What is far infrared heating?
Far infrared is a form of radiant heat. Radiant heating basically means that rather than taking in the cold air, warming it up and distributing it around the room – you are heating the actual structure of the room, the objects in it and the people The panels consume electricity and convert this straight into heating up the element on the inside (carbon crystal) which then emits Far Infrared Heat (FIR).
The heat compares to the type of heat you get from the sun. More specifically far infrared operates just outside of ‘visible light’ on the electromagnetic spectrum. It has very low frequency and therefore uses very low energy levels. Because of its wavelength, far infrared passes through the air, travelling around molecules instead of colliding with them and heating them. Once, far infrared collides with the surface it hits meaning it heats objects/person itself.
Just like the sun is 93 million miles away we can still feel it because energy is not lost heating the molecules in-between and only heats when it hits a surface – the earth.
This is the reason that the panels are much lower wattage and consume far less energy. The conversation rate for electricity to heat is 98.5% as you are not using electricity on fans, buttons, noisy moving parts, and lights. You also are not wasting energy heating the air, which does not really need to be heated! As the panels are very simple in terms of build, this means that there is absolutely no servicing required. There are no annual checks or maintenance needed at all and the carbon crystal element on the inside is made to last for around 100,000 hours!
Far infrared is actually the same type of heat that humans give off and the reason that the infrared heating feels much more comfortable is because 60% of our comfort is based on our heat gain or loss rather than the temperature of the environment around us. This means that if we are absorbing the far infrared heat from an independent source (a heating panel) we feel much more comfortable.
We typically feel most comfortable when the temperature around us is between 16°C and 26°C so if we use a controller to set our temperature between this, our bodies will feel that we are at a comfortable temperature.
Far infrared is also very efficient because it is only heating the objects, walls, ceiling floors etc and the room stores this heat extremely well. Usually with convection heaters, the heat will initially rise to the top of the room and then it is lost very easily through open doors and windows. This means that every time your heaters turn back on, you are heating the room from scratch. Once you have used infrared regularly for a period of time, they will purely be used as a top up heat and in some cases can get your room back up to temperature within 5 minutes!
