Infrared Heating Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Infrared is a type of energy that travels in waves at the speed of light (186,000mps).

It’s part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is also home to things like microwaves, x-rays and visible light. The main difference between the various types of energy is the wavelength (the space between each ‘peak’ in the wave).

We cannot see or hear infrared waves, but we do feel them in the form of heat. It’s entirely safe, as infrared is the same type of heat we get from the sun, minus the harmful UV rays of course.

The panels beam out a series of far infrared waves throughout a room, which bounce off all the objects (furniture, walls, people etc). Each time the waves hit something, they absorb some of the energy from the waves, and radiate it back out.

The key thing here then, is that infrared panels heat the objects in a room, rather than the air itself which is how convection heaters work. This brings many advantages with it.

You’ll save enormous amounts of money by switching to infrared heating, as it takes less energy to heat objects than it does to heat the air. Infrared panels are also extremely energy efficient, converting 98% of their energy into heat, so there’s very little that gets wasted.

There’s zero maintenance on infrared panels too, as they have no moving parts. This means you don’t need to worry about the heaters failing during those cold winter months, and facing a hefty repair bill in the process!

Infrared panels help you to save space as well, as they can be mounted high up on walls, or even on the ceiling. As a result, you don’t need to worry about placing your furniture around your heaters, which therefore free up your entire floor space. Better yet, image panels mask your heaters entirely – blending them into your surrounding décor!

As infrared is a naturally occurring type of heat, they’re incredibly beneficial for your health, especially for those who suffer from respiratory issues. The lack of humid air also prevents the build-up of mould and damp on your walls.

Depending on the size of your property, they could save you anywhere up to 60% off the cost of your heating bills!

We’ve already mentioned that they require less energy to operate because infrared heats objects instead of the air. They also save you money through the fact that they can be operated individually.

When you switch your central heating on, the boiler heats up your whole house, regardless of whether you’re occupying all the rooms or not. Not only that, but convection heaters take time to make a room feel warm, sometimes taking as long as 45 minutes.

Infrared panels can be operated individually, and provide near instant heat, taking just a couple of minutes to warm a room up. This means that they don’t need to be on for as long, and don’t need to be on at all in rooms you’re not using, saving you even more on your bills!

Infrared panel heaters require no servicing or maintenance, as they have no moving parts – all you have to do is switch it on and let it do its thing!

If you want to clean them, just make sure they’re off, and use a soft, dry cloth to wipe them down. That’s all there is to it!

Absolutely. Conventional radiators have to be placed near the floor, as they heat the air, and hot air rises. If a radiator was placed high up, it would pool all the hot air at the top of a room, which defeats the purpose.

Infrared panels on the other hand can be placed high on walls and even on the ceiling, as the waves will travel in whichever direction the panel is facing, and bounce around everywhere in a room.

This means you’re free to place your furniture anywhere you like, against any wall. Not only that, but image infrared panels actually hide your heater entirely, as they simply look as though they are printed images hung up on your wall. The super slim 22mm thickness only adds to how discreet they are.

This is in stark contrast to ugly and inconvenient radiators.

Infrared is a naturally occurring type of heat, and is actually beneficial for your health.

Convection currents circulate dust and germs around a room, which is problematic for those who have respiratory conditions. The humid air also captures moisture easily, which runs the risk of damp and mould appearing on your walls.

Infrared heat doesn’t circulate any dust or germs, and provides a nice and comfortable dry heat. This is better for your health, as well as your home, as it prevents the build-up of any mould.

The waves also penetrate the skin by up to 3 inches. This softens the walls of your arteries, which in turn improves blood flow throughout the body, and helps with recovery from any injuries – so much so that many health spas have now implemented infrared therapy as part of their treatment programs!

You are actually exposed to infrared heat everyday – from the sun. Infrared panels emit the same type of heat, but without the UV rays.

That isn’t the only place you’ll find infrared either – your television remote control also uses near infrared waves to transmit data. Many home alarm systems make use of infrared sensors to detect thermal radiation from the body.

