Hi john. Infra red radiation heats the objects it points at and not the air. Just like when the sun is out on a ski slope you are warm despite the air being cold.
Indeed so.
Storage heaters work on convection heating the air. If someone opens the front door that air escapes ...
Iit does.
... but infra red keeps you warm.
Yes, if it is directed at you, it will - otherwise what it keeps warm will be whatever it is directed at.
You can get big panels as mirrors on the walls or as pictures. Best to have them mounted on ceiling ....
I wonder if you are old enough to remember the days when essentially 'radiant' heaters (electric, gas, paraffin) were very common, and hence remember being huddled up close to one of those 'fires' with one's face and chest uncomfortably hot and one's back uncomfortably cold? With a ceiling mounted IR heater, the risk would presumably be that the top of one's head (particularly if one had dark hair!) and shoulders would get very hot, but the rest of one's body much less so. In general, radiant heat is not very comfortable.
.... aiming their radiation on all the objects in the room and heating up the floor and walls. The floor and walls will then heat the air as secondary heating.
... and, of course, the converse is also true - if one heats the air (by convention, blown hot air or whatever), that will heat the floors, walls and contents of the room.
Returning the your claim, there is really far less difference between the two situations than to seem to be suggesting. In fact, of what you say, the only major difference is loss of heated air when someone opens a door (but how long will an outside door be left open?). Furthermore, particularly if one utilises your 'best' option (ceiling mounted IR source), one would expect that IR directed at them heats the walls and windows more rapidly and effectively than does heated air - and since the greatest heat losses from a room are through walls etc., those losses are likely to be greater with IR heating, hence requireing more 'wattage' for a given amount of'heating effect'.
It's a complex issue and generalisations are not particularly helpful. The relative advantages and disadvantages will obviously vary from situation to situation, and according to what one is trying to achieve, but "Infra red panels are half the wattage for same heating effect as storage heaters" is a statement which really cannot be justified as a generalisation. "Half the wattage for the same heating effect" implies that heat losses (or, at least, 'heat wastage') would also be halved - and it is by no means a foregone conclusion that such would often be the case. Indeed, it would not surprise me if some people, with some rooms, would actually require 'more wattage' with IR heating in order to achieve what they regarded as being an equally comfortable environment to that they would have if using convection-based heating.
Kind Regards, John
