Infrared heating – Good, bad, or ugly?

A couple of years ago (yes, this has taken me a couple of years from idea to implementation) I was thinking of re-doing my bathroom and decided that I didn’t want a radiator on the wall anymore, so I started to investigate what other types of heating were available. There was under floor heating, in-wall heating, or infrared heating

All appeared to have their plus and minus points. My original intention was to eventually convert all the upstairs rooms to use whatever I decided to go with, and maybe even replace heating in the whole house. Idealy, I didn’t want to use the boiler (and therefore gas) as I didn’t want to rely on gas, and I can hear the boiler (even though it’s been replaced recently with a far quieter one) when it’s being used. The only noise I want in the house is noise I make (for) myself. TV, music, whatever. I don’t want a background hum of some device

I started looking at infrared heating. Everything I found was a ‘thing’ that you had to mount somewhere, losing precious wall or ceiling space – All the reading I did also stated that you shouldn’t have anything in front of the infrared heater, so that severly limits which walls are suitable to mount any heating to

Mounting something the ceiling seemed more viable, but all the heating options I saw were frankly ugly and intrusive. They were also set off the ceiling so they would be dust and condensation traps which didn’t sound like a great idea

After many fruitless searches, I finally came across a company called ASTECtherm who provide an infrared heating solution which you plaster in to the ceiling. I already had some great electricians from SolarOrb who had installed my solar panels and battery system. This solution seemed like a good option for me to try

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First (calendar) year with solar

With 2024 well and truly over, that completes my first calendar year with solar panels. Was it worth it? Absolutely

Over the course of 2024, I generated 105% of the electricity I used. Not much more to say than that really!

This is pretty much what my bills have looked like for the past 5 years (2020 is estimated as I don’t have the information for the full year)

Bar chart showing annual electricity bills since 2020

2020 and 2021 show the bill reaching 3 bars high. 2022 and 2023 show the bill reaching 5 and 5.5 bars high respectivly. 2024 shows the bill reaching about 0.25 bars high

Some numbers across the year

Grid importSolar generatedGrid exportHouse usage
Best day (kWh)0.0530.0822.995.2
Worst day (kWh)24.530.340.0517.3
Total (kWh)2544.613862.082363.813671.2

My net grid usage was around 200kWh, previous years were anything from 3,300kWh to 3,600kWh

I don’t think there’s much more to say here. Get solar panels if you can! And also get a battery to store the energy which will allow you to buy off-peak to store for use during peak periods

As I mentioned previously, I don’t think a heat pump is for me. But, as I generated more electricity that I used I have decided to get some infrared heating installed. I’m just working through getting that set up and will see how it works out!

Ooh, I got solar!

Back in November 2023, I got solar panels installed along with a ‘solar’ battery – I don’t like the term ‘solar battery’ as it’s not a thing. The battery isn’t solar, and doesn’t require solar. It’s literally a battery.

I’m UK based, so I used a solar calculator from the Energy Saving Trust to see if my roof would be viable for panels – I did see a roof around where I live that faced the same way as mine, but they only have panels on one side of their house. I wanted to see if I could have more panels installed.

It turned out that my roof is South-East and North-West facing, both are suitable for having solar panels installed on them. However, even though I specifically asked, most quotes I got didn’t accomodate for panels on the North-West side of the roof, which was frustrating. In fact, only two installers listened to what it was that I wanted.

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