Do Infrared Heaters Really Work If They Don’t Heat The air?

Introduction

To most people in the UK, infrared is a fairly new technology, and this leaves plenty of room for misconceptions. For example, it is a direct type of heat and acts like sunlight, heating the people and the objects.

Does that mean it can’t heat the air?

In this article, we will investigate the science behind how infrared works as a heating system and what it means for you.

How Do ‘Normal’ Radiators Work?

Typically:

• Water/oil is heated and runs through the unit.
• This makes it heat up.
• The hotter the radiator gets, the hotter the air around it gets.
• Hot air rises and circulates around the room after hitting the ceiling.
• As the air gets further away, it cools down and sinks again
• The now cold air circulates back round to the radiator, to heat up once again.
• Each cycle increasingly heats the air in the room.

Most people have convection-based heating systems, even if they don’t realise how exactly it works.

What Is ‘Direct Heat’

So, we know far infrared is like sunlight, but how?

Everyone knows the sun’s warmth, even though there’s no air in space.

It instead reaches us as heat radiation in the form of infrared rays.

It sounds scary at first, but it just means that the sun fires off little waves of heat in the same way it fires rays of sunlight.

Infrared rays hit the first thing in their path and build heat before bouncing off in a new direction to heat the next surface. Every bounce warms a surface up further, keeping it warm.

Common direct heating systems include:

• Far infrared heaters
• Glowing mid infrared heaters
• Wood Stoves
• Gas fires
• Underfloor heating

How can the Room Be Warm When Only The Objects Are Heated?

We now know what makes infrared different, but the important question to ask is “will the room still be cold?”

As previously mentioned, infrared heating heats all the surfaces (thermal masses) like:

• Tables
• Chairs
• Walls
• The floor
• You
• Even the dog!

Every thermal mass warms up internally before then releasing heat back out into the room, through convection, heating the nearby air.

You feel warm and the room follows suit.

Common Misconceptions of Far Infrared

1. “You need to heat the whole property all the time”

There’s no reason to heat every room when you can only be in 1 at any given time.

You’ll just be building costs on unnecessary heating.

The best idea would be to prioritise the occupied areas and use timed controls to fit your schedule.

2. “They heat up instantly”

While you may feel some impact almost immediately, an appropriately specified space should take 15-20 minutes to come up to temperature.

However mid infrared (a slightly shorter wavelength) heaters can heat up almost instantly.

3. “Ceiling heaters are a scam, heat rises”

Remember, infrared doesn’t heat the air.

As it’s not heat that rises, but actually hot air, there is absolutely nothing stopping infrared from heating downwards.

It even offers a better spread of heat!

Conclusion

For the short answer, yes.

Infrared heaters do work without directly heating the air.

Not only can infrared heaters heat a room without directly heating the air, an infrared system is entirely based on not heating the air.

Of course, the air will eventually come up to temperature but it isn’t an integral part of the heating process.