Infra red

[Heartwood]

(To the HVAC experts and physicists out there, pardon my dumb question.) Searching all the great posts on heat types, I can't determine whether "infra-red" is a 100% equivalent of radiant.

I tried a (ceramic) radiant propane cabinet heater in my garage (very large, well ventilated, very high ceilings) to use while I'm at the work bench, and it didn' cut it. It's too low to the ground and hard to direct the radiation. So I picked up a tank-mounted set of round disk type things, as you see for duck blinds and such. But they're listed as infra-red, as opposed to radiant. Also, there's no ceramic, just some sort of mesh. Is this somehow different from the radiant heat of the ceramic? Just by appearances and feel it seems more like a cross of radiant and convection and perhaps less efficient in a huge area, if in fact its trying to heat the air by convection, which will never happen in that square footage. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Moderator, I was torn on where to post this one. Please move it if you think it belongs elsewhere.

Thx,

 

[MichaelS]

It is a radiant heater. Radiant heat will not heat the air but the first solid object the heat waves encounter. Meaning it has to heat the objects in the room and in turn those objects will heat the room.

 

[Sandor]

Heat moves 3 different ways:

IR - Like the sun hitting the earth or your back at the beach.

Convection - Like the Turkey in the oven, the hot air warms the bird

Conduction - Like a pot on the electric stove

So, in the garage:

You can have a (glowing) ceramic heater throwing IR energy at you that heats your clothes, then you. If the ceramic element is not glowing, then its not an IR heater. (And the glowing ceramic element is also a convection heater)

Convection heater that warms the air around you. Think oil filled electric heater.

Conductive heater, like sitting on a heating pad on your garage chair.

And remember, scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as "cold", only an absence of heat. At absolute zero, there is no heat.