaters for 5-6 hours a day or more, they think they are saving but actually would be better off just heating the house to 64 or 66 degrees and occasionally using a space heater. Spend the money on more insulation rather than electricity for space heaters.

Pellet stoves change the equation and can be a great source of comfortable heat where you want it, wood stoves too. I'm less familiar with the economics of those.

Correct, electric heat of any kind (eg: radiant, infrared, convection, whatever) is the most efficient use of the energy/fuel to heat conversion. But that ignores the unit cost of the energy itself.

To make an analogy, you can burn a $1 bill, and a $100 bill. Both with have the same *efficiency* in terms of turned the paper into heat via flame, but the $100 bill will be 100x as costly as the $1 bill to produce the same amount of heat.

Oil or natural gas heaters are generally less efficient than electric, but the reduced cost per BTU is so much lower that you make up the efficiency difference with reduced fuel/energy cost.

There are many products they try to claim they can reduce your heating costs, particularly if you are doing electric heat, but in the end they all rely on heating a smaller volume of area.

Anything that plugs into the wall and creates heat is going to be equally expensive to run in terms of adding heat to an area. Doesn't really matter what kind of heat it claims to create.

A mini split is going to be the most cost effective way to heat with electricity because it is *moving* heat from the outside to the inside, instead of creating it with resistance. However the upfront cost of an installed mini split can make it take a season or two to recoup the investment.

Even when it seems cold outside there is still heat in the air, just not very much. Mini split heat pumps move this heat from outside to inside, but they all have a minimum viable outdoor temperature before they can no longer move heat. In some cases that means you need a backup or alternative heat option for when it is very cold out, or when you want to heat the indoor areas more quickly.

Wouldn't an exception be if a device also requires a fan to move the heated air?

Also, are you saying that all types of space heaters work equally well? E.g., oil-filled radiator vs infrared. Or are you just saying that two devices with the same amps or watts are going to cost the same to run, regardless of how well they heat?

I have to caution you against getting nonchalant about oil-filled space heaters (the upright radiator type). I had three of these. Over time, two of them began to split at the seams and leaked oil, ruining a wood floor. The third one almost burned down my house. I left it turned off but plugged in. It caused a short circuit at the wall outlet. Sparks were shooting out of the wall. Fortunately I was in the room when it happened. I believe these were De Longhis.

I really liked these heaters at first, but they all gave out after a couple of years. I found many complaints online about the safety of these units. Info found online:

"Fires occur when the oil leaks or is accidentally spilled from the crack into the floor. This oil can not only ruin porous surfaces, it can also catch fire if it’s close to heating element, resulting in dangerous fire."

Re recall of Sunbeam heaters from the Consumer Product Safety Commission: "The firm has received approximately 40 reports of units that unexpectedly sprayed heated oil, resulting in reports of property damage involving damaged carpet and fabrics."

"Underwriters Laboratories (UL) found that oil heaters filled with unsuitable oil, such as oil with a low flash point, can present a risk of fire."

"King of Fans Inc. has received 81 reports of incidents involving leaking oil. Two minor burns were reported, along with two reports of falls in the oil."

Holmes recall: "A poor electrical connection within the heater can lead to overheating. This poses fire and thermal burn hazards."

Etc. Please be careful. I wouldn't sleep with these running at night.

Thank you, I wasn't aware of those problems, will do some reading. I've used them for many years with zero issues, which doesn't mean I won't take your comments seriously and look into it.

I do think that if you looked at fires caused by space heaters, open element fan driven space heaters would be the #1 cause, either too close to curtains or furniture or something falling on one that catches on fire. I don't have research to prove the above, however it's my impression.

With the same amps and wattage... they should cost the same to run.
The difference is the conversion of that electricity to BTUs.

Think of it like a light bulb... all bulbs produce light... but some produce more heat than others. Since the purpose - generally - is to produce light; the heat is electricity being wasted.

The fan doesn't produce heat, but it does consume electricity.

The radiant heater allows you to feel warmer because the infrared radiation is projected directly at you, rather than heating the air and blowing it at you. Because of that, you may find yourself running the radiant heater on a lower wattage... thus consuming less electricity to get the same feeling of warmth.

Oopsy on Radiant vs Infrared
 

An engineer friend has several De Longhis. He says the originals from Italy were quality-made; however, they've since been "outsourced".

BTW: I'd conflated two heating terms: :o
https://householdair.com/infrared-vs-radiant-heat/

Not quite.

What I was trying to say is that every electric heater will produce the same net amount of heat for a given amount of power consumption. An oil-filled 800W heater will produce as much heat as an 800W ceramic heater in 1 hour of operation, and will cost the same amount to run. If one has a fan, and the other does not, the one with the fan might distribute the heat more evenly, but their operational cost and net output will be the same (within a very small margin that is insignificant).

