Infrared Heating (Why We're NOT Installing Them/Heat Pumps) 

I put mirrored IR panels in my bathrooms, connected to a rocker switch and a timed relay set to 20 minutes. They face the exits to the shower. Hit the rocker before your shower and they are up to speed when you come out. They are tall and vertical and the heat you get on your body as you dry off is really nice. Then you can keep the bathroom room temp lower than would normally comfortable. Plus they work as a mirror which never steams up.

Thankyou for the shout out!!! Really appreciate it!!

Infrared panels can also get VERY hot, from what I was told. In 2017 I bought a house that was built in 2003 and came with a heat pump and underfloor heating. I LOVE IT! The underfloor heating is very comfortable and makes me (and my cats) feel very good. :) The heat pump is from 2003 and a little loud but if you're buying new models, their fans are so immensely quiet that you hardly ever hear them. Also, make sure that those who install your heat pump explain it well to you. When I bought the house, the seller just told me to not touch anything from the heat pump because it's set up "perfectly". Well -- it wasn't. A year later I had it serviced and the technician explained to me that the water pump (pumping the water into the underfloor pipes) was set up to maximum, and the little dials for the temperature (on the heat pump itself) were also set high. He explained to me how to control the heat production better (set water pump to minimum; reduce the temperature of the produced heat/hot water), and lo and behold, my old heat pump now uses way less electricity than before.

Excellent presentation and well reasoned. I think the payback argument is valid, but not the most important. We pay money to make out house better. We don’t talk about payback time for painting, decorating fixtures and fittings, we do it because it’s better. Being cheaper to run is part of that, but reducing emissions and being more comfortable is another important part of that. We will replace our oil fired system (no gas in our village) with a heat pump system over the next few years and have come to similar conclusions. We have been working hard to make our house more thermally efficient which has been pretty successful so far. Our solar panels do a great job, we just need a battery, when we can get one, to use that power we generate more efficiently. Better thermal insulation has been our best modification so far, and we can still improve there.

We moved into a detached 1970's 3 bed house in December and replaced 9.3Kw of storage heaters with 2.6 Kw of infrared panels. No messy work installing radiators or piping, no expensive boiler/pump, all rooms have separate controls for timing/temperature etc To be honest we find it great and it halved our heating bills overnight. Rooms are now a steady temperature all the time and it's a pleasant heat. Your point on water heating is correct that's next on the agenda I guess. But to be honest our showers are all electric, dishwasher and washing machine etc. It's only for hand washing or baths we use the hot water so immersion heating is probably quite a waste. Your installation costs are way off though or depends on how you place your panels we certainly didn't need any plasterers and could do it all one room at a time if we wanted. We placed the panels where the old storage heaters had been so cabling was already in place. If we'd have gone for a wet system it would have cost thousands and thousands more. Feel as with any system getting your insulation sorted first is key. The saving most people don't take into account is the thermostatic control and timers per room. Only heat what you need to and when you need it. Once the room is up to temperature it stays that way. Storage heaters drive me crazy with constant adjustments required etc.

I put heat panels upstairs in our house. First of all in my son's room and we liked them so much we put them in all the bedrooms. First they ran on the small power and were wired in later. It is not expensive because the chasing is minor and you simply mount them on the ceiling doing the wiring from the floor above. My house has solid wall so needs more spent on it to consider a heat pump. Losing radiators gives a bit more flexibility. The heat is radiant and I think it improves my son's eczema. I just need to get solar panels before my price cap finishes. I really like panels, heat pumps should be far cheaper and thanks for stimulating the discussion.

