The Relatable FIR Heating Comparison You Need

Introduction

Infrared heating is a unique style of heating. A panel will fire off rays of infrared heat that bounce off every surface in the room, embedding heat with every bounce. As the surfaces get warmer, some of their heat transfers to the air, warming it up too.

How many heating systems do you know can do that? Not many.

It can be hard to wrap your head around how well infrared can work in your living room or bedroom when all you’ve ever used is a convection-based radiator.

The most common questions we hear at Warm4Less are:

• Do I Need a Higher Wattage to Heat the Same Room?
• Will it work if I have high ceilings?
• What are the running costs?
• How will it impact my CO² emissions?

In this guide, we will walk you through each of these questions to help you become a master of all things infrared.

Do I Need a Higher Wattage to Heat the Same Room?

Usually, no. For a 5 x 4m room with a standard ceiling height, a typical convection setup is sized at around 2,000 Watts. An infrared panel is typically sized at around 1,440 Watts for the same room

Why can infrared get away with less?

It isn’t that the heater wastes less energy. Any electric heater turns virtually all the power it draws into heat. The difference is where that heat goes.

Convection heaters warm the air first. Air heats up, rises towards the ceiling and circulates, and you feel warm once the whole room’s air reaches the temperature you want. Warm air also escapes through gaps, vents and the upper part of the room, so a lot of energy goes into heating space nobody is using.

Infrared warms people and surfaces directly. Radiant heat is absorbed by you, your furniture, the floor and the walls. Those surfaces warm up and release heat back into the room, gradually warming the air too. How warm you feel depends on both the air temperature and the temperature of the surfaces around you. When the surfaces are warmer, you can feel just as comfortable at a lower air temperature, so the thermostat can be set lower and the heater needs to deliver less.

That’s why a lower-wattage infrared panel can feel as comfortable as a higher-wattage convection heater in many rooms.

Will it Work if I Have High Ceilings?

‘Infrared must surely struggle with high ceilings as well; there’s more space to heat so it’ll need more wattage!’

As you most likely know, hot air (not heat!) rises and is often lost in the void space above a room, but infrared technology bypasses this.

A key advantage of infrared heating is the ability to focus the heat in a specific area meaning they can be suspended from the ceiling, or simply wall mounted so the heat is focused toward the bottom, lived in part of the room.

What Are the Running Costs?

As of 30/09/2026, the average cost of electricity in the UK makes a single kilowatt cost 26.32p when used for an hour (or 26.32p/kWh.)

When it comes to heating the 5x4m room 6 hours a day for a week, 2,000 Watts of convection heat would cost you:

• 32p x 2kW = 52.64p per hour
• 64 x 6 hours = 315.84p/day
• 84 x 7 days = 2210.88p
• or £22.11 every week

Meanwhile, 1,440 Watts of infrared heat would cost you:

• 32p x 1.44kW = 37.9008p per hour
• 9008p x 6 hours = 227.4048p
• 4048p x 7 days = 1591.8336p
• or £15.92 every week

Let’s see some real-life examples of how we’ve helped customers save money:

• We helped a methodist church save £233.28 per year by switching to infrared, enough to get you that air fryer you’ve been looking at!
• An electrical wholesaler was able to save a whopping £2,122.8 per year by switching from convection heating to infrared – that’s enough money to run a lightbulb for over 13 years straight!

While infrared has often been the cheaper to run heating option, there are even greater savings to be made because it is very unlikely that an infrared heater would need to be powered on the whole time.

Unlike most other heaters you’ve seen that lose heat very quickly after they’re turned off, infrared heat is retained within the property so not only will your space get up to temperature quicker every time, but the heater will also be turned on less overall meaning less power is used.

How Will Infrared Impact My CO2 Emissions

No mechanisms, moving parts or combustion are used in infrared panel so you can imagine the positive impact it can have for becoming more eco-friendly and can even help you reach Net Zero when used alongside solar panels.

• An electrical wholesaler was producing 1762.56kg of CO2 annually and just by using infrared heaters they were able to reduce this to 767 kg per year, reducing their annual emissions by 995.5 kg

Imagine the decrease if they used solar panels!

Conclusion

At the end of the day, while infrared is somewhat unique, it’s still a fully-fledged heating system and can heat a space just as well as (if not better than) any established heating system.

Whether you’re looking at achieving effective heating, cheaper heating or want a cleaner environment infrared can certainly help you pursue those goals.

Get in touch today to see how we can help you save!