Many of these "reduced cost heating" scenarios all presume the person is basically sitting still in a single room. The IR heating might be able to direct the heat in a more concentrated area, but then if you move to another area, it's going to be colder.

A more practical scenario might be to have a general heat source that heats the entire to room to something like 60 degrees, and then a secondary heat source, like an IR unit, an electric blanket, etc. that heats the person to 70 (or whatever).

Do these 1500-watt, three setting, oil filled heaters that run on 500w-1000w-1500w have the Underwriter's Lab safety test, seal of approval for electric home appliance safety?

Same question for any portable, electric heater ...... does it have that U.L. listed, safety stamp?

If this is true, then the various types of electric heaters are all about the same in the end.

Unless you move the IR.
But since for other reasons that an occupied home would need to maintain at least some basis of heat (plumbing et al), we should presume the heater would be used to increase the sensation of heat within a small area.

As long as that area did not affect the thermostat, the remainder of the house should hold that basic temperature - presumably.

Correct. Converting electricity to heat is pretty straight forward, it involves a big resistor at the core of it. You can do various things to move the heat (fan), or create things to help store and radiate the heat more slowly (oil-filled), but at the end of the day, the power usage, operational cost, and total amount of heat created will be the same for any given wattage.

Also, all electric heaters will be equally efficient, a 100W heater costs 1/10th as much to run as a 1000W heater, and it will heat the area 10 times slower. But they will both use the same amount of electricity in the end to raise the room temp by 3 degrees, for example.

Sure, but that isn't really a thing the typical homeowner is going to be doing. I was trying to keep it a little more high-level and relatable to common home heating scenarios so it didn't become an ad-hoc physics course :)

The common homeowner isn't likely to be concerned enough with the cost of heating to do so.
But one that is... is likely to do so.

It is like the high price of gasoline. It is relative.
People might not like the cost, but does it really deter them from using it in a manner that is wasteful (wasteful being a variable of perception).
I didn't notice a severe drop in boating, out-of-state license plates, or trucks on the road... so I am going to guess in most cases it was actually more an emotional than financial reaction.

Should prices really become the issue, we would see more homeowners begin to conserve through more extreme means... but I don't see it as of yet other than discussions.

IR vs AC...
 

IR isn't intended to raise a room's temperature: IR is designed to warm one's body. (Or many more bodies). ;)

This is especially important when a cold north wind blasts our one-season cottage. :look:

The cottage wasn't built (or insulated) to be heated. This isn't a "tight" dwelling. (Which has its own sets of problems). With wind, even the ample heat from our wood stove doesn't stay around for very long. An increase of only 20° above the outside temperature can be expected from wood stove heat under windy conditions. Although well-built, focused IR heat extends this dwelling's useful season into October.

Maintaining dense tree growth along the shoreline would help, but would defeat our terrific view of the Ossipee Mountains! :rolleye2: The dense tree growth elsewhere keeps A/C use down (this summer) to only 10 minutes one night--and winter's windfalls serve to feed the wood stove. (And don't bother to split the wood).

One drawback to IR is some aging of exposed skin may be experienced:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...87002415305049

Why would it ''age'' your skin?

Guests Like Our Infrared Heat...
 

The infrared heater is not designed to heat one's home. It's designed to efficiently heat one or more individuals. (And any local errant objects that can retain IR heat).

You leave the comfort of your infrared heater and hurry to put another log on the fire. ;)

At the bottom of the supplied link, this conclusion:

Like UV radiation, IR-radiated heat induces aging of exposed skin. (According to this study).

(ROS=reactive oxygen species).

Like most papers at Elsevier, the link is "heavy reading"--and IR skin damage is still being studied.

:look:

The Heater I'd Selected Earlier... Honest!
 

Today's NY Post has selected three radiant heaters that got wide approval--even listing the number of favorable Amazon ratings:

https://nypost.com/article/best-spac...tomer-reviews/

I'd pick the cheapest one for a bedroom...

We had a ceramic heater umpteen years ago living on Cape Cod. Worked just fine, no information on cost to operate. We have a Dyson "heat+cool" at the lake which is a beast. Last week set at 71 it kept the area at 71, 72. I think the night temps this week were in the 40's and 50's. This is an area approximately 800/900 square feet. We have 3 of them: at the lake, in Massachusetts and in California. I do not tkink the electric statement in huge.

______________________________________

I am a retired workaholic and continuing aquaholic

Pelonis
 

The best space heater I ever had was the "ORIGINAL" Pelonis Saf-T-Furnace" from the late 70's and early 80's. It was a ceramic heater. I still have one from back then and its still going strong! It looks like this....