We Heat Ceilings And Pay For Floors

I measured it with an infrared thermometer. The air at the ceiling was 27 degrees. The air at the thermostat was 22. The floor where my two year old daughter sat and played with Lego was 16 degrees. I had a brand new gas system. Big radiators under every window. Boiler running non stop. Bill 280 euros in January. And my kid was sitting on ice. That day I understood radiators don’t heat rooms. They heat ceilings. And they charge you for it.

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Hot Air Always Betrays You

A radiator makes 55 degree hot air. Physics does the rest. Hot air is light, so it flies up to the ceiling in 10 seconds. At the ceiling it is useless. It cools, becomes heavy, falls down the opposite wall as a cold draft across your ankles back to the radiator. This loop never stops.

While it loops it picks up dust from your floor, burns it on the hot metal, that is the dry winter smell, and throws it into your lungs. It dries the air to 30 percent. Your skin itches, your throat scratches in the morning.

And the worst part: your walls stay cold. A radiator only heats air, it never heats a brick wall properly. Your outside wall is 14 degrees all winter. It sucks heat out of your body all day. You feel cold even at 23 degrees air because your body radiates its own warmth into that cold wall. You turn up to 24. Bill goes up. Wall stays cold.

An infrared ceiling panel does not know what air is. It is a 2 cm thin white plate, 700 watts for 14 square meters, 7 kilos, 4 screws, one cable, 15 minutes install. It shines with invisible light, like sun through a window. The light crosses air without loss and becomes heat only when it hits a solid thing.

It hits the floor and floor becomes 23 degrees warm in 15 minutes. Barefoot warm. It hits the walls and walls become 22 degrees warm in 30 minutes. It hits your skin and you feel soft warmth in 60 seconds. It hits the bed and the bed is warm before you get in.

Now you are not sitting in a tent with hot air at the top and ice walls. You are sitting inside a warm cave. All surfaces around you give you warmth. Your body stops losing heat. You feel cozy at 20 degrees air. With radiators you needed 24 to feel the same.

Open a window for 10 minutes to get fresh air. With radiators you lose all heat and need an hour to reheat. With infrared you throw out air but heat stays in the floor and walls. Close the window and in 3 minutes air is warm again because warm walls warm it instantly.

Why Your Wardrobe Smells Musty

Mold is not from bad ventilation. It is from a cold wall.

You shower, you cook, you breathe. You make warm humid air at 24 degrees. That air touches the outside wall behind your wardrobe that is 14 degrees. When warm air touches a cold wall it drops water, like a cold beer bottle in summer. That wall is wet 24 hours a day. On that wet film mold grows. You can bleach it ten times, it comes back, because wall stays cold.

A ceiling infrared panel shines directly on that outside wall and keeps it at 21 degrees. Now 24 degree humid air touches 21 degree wall and nothing happens. No water. No condition for mold. It is physically impossible for condensation to form on a surface warmer than air. In 90 percent of our houses black dots disappear by themselves in three weeks. No chemicals. Just a warm wall.

Laundry dries in front of it with light, not air. A wet towel one meter away from panel is dry in 40 minutes because infrared penetrates fibers.

One Room One Thermostat One Truth

Gas has one brain for the whole house. You must heat everything or nothing. You heat the guest room for three months for nobody.

Infrared has one brain per room. One panel, one WiFi thermostat with a small sensor you put on your desk where you actually sit, one app.

Living room 21 from 17 to 23 only. Bedroom 19 for sleep but 22 for 20 minutes before alarm so floor is warm when you step barefoot. Kids room 21 from 14 to 20. Office weekdays only. Guest room 15.5 all winter anti mold for 6 cents a day. When you leave for the coast you tap OFF, when you come back you tap ON one hour before arrival. No water inside, nothing can freeze and burst at minus 15 for three months off. No boiler service 150 euro, no gas meter fee, no chimney, no noise, no maintenance, 25 year warranty.

Effective work is 20 minutes on, 40 minutes off because warm walls keep radiating when off. 1.75 kWh per day per room, 0.44 euro per day per room, whole winter per room about 79 euro.

It can be white, black glass, mirror that never fogs, or your family photo printed on it that heats the living room.

My daughter still plays on the floor. Now the floor is 23 degrees.