6 Secrets Of Saving Money With An Infrared Heating System

As an innovative heating brand in the market, we have been asked by a lot of Sundirect users how to save on their electrical bills with their infrared heating system. While, in general, infrared heating is an economical way to heat you can enjoy a lot of extra savings following our tips. Now You don’t need to think about why you should consider infrared heaters at home. There are a lot of infrared heater installers that can advise you on how to save more, but of course, there are some secret tips you may not have heard about yet.

1. Improving the building insulation

Infrared heating is accumulative heating. This means that with the same heat produced by the heater, buildings with less heating loss are storing warmth longer inside of the room. It’s a good choice to upgrade the insulation level of your home. Please make sure your windows are also insulated properly as they can cause even more energy loss than the walls. If your window is poorly insulated fix it or replace it.

2. Correct mounting position

Make sure when you install an infrared panel heater that the infrared rays are not blocked by any objects, for example, it’s not suitable to install an infrared heating panel behind the sofa. Always try to maximize the heating space, before installation, try a few locations that you would like to install your heater and choose the best. Far infrared rays don’t reach further than 3.5-4 meters, so keep this in mind. Ceiling mounting is a good option because with ceiling mounting the surface temperature of the heating panel is hotter and more efficient. Place the infrared heating panels in the center of the ceiling which will cover a wider area. Lastly, two smaller power heaters are always better than one big power heater if the total power combined is the same.

3. Calculating a good system size

Sometimes customers who have bought infrared panel heaters online complain that the infrared heating system is not working properly or that it is too cold. We are always sorry to hear about those stories but most of the time it’s not the problem of the heater itself. The problem is not having the right heating calculation. For example, some cheap online brands market that a 600W panel can heat up to 25m2 space. Come on, infrared heating is effective but it is not magic. So please use a trusted infrared heating calculator, for example, Sundirect’s online heating calculator. And one last thing, always go for a little bit higher power (say 10-15%) than the calculated result. Sometimes voltage fluctuations and power tolerances may cause the system to have less power. A higher power is always good because it can heat up quicker and in the end, the heating period is less with bigger power so eventually the total consumption of electricity is the same and you will still feel warm enough.

4. Choosing a good control system

A common problem why people’s infrared heaters use too much energy is that people disregard the importance of control systems. They buy expensive infrared panel heaters but choose an inappropriate thermostat or none at all. Heating control is the “brain” of a heating system, so the smart and eco functions of the control system will decide how much saving you will benefit from in the end. So we should not focus only on the heating panel when choosing which brand to buy but pay more attention to the controls.

5. Finding a comfortable room temperature

With infrared heating, warm and comfortable room temperature is something between 20-22degrees C, because of the benefit of the radiation, you will feel as warm as 23-25degrees C with convection heating. So do not set your temperature too high according to what your original knowledge of comfortable room temperature is.

Also, set the temperature lower during the night, it’s more comfortable to sleep with a slightly lower room temperature.

If you are not inside the room, contrary to your intuition, do not turn off the heater completely but instead lower the room temperature. It takes more energy to turn off the heating system and turn it on again compared to keeping the room temperature at a certain level. We suggest 14-16 degrees C as your lowest room temperature.

6. Using the WiFi function of your control system

Quite a few customers who bought a Wifi controllable heater/heating system never use the Wifi function. We always encourage our customers to try the WiFi function. Not only is the setup procedure very easy – it probably takes 2-3 minutes to set up – more important, with Wifi you are able to control your heating system remotely in a very simple way, but you will also program your system more often and adjust the suitable temperature more.

According to our study, a Wifi controllable infrared heater will have at least 10% savings.