Because Infrared Heat covers the whole spectrum of radiated heat (ranging from the very intense heat from a light bulb at 4700°F to heat you’d feel from a glowing coal at 1100°F, to a rock, warmed to 68°F by the sun), 3 correspondingly very different categories of Infrared have been defined, exactly fitting the above examples. These are “Near” Infrared (Also called Shortwave or IR-A); “Medium” Infrared (also called Middlewave or IR-B) and “Far” Infrared (also called “Longwave” or IR-C).

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“Test persons in a room with a temperature of 50°C (122°F) of warm air and cooled walls froze deplorably; when in a room with a cool air temperature of 10°C (50°F) and warm walls, they broke into an unpleasant sweat.”(source: Techn. Info “Strahlungsenergie – die Ur-Energie, neu entdeckt, TT Technotherm GmbH, Nürnberg).

If you are in a centrally heated room at 70°F with your back to an outside wall at 62°F, you will be radiating heat out to that outside wall and you will therefore feel cold: regardless of the room’s “comfortable” air temperature. This underlies a fundamental difference between infrared and “convection” heating.

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However, this “watt density” is also key to the panel’s energy efficiency. As we said, human skin reacts optimally to Far Infrared heat, because of its 80% water content. You do not need to apply any more energy than 0.65 watts per square inch of panel surface area in order to produce “Comfort” within the distances shown above.  Early Infrared panels achieved this with thinly stretched, tightly coiled wire densely placed over the panel surface area, but more modern panels with carbon fibre and carbon crystal elements can achieve this watt density even more efficiently (being very close to 100% energy consumed to energy output at the panel surface).

Midinfrared

The aberration, instead, is an effect due to the finite velocity of light, and to the varying motion of the observer with respect to the celestial source. An intuitive way of understanding the yearly aberration, based on the Galilean transformation of velocities, and in the simplified hypothesis of circular orbit. The correct answer is the velocity in vacuum, because the atmosphere partakes of the same translational motion of the Earth barycenter, and no further aberration is introduced by its presence. In order to determine the main components of the annual variation of the apparent ecliptic coordinates due to aberration, let us proceed for a moment with the circular approximation of Earth's orbit. The diurnal aberration ellipse is thus parallel to the equatorial system, and its smallness permits the difference to be treated with the first-order formulae. The term planetary aberration rigorously means the sum of the annual aberration plus the finite light time.

Infraredwavelength

And exactly along with the above categories, from a point of view of indoor Comfort Heating, the main acceptable waveband is Far Infrared (Humans reach optimal “Comfort” at around 70°F).

But in the last 60 years, we have forgotten about radiant heating: not because a better technology replaced it, but because fossil fuels that powered central heating made it so cheap just to heat air.

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All objects (including people) absorb and emit infrared and whether one is absorbing or emitting depends on the difference in temperatures between objects in an environment. If objects in an environment are warmer than you are, you will warm up from them. If you are warmer than objects in an environment you will radiate out to them and feel cold. (This Infrared emission is why police Infrared cameras can see fugitives trying to escape detection). But it is also why we can still feel cold in centrally heated rooms, which only heat the air and don’t heat the objects within a room.

Dr. Janet Voke, Radiation effects on the eye, Part 1 – Infrared radiation effects on ocular tissue, Optometry Today, May 1999

InfraredWaves

The wavelength of Infrared produced by Herschel Panel Heaters specifically relates to their surface temperature and surface area, which we require to operate at 1 kilowatt of heat energy per 10 square feet (or 0.65 watts per square inch). This “watt density” as it is called projects Far Infrared within a 8 to 10-foot distance from the heater (which spreads out radially from the panel to cover an arc up to 16 feet by 16 feet depending on panel power). This coverage is perfect for domestic or office “comfort” heating.

Infrared is radiated heat: the feeling of warmth from the sun on your face; the heat from a coal fire, or a toaster. It is even the same form of heat emitted by your own body. It is the most basic form of heating known to man.

Infrared light

Feeling warm has nothing to do with air temperature. It is all about absorption of infrared from our surroundings (warming up) or stopping ourselves from losing radiation (cooling down) to a “colder” outside.

The aberration, instead, is an effect due to the finite velocity of light, and to the varying motion of the observer with respect to the celestial source. An intuitive way of understanding the yearly aberration, based on the Galilean transformation of velocities, and in the simplified hypothesis of circular orbit. The correct answer is the velocity in vacuum, because the atmosphere partakes of the same translational motion of the Earth barycenter, and no further aberration is introduced by its presence. In order to determine the main components of the annual variation of the apparent ecliptic coordinates due to aberration, let us proceed for a moment with the circular approximation of Earth's orbit. The diurnal aberration ellipse is thus parallel to the equatorial system, and its smallness permits the difference to be treated with the first-order formulae. The term planetary aberration rigorously means the sum of the annual aberration plus the finite light time.

Peter Schroeder, Judith Haendeler, Jean Krutmann, The role of near-infrared radiation in photoaging of the skin, Experimental Gerontology, Volume 43, Issue 7, July 2008, Pages 629-632, ISSN 0531-5565

Used by cavemen to heat themselves by fires; by Romans in their hypocausts, by log burners and tile stoves, Infrared heating has been favored for millennia because like the heat of the sun on your surrounding environment – even during winter – Infrared heats objects, which then radiate back and keep the environment warm around you. Radiant heat does not heat the air – which holds little heat and rapidly disperses.

Infrared waves travel through the air and when they touch a surface, heat energy is released regardless of the surrounding air temperature. That heat energy excites the molecules in the object it meets which begin to vibrate and gain energy (and warm-up). Water absorbs Far Infrared specifically well, and as our skin is 80% water, we are perfectly adapted to Far Infrared (Robinson, 2014). Far Infrared – unsurprisingly – the same band of infrared that the human body itself emits.