First I will qualify, I am an amateur though into renewable energy since the 1990s. I wondered if I would have to strongly disagree but no. As you said in the beginning you have to take every case on its own merits. And as you have explained in your position I think you are making the right decision. There I said it! 🤩 However I am considering a different solution, first I don't live in the frozen wastelands of Yorkshire (That should get some response. Hehe, my cousin lives in Ilkley so I know it's beautiful 😁) so zero is a number rarely ever seen here. Second my heating system has probably reached the end of it's life so a complete change is required. Previously I have remodelled an old farmhouse fitting underfloor heating which is excellent until you need to modify or service! And lastly I am probably lucky that I have room to have a large solar panel array. My solution, planned, is insulated solid floors with IR above them. The floors should absorb all the energy that does not land on furniture or people and then release it back over time. The one big issue I am seeing is that a single phase electricity line only allows about 7Kw per hour or 28Kw with a 4 hour tariff. Electric car, electric heating, water et al do I need to have a 3 phase supply, that is expensive 😱😥 One thing that is maybe worth passing to the community is IR is now assessed as 120% efficient because it doesn't suffer the same heat convection losses as an electric bar heater. And heat pumps while they can achieve over 400% if run in their efficient cycle, as I think you will be. However when they have to start from cold, as many people have cyclic lives, it is probably fairer to assume they are in the 350% - 380% efficiency range. Great video by the way. Sorry for the anti Yorkshire sarcasm it is very tongue in cheek, I love the place really just wanted to see how many negative replies come from people who don't read to the end 👌🙏😂

Some research into heating for electric busses showed people with warm feet were comfortable at about 15 degrees C. People with cold feet were uncomfortable at an air temp of 24 degrees C. So rather than installing underfloor heating, buy the family some really warm slippers and knock the air temp back a degree or so.

The radiators in my house are in inconvenient places so actually getting all those removed would be quite a good idea. My hot water is heated by my solar most of the year. I haven't decided on my future heating yet and your journey is interesting, will be interesting to see how you do once installed. Thanks for sharing

Very clear & well explained. Thank You

Turn the TV off when no-one's watching it you'd save a bit 👍

As others have mentioned, a well insulated house is key to any low energy system working. I've being looking at Mitsubishi and Daikin mini split systems,.Unless I've misunderstood things with these there would be no need for a heat recovery system as they are continually exchanging the air in each area. Installation cost are still considerable but much cheaper and less invasive than a full air source heat pump system. The only problem with this is how best to heat your domestic hot water.

Love the Heat geek channel. In the process of buying a new build which has a heat pump installed and it has been great for putting the builders through their paces with questions. (Will get a local company to check over the system is set up how they have said as want a solar panel quote as soon as I have completed)

Just had my ashp fitted really pleased with it we will see how good it is in colder weather 😀

I didn't know the infrared heating panels existed until this video. Very interesting and informative.

Thank you for this very clear and elaborate explanation of your situation. You have a very calm and clear way of explaining, and I appreciate it. I am also looking for the "correct" way of heating my house, which is a scratch built house based on a so-called Romney hall, so it has a arched profile. While that's great looking, it also provides a few challenges in heating, because of the very high ceiling (we're going very much open plan) and heat will tend to pool together in the upper most part of the building.

This is an excellent video, obviously well researched, not many people are realistic about heat pump efficiency, but you already know approx 250% for hot water, 350-400% for heat. Your point about micro-zoning should not be underestimated, this is key to many UK houses, turning a radiator off in one room just means that other radiators have to work harder, pushing up the flow temperature. As you said, you heat the whole insulated envelope, not just the rooms. One final thought for us in Yorkshire, keeping the house above 12ºC for most of the winter is essential, to keep the damp at bay, something that badly placed IR Panels may not do.

I wonder if you have missed the main benefit of IR panels versus convection heating? As you rightly point out, you would consider using it in your cinema room because you seldom use it, and also mention that you and your wife have different work patterns. With Gas and ASHP you are in fact pushing hot water around the entire house whether the radiators need heat or not to possibly heat the air space which would take quite a time to heat that volume of air, but with IR panels the air space is not heated, so you could only heat the specific rooms you are using at the time of occupation, and as it heats you not the air space the perception of being warm enough happens quicker than having to heat the entire volume of air in that and every room. More and more of us use electric showers on a regular basis, so warming almost 200 litres of water for a bath that might not get used seems a little pointless, so the occasional use of an immersion heater seems to me more logical as you are only heating the water when you need it to be hot. Most of us only use a couple of rooms during any 24-hour period so why heat all of them when they are not being used seems a waste to me. Just my rambling thoughts.

