You mentioned these again in the other thread. Can you ELI5 them? Pros and cons vs other methods? Do you like them?
I’d never heard of them before your sharing them here.
I’d do some research/testing before buying.
Infrared heaters warm the person (or object) not the air. They radiate heat, which means you will feel colder if you are not directly in front of the heater.
They might be alright if people spend a lot of time sitting rather than moving around, and live in a draughty building or one with poor insulation - as warm air is not being lost out of the building.
They’re quite expensive to buy as well.
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I use mine in my office. It’s mounted and directly facing me. Works great.
Fair point about it not warming the air.
I also got it free so not but the running costs are much lower than my oil filled radiator.
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I did a comparison between our convector heater and our oil filled radiator.
Convector on 1250w setting and 3/4 thermostat was £0.59 per hour.
Convector on 750w setting with 3/4 thermostat was £0.40 per hour.
Radiator on middle setting (no idea of wattage) was £0.36 per hour.
All tests raised room temperature by 1 degree.
There were devices running in the background but they were the same for all measurements.
R-
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I’m honestly not sure how to explain them. You’re probably better of watching a YouTube video.
They are like white boards, which are really easy to mount anywhere.
Mine is directly facing me and it keeps me nice warm at my desk. I’m in my loft, which is absolutely freezing at this time of year.
From what I understand, it is heating actual physical mass (me, my chair and the desk) and not the general air. The mass then radiates the heat back out.
So if I move away from my desk it’s still cold in the loft. This makes no difference to me as I’m either working at my desk or not in the loft.
I haven’t measured the running cost yet but do plan to. My understanding is that when heating the air you need to get it to a higher temperature than if you’re just heating yourself.
So if you’re trying to heat something up (rather than the whole room), they’re way more efficient.
I imagine this would also work if you’re sitting on the sofa watching Netflix all day and need to keep warm.
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That sounds a bit like a microwave 
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It’s like the sun, as I understand it.
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It’s very like a microwave, it’s using electromagnetic radiation. But the infrared spectrum has a shorter wavelength than microwaves and thankfully isn’t quite as dangerous 
. Lots of things emit infrared (like incandescent lightbulbs), fewer things hopefully emit microwaves in a sufficient concentration to make you feel warm.
But the principal is similar, it’s transferring energy in the form of a radio wave, which then then cause molecules to… vibrate I guess? Which is heat? My physics is escaping me here but yeah it’s like a microwave but also not.
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Thought I’d check the data from my new Tapo energy monitoring plug.
The infrared heating panel pulls a constant 400w and it’s been serving me fine up till now.
But today has been absolutely freezing so I had to switch back to the oil filled radiator. This is sucking up 2200w, so 5.5x the power usage!!!
My plan is to get the room up to temperature and then switch back to the panel to keep me going.
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Surely not constantly though? Once the thermostat nears the target temperature surely this tails off? Once it’s at temperature too, it will keep giving off heat for a long while longer too.
I guess the more scientific test would be measuring energy consumption and time from the moment you turn the oil filled heater on, then turn it off after 30 minutes and then stop the stopwatch at the point when you’re no-longer warm.
Then run the infrared heater for the same total period of time to see how much energy that would have used in comparison.
Infrared could still win though as it’s directional rather than heating the entire room.
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Fair point.
No it’s not constant. It drops to around 900w when it’s up to temperature.
Also goes up to 2700w when I turn the fan on to get the heat flowing around.
I would like more data but I haven’t been using the radiator since I got the panel to save on $$$.
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Shouldn’t it drop to 0w when it is up to temperature, following by cutting in and out to maintain temperature?
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Not quite 0, but yeah. It still draws some power whilst idle and monitoring for temperature drops, but a tiny amount.
Same with Dyson fans, they use a terrifying amount, but their efficiency and speed, and switching to monitor mode once it hits the desired temperature and only needing to come back on for a minute every hour or so to maintain it mean that once you’ve hit the target, it’s actually not that bad for maintaining it.
Oil radiators will of course be much better for this too, as even whilst idle and the heating has stopped, they’ll still be radiating warmth for several hours, which is what sets them above space heaters.
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I imagine so but over two hours it didn’t manage to switch off.
May do more testing tomorrow.
TBH it takes a long time to get the whole loft up to temperature as it’s so freezing up here!
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A loft is usually above the normal insulation level (between upper ceilings and loft) - do you have proper insulation above the loft level (between loft ceiling & roof)?
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I’m actually starting to think using these might be more economical than the heat pump honestly.
Been fiddling with mine so it uses weather compensation and that’s lowered costs slightly and means it’s always on. The temperature is still hitting 18 degrees, so the curve is correct, but the radiators are much cooler so rooms no longer feel like they’re boiling. I think I need to get the installer back back out to improve the COP, because it’s a bit rubbish looking through the history. I suspect the max temp is set too high when controlling the temperature using the thermostat so it’s needing help from the immersion heater, hence the crazy cost. £15 per day all last week, just on heating (not counting hot water).
