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Infrared Heating

Radiant Heat is the Most Basic Form of Heating Known to Man

Infrared heaters work by converting electricity into radiant heat. Infrared is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The heat is the same feeling of warmth as the winter sun on your face and the heat from a coal fire.

Infrared is the direct transfer of heat from the heater to the object (you and the room around you) without heating the air in between. It’s the same heat we feel from an environment warmed by the sun, and the wavelength most efficiently absorbed by the body.

Today, new technology, in the form of our 100% energy efficient, Herschel Infrared heating, allows us to use infrared radiant heating in a stylish, comfortable and highly controllable way.

Make your room a 360° radiator

 

Radiant heat is invisible light.  In the same way that lights are sited to light a room, Herschel Infrared heaters emit heat to directly warm the walls, floor and ceiling of a building (the ‘thermal mass’). Once the thermal mass is warm, the building itself retains the heat for a period of time, so the heater only needs to be on to top up.

Most of other forms of heaters are convection heaters which primarily heat volumes of air, which then has to transfer its heat to the building in order to warm the thermal mass. The problem is that hot air rises to the ceiling (where you don’t want it) and easily escapes with draughts and open doors. The direct transfer of heat to the building is why Herschel is more efficient and saves energy compared to convection heating.

It also more comfortable because you don’t have cold floors and stuffy air.

Heat we were designed for

 

Infrared is completely safe and is, in fact, the same wavelength that our bodies absorb and emit. Humans are radiant objects.
More than 60% of our sense of comfort or discomfort is governed by our radiant heat gain or loss. Only 15% of our sense of comfort is governed by air temperature and movement.

This means we usually feel warm if we’re absorbing heat from our environment and often feel cold if we’re radiating out our own body heat to the outside world.

For most people, if the environment around us is more than 26C or less than 16C, we feel discomfort, because we are either gaining or losing too much body heat.

So, if we warm the walls, ceiling and floor of the room we are in (not the air) to at least 17c and ideally to around 22c, our bodies will stop perceiving that we are losing heat and we will feel warm and comfortable.

This is the objective of infrared heating: to build up “thermal mass” in an environment and let it keep you warm.

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