Energy saving benefits of Infrared Heating

The key advantage of Infrared Heaters over other types of radiator lies in the fact that IR heaters are more efficient radiating bodies than water-heated radiators or electrical storage heaters.

There are further advantages in the fact that the heat source is not separated from the radiating source (as is the case in oil or gas central heating) nor is there any "age deflation" (i.e. worsening efficiency over time).

The easiest way to demonstrate the energy cost-savings of infra red versus gas, oil or electric storage heating is to do a simple comparison.

For all types of heater:

1) Find the room volume to be heated - say 10 m³.

For Redwell Infrared heaters:

2) Multiply '1' by 25 watt-hours (standard energy input required by electromagnetic IR panel to heat a given volume); multiply again by the unit cost of electricity (currently14 p per Kilowatt hour); divide your total answer by 3 (as Redwell Units only draw power 1/3 of their total time switched on. (Note: not all brands of Infra red heaters do this).

So in our 10m³ room, our Infrared energy cost is 1.16 pence per hour.

For oil heaters:

4) Multiply '1' by 45 watt-hours (standard energy input required by non-electromagnetic radiant surface to heat a given volume) (i.e. 450 watt-hours);

5) Add 10% to accommodate heat loss between the boiler and the radiators (i.e. 495 watt-hours);

6) Apply the following "age deflator" (which recognises that after 3 years, oil heaters rapidly lose efficiency):

1-3 years: 90% energy-efficient: so multiply your answer in 3 by 1.11.
3-5 years: 70-80% energy-efficient, so multiply your answer in 3 by 1.33.
Older than 5 years: Anything down to 55% energy-efficient, so multiply your answer in 3 by 1.81.

So for a 3-5 year boiler total power consumption in our 10m³ room is roughly 658 watt-hours.

7) Divide your answer in '6' by 10.22 (the accepted "average" kilowatts you will obtain per litre of oil - although this can vary hugely according to boiler age - we took that into account already). So this is 0.658 Kilowatt hours divided by 10.22 = 0.0643 litres.

8) Multiply your answer in 7 by anything between 40 pence per litre (current price) to 66 pence (price at end of last year). See our "oil prices widget" to the left to catch the latest monthly, annual and 5 year trend.

9) (What everyone overlooks) Remember a 50kw oil or gas boiler itself consumes about £60 of electricity annually to run. This equates to an additional half-penny per hour.

So for our 10m³ room, assuming a 3-5 year old boiler, our oil heating price is anything from 3 pence up to 4.7 pence per hour.

So just on power consumption alone you could reduce heating costs by at least half. In fact we have proven Redwell units to be up to 70% more energy-efficient versus other types of heating - making it easy to reduce energy costs.

Contact Us to save heating costs. Discuss your heating conversion project with us.

We have written extensively about the energy-efficiency of IR heaters versus electric storage, oil and gas heating and reference these articles for you down below and in the left hand margin of this site so you can research this further.