The Dyson fan heaters on the other hand for the two rooms that don’t have the central heating installed in, seem to be far more economical, and presumably would be even if I manage to get the heat pump performing optimally.
Dyson takes about 5 minutes to heat a room from ambient temperature (16 degrees or so) to 20 degrees. A few more minutes to get to 22. 21 is my sweet spot usually, but I like to dial it up/down depending on how cold I’m feeling.
At 1500 watts whilst heating with Bulb’s current rate of 33.07p for my location it would cost 50p per hour it was constantly outputting heat. Divide by 12 for 5 minutes of use and that’s 4p. It then switches to monitor mode which is about 6 watts (5p over 24 hours). It’s only used for heating during the day, it goes off at night similar to the heat pump letting the property cool to 16 overnight. So if we assume it heats for 16 hours and has to come back on for two to three minutes every hour to maintain temperature, that’s another 2p per hour, totalling 34p per day. 39p accounting for the power it uses whilst in standby monitoring the air quality and temperature.
That’s the math, but surely that can’t be right? Even pre-crisis you’d be told to avoid these appliances for heating if you can because they use so much. 39p per day per room seems astronomically cheaper than the heat pump powered central heating.
Am I missing something? Because that sort of saving would pay for itself twice over the course of a winter.
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It depends on a lot of factors. Personal comfort. House size & heat-retaining efficiency. Individual spaces/zones in the house which need to be comfortable. Hourly rate (normal)/hourly rate (off-peak) where available for energy/fuels
Heat pump installs are still expensive. Solar & battery helps reduce costs if installed. Gas powered boilers (for central heating, hot water, or both) are less efficient but still ‘quick’ to bring a zone/water to temp.
It just needs a bit of thought about your comfort versus what you have and how you can use what you have to the most efficient result. Ditching gas-powered central-heating boilers (even leapfrogging ASHP of GSHP installations) and using localised in-room fan heaters may work better for some homes.
Energy costs are a bit like the new credit control. Bury your head in the sand and you’ll pay. Open up and look around and there are (usually) ways to deal with it.
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Indeed. It is supposed to be much cheaper to run, but it depends hugely on the COP. In theory it should be costing less in £ vs a gas boiler despite the dramatically higher prices of the electricity.
It’s working better on weather compensate mode, substantially so, but it’s also not as cold as it was last week, so hard to say how much it’s actually improved in 7 degrees vs -2 degrees. But when I factor in todays cost, compared to the daily cost from last year, and the price increases since, it’s improved three-fold. I just don’t think the installer actually optimised it for peak efficiency and instead set it up to make sure the heating and water were hot and wouldn’t get any complaints in respect of that. But with costs as they are I’m paying closer attention.
We have solar and battery too. The battery is just blackout protection though, and even though I have a smart meter now, Bulb don’t do the fancy stuff Octopus do. Still just a flat rate tariff.
I was probably hasty going all in with a heat pump without exploring other potentially better or cheaper options first, like dumping a Dyson in every room. I also never learned how you’re supposed to use it though, nor was it ever explained, so I’ve been using it like it’s your good old fashioned boiler. Which is very bad apparently. Half the radiators weren’t even turned on, thinking we don’t need heat there, it’ll save money. But now I know that’s very bad practice with a heat pump. So now every radiator is on. I’m learning, and hopefully the lesson will save on bills a bit.
We’re well insulated, so we retain the heat quite well once it’s up to temperature.
I’ve discovered Heat Geek on YouTube and watching their videos has been very eye opening. But it was this one that prompted my change in approach. Hopefully others find it useful too. Think it applies to boilers too for some things.
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Seeing as this is in the tech section…
For anyone with ‘dumb’ heaters that rely on dodgy analogue thermostats, you can upgrade them to having a digital thermostat with one of these…
Analogue thermostats in most household heaters are terribly inaccurate and shift where they cut in and out even without moving the dial, due to age and big changes in ambient temperature. So you’re constantly ‘tuning’ it as the seasons change.
I have the above RF thermostat running in tandem with a smart plug. This setup gives me temperature control to within a degree, and the ability to tie it in with my Homekit routines via the smart plug.
Works flawlessly all year, and you can use this setup with ANY mains powered heater/aircon/fan etc. as long as it’s one that returns to it’s previous state after being powered off.
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Are Dyson heaters not just glorified fan heaters that cost a twentieth of the price?
I usually use any excuse to buy unnecessarily expensive tech, and I admit I’ve never owned anything made by Dyson, but I’m just not convinced…