Quote:
Originally Posted by brk-lnt
Correct. Converting electricity to heat is pretty straight forward, it involves a big resistor at the core of it. You can do various things to move the heat (fan), or create things to help store and radiate the heat more slowly (oil-filled), but at the end of the day, the power usage, operational cost, and total amount of heat created will be the same for any given wattage.
Also, all electric heaters will be equally efficient, a 100W heater costs 1/10th as much to run as a 1000W heater, and it will heat the area 10 times slower. But they will both use the same amount of electricity in the end to raise the room temp by 3 degrees, for example.
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IR isn't intended to raise a
room's temperature: IR is designed to warm one's body. (Or many more bodies).
This is especially important when a cold north wind blasts our one-season cottage.
The cottage wasn't built (or insulated) to be heated. This isn't a "tight" dwelling. (Which has its own sets of problems). With wind, even the
ample heat from our wood stove doesn't stay around for very long. An increase of only 20° above the outside temperature can be expected from wood stove heat under windy conditions. Although well-built, focused IR heat extends this dwelling's useful season into October.
Maintaining dense tree growth along the shoreline would help, but would defeat our terrific view of the Ossipee Mountains!
The dense tree growth elsewhere keeps A/C use down (this summer) to only 10 minutes
one night--and winter's windfalls serve to feed the wood stove. (And don't bother to split the wood).
One drawback to IR is
some aging of
exposed skin may be experienced:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...87002415305049