In short, infrared is already everywhere, and poses no risk to you at all.

We’ve already gone over how infrared heaters use less energy, which itself is an indication of their green credentials. The reduced CO2 demands help reduce your household’s carbon footprint, which has a massive impact on the environment. It doesn’t stop there though.

All the materials used to physically build an infrared panel are recyclable – so years down the line once your panels have come to the end of their 100,000 hour lifespan, they can be used for countless other purposes, reducing strain on the already stretched resources available to us.

Underfloor heating is a great way of keeping your home warm. However, there are a couple of drawbacks with them.

The first is that the upfront cost of underfloor heating is relatively high when compared to infrared heating.

The second, and perhaps a larger concern, is that in the event of a problem with underfloor heating, you would have to take up your floor to either repair or replace it. This will become very expensive if you have concrete floor.

Infrared heating however has a lower up front cost, and is much simpler to change in the event of something going wrong.

Absolutely. The main reason why is that infrared heaters are around 60% more efficient than night storage heaters, and end up costing you far less in electricity bills.

They also provide a cleaner heat that is far more refreshing and comfortable to be in.

Although it will depend on the room, we would recommend our Infrared Bar Heaters as a replacement for night storage heaters.

There really isn’t much to an infrared panel. The surface is made of Aluminium, which is one of the most popular and recyclable metals on the planet.

The surrounding frame is made of aluminium, whilst the back is made up of 240V junction box. Coming out of the junction box is a 2m heavy duty flex, with a standard UK 3-pin plug on the end.

Also on the back of the panel are the aluminium mounting brackets, with a set of two cross-hair bolt insertion holes to securely fix your panel to a wall or ceiling.

That’s all there is to it – very little can go wrong as none of these parts move. This has a huge impact on reliability. On top of the zero maintenance, infrared panels come with lifespans of up to 100,000 hours!

The most laborious task involved in the installation of infrared panels is drilling the screws into your wall. Every panel comes with a template that shows you exactly where you need to drill.

Once done, the panel neatly slots onto the screws via the cross-hair bolt insertion mounts on its back, and that’s it! This applies to both wall and ceiling installations – all that’s left to do is simply plug it in and switch it on!

The bar heaters are equally simple. Use a spirit level to mark the drill holes on your wall, to ensure that the bar heater will sit straight. Then, after drilling the holes, mount the brackets that have NO THREAD onto the wall. The brackets WITH THREAD slide onto the back of the bar heater. Use the supplied wing nuts to fasten the two brackets together, at the angle you desire your bar heater to sit at.

Yes, you can view or download the Infrared Heating Panel Manual here.

This manual covers the Classic White, Frameless, Nexus Wi-Fi, NXT Gen, Image, Custom Image, Glass & Mirror ranges.

Our IR Panels can be used in nearly any type of room, including living rooms, bedrooms, dining areas, conservatories and bathrooms. Our IR Bar Heaters can even be used outdoors, like patio areas, beer gardens or smoking terraces.

For added convenience, IR panel heaters can be installed on walls or on ceilings using the mounts on the back of every panel. This involves drilling screws into a wall, and mounting the panel onto them.

The panels can also be used on the floor, using the separately sold Panel Stand. The advantage here is that the panel remains mobile, and can simply be picked up and carried elsewhere.

Infrared panels are a lot more versatile than conventional radiators, as the quality of your heat won’t affected by where you use it, opening up so many more possibilities.

There are four main types of infrared panel available for purchase: White IR Panels, Image IR Panels, Custom Printed IR Panels, and Mirrored IR Panels.

These are available starting at 600 x 300mm, and going up to 600 x 600mm, 600 x 1000mm, 600 x 1200mm, 800 x 1200mm and 1000 x 1200mm sizes.

White IR heating panels are exactly as described, they’re plain white panels that give a very clean, streamlined look. These are available in 180W, 350W, 580W, 700W, 900W and 1200W versions, and in frameless versions too, for an even more minimal look.

