In the long run radiant heat is just plain heat. The sales pitch is that radiant heat makes you feel warmer because it is directed at you. Kind of like when you sit at a campfire and notice that one side of you is warm and the other is cold.
However when the radiant heat hits something in the room, like you or the walls, it turns back into plain old heat.
For instance about 90% of the energy that goes into a light bulb becomes heat. The other 10% is light. But when that light hits an object in the room, the light energy is turned back into heat. So a 100 watt light bulb heats the room as much as a 100 watt heater. Its just distributed differently. Actually a very little energy is lost if the light escapes out a window. The same is true of radiant heat.
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