Of all the different types of heating units on the market today, infrared electric heaters have to be one of the more efficient and most versatile. You can find products designed for almost any use, from portable space heaters you can use in your home or garage to outdoor heaters for your porch or patio. These infrared heaters are a great way to add a bit of extra heat wherever you need it, without sending your energy bills through the roof.
How Does Infrared Heating Work?
Unlike other heating units which require a flame to generate heat, these heaters generate heat through infrared light. This light is created by infrared lightbulbs, which is incredibly warm and heats up anything that it shines upon including furniture, the floor, walls, and even you. Nonetheless, infrared light is invisible to the human eye, so you won’t actually see a glow—but you’ll definitely feel the heat. All you have to do is plug the heater in, turn it on and the infrared bulbs will quickly begin sending out their warm rays.
Types of Infrared Electric Heaters
Although all of these heaters use infrared lightbulbs, the way the light and heat can be transferred to the surrounding space in one of two ways. The more basic and usually cheaper type of unit simply has the lightbulbs simply shine out into the room to release their heat. However, there are also infrared electric heaters available in which the infrared light shines onto a metal heat exchanger to warm it up, after which a fan blows air onto the exchanger to circulate the heat away from the unit.
Advantages of Infrared Heaters
Infrared heating has grown hugely in popularity in the recent years, as more people are becoming energy conscious and looking forward to stay warm without having to pay an arm and a leg for it in energy costs. Infrared heaters, especially the basic fan-less models, use very little electricity. This makes them incredibly cheap, yet effective heating solution—often costing only pennies a day to keep a room warm.
As they run entirely on electricity, this also means you won’t have to continually keep purchasing fuel like you would with a pellet or wood burning stove. Of course, another advantage of not burning fuel is also that these heaters produce zero emissions, which is also great news for those environmentally conscious people out there.
Better still, they require zero installation and are typically small and lightweight, making them incredibly portable. In fact, most of them can easily be carried in one hand, while the larger units almost always come with wheels. As they start pumping out heat almost immediately and can heat up a room in sometimes as little as 30 minutes, their portability means you can easily take them from one room to another whenever you move around the house.
Although most of these infrared electric heating units are designed for smaller rooms, you can still find some products that are capable of heating up more than 1000 square feet of space, making them perfect for use almost anywhere.
If you’re looking for a safe heating alternative, you’d be hard pressed to find one that’s safer than an infrared heater, as the units themselves will never get hot to the touch. No matter how long you leave it running or how much heat it’s cranking out, you’ll never have to worry about anything near the heater catching fire or your kids burning themselves.
All of these factors make infrared electric heaters one of the best choices out there for anyone in need of an efficient, reliable and safe space heater that really works.