Image IR panel heaters allow you to take your pick from a range of stunning photographs, and have them on your walls – so they actually double up as decorative pieces, masking the fact that they’re heaters altogether! These are also available in 350W, 580W, 700W, 900W and 1200W variants.

The Custom Infrared panels take this one step further, and allow you to have your own images printed on your panel! You can pick anything from family portraits, holiday snaps, your favourite car, or anything else that takes your fancy! These are available in 350W, 580W, 700W, 900W and 1200W sizes.

Finally, our Mirrored Infrared heating panel gives you a mirror and a heater in one, so you can check your appearance one more time before you head out, all whilst staying warm! They’re only available in 480W, 580W and 700W variants.

All panels come with a 5 year replacement warranty courtesy of Mirrorstone Heating, so you have incredible long term protection on your heaters.

Our NXT Gen, Helios Bar Heater Remote Control and Aurora Bar Heater Remote Control come with time and temperature control, while our Nexus Wi-Fi allows for time and temperature control via the smartphone app.

All our remaining panel heaters can be controlled via our selection of Thermostats, with multiple control features.

Absolutely. In fact, Infrared Panel Heaters are at their best when used with a thermostat. Luckily, you have a few options open to you. The easiest option is to go for one of our NXT Gen Infrared Heating Panels, as these come with integrated thermostats and remote controls as standard out of the box. You can pair multiple NXTGen Heaters to a single remote too.

For any non-NXTGen Panels, we have a choice of thermostats from brands such as Salus, offering incredible control and functionality that help you get the most from your Infrared Heating System.

If you’d rather use your own thermostat, then our Infrared Heating Panels and Bar Heaters are compatible with all electric heating thermostats, from brands such as Honeywell, Hive and Nest.

Our thermostats operate at 433mHz, which is an encoded frequency. This means that any other wireless systems should not interfere with our NXTGen or external thermostats.

Our selection of Thermostats are compatible with nearly all our infrared panels, but shouldn’t be used with any heaters where the built-in thermostat cannot be overridden.

You can also bring the NXT Gen features to any panel using the NXT Gen Thermostat and Remote.

Unfortunately, our Wi-Fi Heaters are not compatible with HomeKit.

This will depend on the ampage of the circuit in which you want to connect it to. Most circuits are 13A, which, on a 230V system, will give you a max load of 2990W. Therefore, it is important not to exceed this wattage limit when wiring different appliances to any electrical circuit.

It is also important to determine the ampage of the circuit before too. We would advise consulting a qualified electrician before commencing any work.

The operating temperature is 75^oC – 95^oC, with 0.1W per cm² on the surface.

Once you have completed the payment for your Custom Printed Panel, send your image to images@suryaheating.co.uk, with the image you want printing either as an attachment, or as a Dropbox, Google Drive, WeTransfer, or equivalent, link.

Be sure to quote your name and order number to avoid confusion.

We will assess you image for its quality. To minimise delays and guarantee a high quality image, you can read more about assessing image quality in our guide here.

Once sent, we will send a proof of what the panel will look like, along with a sample of the image quality at full size via WeTransfer. We will wait for your approval on the above before sending it off for print.

We’ll then assemble your panel and ship it out to you, with the whole process taking between 7-10 days to complete.

It’s actually much simpler than you might realise. You just need to calculate the volume of your room in m³. This can be done by multiplying the length, by the width, by the height.

Then the amount of power you need per m³ will depend on how well insulated your home is. Well insulated homes need just 25W per m³. Moderately insulated homes need 30W per m³, whilst poorly insulated homes will need 35W per m³.

From here, you can work out how many units you need. So for example, a room that needs 1500W would be adequately warmed up by a 1200W panel and a 350W panel.

If you don’t fancy doing this yourself however, there is a calculator on each of the product pages that tell you how many of that panel you need.

