Do infrared heaters save money on electricity?
In the short answer, yes! There are many different reasons for far infrared being cheaper to run from the controllability, the type of heat they emit, maintenance and general build of the panels.
As mentioned above, one main reason for cheaper running costs is the lower wattage of the panels. 98.5% of the electricity that the panels use go into heating up the element on the inside which then emits the far infrared heating. This means that you get almost 100% heat output for the electric you use. For other forms of heat such as storage heaters, these can be as low as 40%! This is because convection heaters have to work a lot harder to produce the same amount of heat. The process of producing heat is much more draining on the electricity as it’s working to take in cold air, warm it up and then distribute it back out. Along with the fans, lights and buttons – this equal’s very little heat pay off for a lot of electricity!
Another reason that the infrared can save you money is the type of heat that it produces. Far infrared stays in a property very well. After a small amount of time of the infrared being exposed to a room, the initial heat up period will get less and less. After a week or so the heaters are more used for a top up of heat on top of the warmth already in the room. The infrared stays in the foundations of the property unlike convection heat which escapes very easily, and each time is being heated up from scratch. This means that when using convection, it can take up to an hour to heat up, whereas the infrared can heat rooms up as quickly as 5 minutes.
With the use of a controller, the panels will be switching on/off constantly to maintain the temperature of the room, meaning that even during ‘heating mode’ there will be times that the panels aren’t actually on. The controllers work by setting your desired temperature, the panels will then work to get the room up to that temperature. Once the room is warm enough, the panels will then turn themselves off until the temperature falls a certain amount below your target temperature. In a recent test we did, while the room was programmed to be at 22°C, the panels worked for around 7 minutes to get up to this temperature and the panels then turned off. From here, it took at least 40 minutes for the panels to turn back on again to top the heat up.
You can micromanage the heating to only have on the panels that you require. Usually, with most heating systems, you would have one central point that needs to be running to use any of the radiators in the house. Infrared on the other hand, you can programme your controllers to have certain panels on at certain times and not heat rooms that are not being occupied. For example in the morning, you may only want your kitchen and bathroom heaters on, in the evening perhaps just the lounge one. The more you programme your controllers, the more you will reduce your running times.
Far infrared panels are made in a very simple way. This means that unlike a lot of other forms of heating, there is no serving needed at all. Most heating systems require annual checks and maintenance that can really add onto the cost of your system! Our panels are also rated to last for around 100,000 hours to the need to replace anything is very minimal, saving you even more money!
