Infrared Heaters: Science or Hype?

Perhaps you've seen one of those too-good-to-be-true advertorials claiming that an infrared heater will "heat your whole house for pennies per day," and wondered either or not there was anyone to it. While many of the claims you see advertised for infrared heating are just marketing hype, there are real benefits to infrared - with sound science to back them up.

There are two kinds of infrared heaters. Radiant infrared heaters, which you often see on patios or an outdoor events, have exposed elements and work on a line-of-sight basis. The infrared waves they emit make population feel warmer immediately, though the surrounding air may remain frigid.

Sunheat Infrared Heaters Parts

Indoor infrared heaters - cabinet type heaters such as Edenpure, Sunheat, and SolarFlare - don't emit much radiant heat, because their heating elements are enclosed in a heat accommodation deep within the heater and thus have no line of sight to population or objects. Instead, an indoor infrared heater works on the principle of convection - it heats the air in the room, which makes the occupants feel warmer.

Infrared Heaters: Science or Hype?

Sunheat 1500 Infrared Heater (Mahogany) Best

Rate This Product :

Sunheat 1500 Infrared Heater (Mahogany) Feature

• Frame made from real wood (Frame made in the USA)
• Heats: 800 - 1,000 sq ft.
• Six infrared heat tubes inside copper tubes (rated for 10,000 hours)
• 3 year limited warranty
• Available in 4 colors: Black, Mahogany, Black Cherry, Golden Oak

Sunheat 1500 Infrared Heater (Mahogany) Overview

Sunheat heaters feature a frame made from real wood! The top is dent and stain resistant, while the sides are made from formaldehyde free, medium density fiberboard, which has been constructed from reclaimed wood fiber. To boot, the wood frame of the Sunheat heater is made in the U.S.A. Sunheat's beautiful wood frame is finished using a water based stain and finish that are applied using an UV resistant curing process to one of 4 different colors: Black, Mahogany, Black Cherry, or Golden Oak. The Sunheat 1500 model features four infrared heat tubes inside copper tubing, which is rated for 10,000 hours. Best of all, if and when the tubes burn out they can be replaced easily by purchasing replacement tubes from an authorized online or retail dealer. Heats between 800 - 1,000 square feet. While the outside the Sunheat is a lot nicer than most infrared heaters on the market, they have not sacrificed the performance, or the components that make their heater warm your home! Sunheat features a Honeywell thermostat and aviation grade wiring that far exceeds UL requirements! In addition, Sunheat has replaced the fan in its infrared heater for the 2010-2011 season, which has reduced the fan noise by 15% and is rated for 150,000 hours. Finally, Sunheat repositioned the lifetime filter on its infrared heater to improved the efficiency of its heater and made it easier to remove the filter to clean it out. One of the largest distinguishing factors between Sunheat and other infrared heater companies is Sunheat offers replacement parts and a 3 year warranty that can be serviced by local brick and mortar dealers. Edenpure offers a 5 year warranty, but you must send you unit in to their facility in Ohio to get service. With Sunheat you can either order the replacement parts, or you can stop by your local Sunheat dealer for hands on service! iHeater's are less expensive, but their PTC heating element is not replaceable.

Customer Reviews

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jan 03, 2012 11:31:48

Note: Not all infrared heaters work the same way. For purposes of this article, we'll be describing the SolarFlare.

So, what makes an infrared heater great than an commonplace space heater you might get at Wal-Mart for ? That space heater also uses convection, and pulls just as many watts, so it seems that they should achieve exactly the same - but the fact is, they don't.

Here's why: It's the climatic characteristic to which the air is heated, and the way in which that air is distributed. An commonplace space heater superheats the air, then blasts it into the room at high speed. The high climatic characteristic and turbulence cause the stream of hot air to head level up and stay there. Wherever the occupants of a room may be, you're unlikely to find anyone on the ceiling - so the population who are supposed to be getting warmer have to wait until the heat works its way down to them.

A SolarFlare infrared heater warms the air moderately and moderately using a dual heat accommodation organize and six quartz infrared elements. By the time cool air makes its circuitous trip from the fans on the back to the grille on the front, its climatic characteristic has been raised by about 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

This air is moderately exhaled into the room, causing minimal turbulence and thus reducing the tendency of the warmer air to rise level up straight through the cooler air. The result of this even distribution is clearly shown by the numbers: A room heated with an infrared heater will usually show a floor-to-ceiling climatic characteristic disparity of only 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Heated with an commonplace space heater, the climatic characteristic differential between floor and ceiling will be much greater.

While an infrared heater will not, on it own, heat your home for any reasonable estimate of "pennies a day," it will keep any hundred to a thousand quadrate feet comfortable, which is more than its 5,119 Btu's are "supposed" to be able to do. This makes it an excellent source of supplemental heat.

Supplemental heat from a movable expedient can be used in a join of dissimilar ways to cut your energy bill. First of all, the coverage area of an infrared heater may nothing else but be large sufficient to heat the parts of your house where you spend the majority of your time while at home. You can then leave the thermostat down on the rest of your house, with an definite possible for energy savings.

Also, many homes have one or more "cold spots" in the central heating. If such a cold spot is in a frequently-used area, you may find that it's causing you to run the central heat higher than requisite for the rest of the house. Infrared heaters excel at bringing these dead areas up to par with the rest of the system, enabling you to run the whole thing at a more reasonable temperature.

Infrared heaters aren't magic. They're just nothing else but good electric space heaters with imaginable coverage. Used properly as a part of your farranging heating strategy, they have the possible to make a good-sized dent in your energy bill.

Infrared Heaters: Science or Hype?