Living rooms tend to be the largest areas of the home, and for this reason it makes sense to go for the higher capacity panels – more specifically the 700W, 900W and 1200W options.

As the living room is typically an area where you would relax, a great option here would be something like our 800 x 1200 Washing Landscape Printed Infrared Heating Panel 900W.

It provides a highly scenic picture that’s ideal for a living room environment, and has enough power to heat up large areas, though this will of course depend on the size of your lounge. There’s more where that came from too in our vast range of Image IR panels.

Bedrooms are usually average sized, and benefit most from 700W or 900W panels. Bedrooms tend not to be communal areas either, and are often personalised to the occupant’s tastes.

As a result of this, we would highly recommend the 700W Custom Printed IR Panel Heater, as it allows you to have your own personal image printed on it, and provides adequate heat for an area the size of a bedroom.

If your bedroom is considerably smaller or larger, you can have a browse through our entire range of custom printed heaters for the right wattage.

On average, kitchens tend to be relatively small areas. For this reason, you may want to stick with lower capacity heaters, like the 350W and 580W panels. It’s worth bearing in mind that you will often have additional heat coming from ovens and cookers in the kitchen as well.

The appliances found in most kitchens usually limit the amount of free wall space too, opening up the possibility for ceiling mounted panels. With this in mind, we’d recommend our 580W Classic IR Heating Panel – the plain finish ensures a great looking installation on your ceiling.

If you have different sized kitchen, then you may want to consider another heater from our range of White IR panel heaters.

Whilst you can use White IR Panels in the bathroom, we would highly recommend using Mirror IR Panels, as these will not only save you space, but they will also stay condensation free.

Offices are usually quite large, and are minimal when it comes to decoration and personalisation to promote a good working environment.

We’d highly recommend using multiple 350W Classic IR Heating Panels – and for one very good reason.

Other than the plain finish, it measures 600 x 600mm, so it can actually slot directly into your suspended grid ceiling – which is common in many commercial areas. This hides your heaters entirely, once again highlighting the space saving credentials of infrared panels.

Our best heating solution for outdoor areas are our Aurora Infrared Bar Heaters. They come in 1200W and 2400W options, both of which come in standard and remote-control versions.

The remote-control versions also have Wi-Fi built in, allowing control from your smartphone.

There’s nothing stopping you from using IR panels in conjunction with traditional convection radiators, as IR heaters are so versatile in terms of how you can use them.

If for example, you’re renovating a room and need a temporary way of heating a room, then IR panels can fulfil this purpose. At the same time, if you want to try out IR panels before completely switching over, then this is easily possible too, thanks to the ease of installation and use.

All orders within the UK are dispatched at no extra charge. This is via a ParcelForce 48 service and can take between 3-5 working days. Please bear in mind that we cannot guarantee that all order will be received within this time frame.

If you’re ordering outside of the UK, get in touch with us and we can give you a quote depending on where you are and on the size of your order.

Upon dispatch of your panels, we’ll email you a tracking number that you can enter over at http://www.parcelforce.com/track-trace to see the progress of your delivery.

Firstly, we have a 14 day returns period in place on all purchases. This allows you to send your item back to us for a full refund or exchange if you’ve changed your mind.

This applies to all White IR Panels. A 15% restocking fee will be applied to all Image IR Panels, and there are no returns on any Custom Printed IR Panels.

Please note though that we will not refund any postage costs, as there has not been any error on our part.

If there have been any modifications to your panel after you have received it, then we will not be able to take it back.

All our Infrared Heaters (both IR Panels and the IR Bar Heaters) are both CE and ROHS certified. These satisfy the Low Voltage Directive 2014/35/EC and the Electromagnetic Emissions Directive 2014/30/EC.

The NXTGen IR Heating Panels also comply with the Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC, as they have passed ErP testing by TUV Rheinland.

To speak to a member of our team, you can call us on 0116 321 4124, you can send us an email to sales@suryaheating.co.uk, or you can use our Facebook page and leave us a post there!