Infrared Radiant Heating Basics

Infrared radiant heating panels use the same principle as the sun. It is easy to feel the difference between having the rays hit your body and when they stop (for example when the sun is blocked by a cloud). The rays of the sun do not mainly heat the air but the bodies they hit. The sun is the world’s best heater. The rays used for heating are the infrared rays.

Based on this argument, the best radiant panel heater is one which produces the maximum amount of infrared rays. Only when a panel works efficiently and uses the advantages of the sun described should a heater be legitimately called an infrared heater. However, since infrared radiant heating has become very popular the last years, more and more electric heaters try to market themselves as “infrared heaters”, even though they have an infrared output rate below 25% (which means 25% of the input power is transferred into IR rays and 75% into normal convectional heat or heat/energy loss). Check Wikipedia for more information.