Portable Heating Guide

Portable Radiant Heaters

In previous posts we’ve tossed around the word efficiency. As one commenter helped illustrate, it’s a sticky and potentially misleading word. For our purposes, though, the definition isn’t meant to encompass the conversion of electricity into heat but how well a heating unit can do its intended job (warm a particular person or space) and how cost effective it is relative to other available options. Now we’re going to muddy the water further by suggesting that heating the air in a space may be precisely the wrong approach for certain circumstances and that’s where radiant heaters come into play.

Radiant space heaters are confusing in their own right. We’ve already talked about oil-filled portable heaters that look a lot like the “radiators” you might find in an apartment. These are not those. The premise behind radiant heaters is entirely different. The oil-filled heaters discussed in our previous post are passive in that they do not rely on a fan to move heated air through a room. Radiant heaters can make the same claim of passivity (though there are fan-forced models) but, unlike those oil-filled heaters, radiant space heaters aren’t meant to heat the air at all! Not directly, at least.

Confused? Don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of it. When an oil-filled heater (or a heater with coils over which a fan blows) is doing its job, air is heated and circulated through a room. Heaters without fans rely on convection, the flow of air created when warm air rises and cool air sinks, to generate air flow and circulate the air they warm. It’s a slow process but works fine. A heater with a fan may function to warm a room more quickly because it is moving that warm air around the room more quickly (and more loudly). Radiant heaters don’t care about air at all. Like the sun, radiant heaters warm people and objects, not the air. Those objects, in turn, may release heat into their environment which, in turn, warms the air around the objects over time.

If you’ve ever stood in your mechanic’s garage on a cold day, you may have encountered a radiant heater. They are also often found just above the entrance to stores, providing a welcome dose of warmth to those entering and exiting the store or waiting outside for a pickup. Many warehouses use them as well. Radiant heaters are often found in outdoor or semi-outdoor areas where the lack of an enclosed, insulated environment means that conventional heating options are simply a waste of money (all the warm air simply blows or rises away). Since radiant heaters don’t bother to heat the air, just the objects in their path, that problem is largely negated. There is still inefficiency here in that the objects they heat such as concrete floors are still releasing that heat to the air where it’s carried away as waste. But the people standing in the path of heat from the radiant heater and from the heated objects releasing heat are still comparatively warm.

Frankly, radiant space heaters are a miracle of modern technology and I’m a big fan. The emergence of portable radiant heaters on the market means the rest of us can benefit from this type of heating without having to hard mount an industrial radiant heater in our house. Used properly, these types of heaters can serve as a smart alternative to other options. For example, if you plan to spend your afternoon alone in a cozy chair reading a book, do you really need the entire house heated? Do you even need the entire room heated? Probably not. You’d be just fine if a source of heat were directed strictly at you and the rest of the room be dammed! But are there down sides to these devices? Aren’t there always?

Radiant heaters heat by directing energy (infrared radiation) at the person or object they are heating. Don’t worry, it’s completely safe radiation, not the kind that makes you glow in the dark. The down side is in the word “directing.” If you aren’t in a direct line, you don’t get the benefit. It’s like a flashlight beam in a dark room. If you’re in the path of the beam, you’re lit. If you aren’t in the path of the beam, you aren’t lit. There are some excellent model portable radiant heaters such as the Optimus H-5280 that get around this by oscillating much in the way some fans do, cycling back and forth. But, like an oscillating fan, you’re only enjoying the benefit when it is pointed directly at you.

Some portable radiant heaters can also rate lower for safety than, for example, an oil-filled heater. Think of these as a bit in the same category as halogen lamps in which a very hot element or bulb serves as an ignition risk should it somehow come into contact with a combustible. There are Mica and Ceramic models that up the safety margins notably such as those offered by Delonghi. Some Delonghi models offer additional bonuses such as bathroom water splash protection (imagine the pleasure of getting out of your shower on a cold winter’s day and still being toasty warm) and can even be wall mounted.

Finally, for the negatives and already pointed out, radiant heaters are not specifically meant to heat rooms but are designed to warm people and objects. If you want to keep a whole room warmed there may be other model heaters better suited to your needs. It’s important to note, though, that a radiant heater will (given time) heat a room simply because air flowing over the objects the heater has warmed up will also gradually warm up.

On the upside, portable heaters offer instant, directed heat to a person. They are great outdoor and semi-outdoor heating solutions in that cold air won’t simply blow the heat away (we love using ours for year around barbeque gatherings). Just don’t use them when it’s raining! They also offer very quiet operation which is a big plus to light sleepers. Used with a bit of common sense, radiant heaters can be a very cost effective way of keeping a person warm without wasting energy trying to heat an entire room or house. Their portability, small size options and quiet operation mean these are often the preferred under-the-desk heating solution for office workers.

If you are in the market for a portable heater and want something with a lot of pluses and very few downsides, radiant portable heating may well be a solution you shouldn’t overlook. For my money, it’s one of the smartest and most versatile heating options out there.