Very well explained! 👏

I recently converted a garage into a small apartment and installed infra red underfloor heating. It provides a lovely even heat throughout. It's 80 watts per SQ m and it won't break the bank.

Great explanation EVM

This is great, thorough thinking around heating. We are currently looking at the heating solution in our 14th century church and it's a biggie. The (oil) boiler died and the tank needed replacing, the (victorian) radiators are badly placed and the pipework is broken (unded the floor) in many place, oh and there is no insulation and the roof is 30-40 metres high. So, given all that we are looking at under floor heating with some form of heat pump to get the building above the dew point 24/7 (needed to prevent the, grade 1 listed, building degrading any further) and then IR heating for when there are people there. Problem is this will cost an enormous amount and we have no funds available so serious fund raising is needed. Currently we have a string of temporary near IR heaters which got us through last winter without having to close so we know they are a possibility for comfort but the need to keep the floor and walls above about 10 degrees all the time is trickier but also ideally suited to a fairly small air source heat pump (ground source is not really an option due to all the archaeology and graves in the church yard).

An interesting analysis, I'm thinking along similar lines. Thanks

I've recently fitted a couple of IR panels in our 1950's house and they're as simple to fit as a light fitting. Four holes in the ceiling (four for the fixings and one for the power) and lift the floorboards above to connect the power. Our circumstances are different in that our house has never had central heating so air source heat pumps would involve starting from scratch. I am considering a mini-split system as this could heat the air from the same locations as the existing inefficient gas heaters and give us the COP efficiency gains of a heat pump without the disruption of radiators.

We have far-infrared panels at work. Suspended ceilings, the panels are just "ceiling tiles", very convenient to alter when we move a partition wall etc. (a wet systems would be a nightmare to change). We found that people's legs / feet were cold, under their desks and out of direct line from panels ... solved that with an additional small panel under the desk. Works well for us in that situation

Interesting topic; word of caution on the matter of redundancy, don’t rely on one source for space and water heating especially if the latter is used for showers. If the heat source fails you have lost everything. I have an electric shower now after my last oil combi boiler electrics failed.

Interesting and balanced video. Like everything, life is shades of grey and all tech has pluses and minuses. You demonstrated that well

Great shout on heak geek - deffo worth following

Very informative thanks 😊

7 years of air source heat pump experience has been a flippin' nightmare. On the second system, have vast electricity Bill's. Wish I had never started. 6 x the cost of gas...

Very informative, thank you. I am currently converting an integral garage and have am looking at installing infrared underfloor heating as opposed to electric underfloor heating. What would be your thoughts on this? I am still trying to find a property that has infrared underfloor heating so i can experience it.

I have taken the plunge and Octopus Energy installed my Daikin Heat Pump about three weeks ago. This was a replacement for an 18kW gas boiler. The heat calculations showed we needed 6.6kW and therefore have 7kW installed. The calculated kWh ) annum were almost spot in to our actual usage. We had already installed solar and an Eddi so didn't necessarily need hw from heat pump. We hadn't used gas in last twelve months. Going forward will use solar during day and schedule heat pump on octopus go in winter. I did look at infrared and trialled 500w portable . We found the panel good to top-up living room in evenings on cold nights (only used about 1-1.5 kWh ) . Agree that heat pump efficiency is important our predicted sCOP is 3.4 . Our costs after grant were £6k for heat pump and IR was likely to cost £6.6k plus installation. I therefore concluded like you that installation and running costs in a whole house basis didn't quite work but using IR in specific location does.

great video. keep up the good work

I fitted two panels into my house last august and did not use gas for heating during the winter. I live in a modern small 2 bed mid-terrace house which is very well insulated. The panel in the living room did most of the heating for the house and I kept track of its energy use via a smart plug. The panels heated the rooms and kept the room very near the set temperature. They turn on for short periods via a thermostat and the objects in the room retain the heat for a long time. With radiators, I found the temperature dropped very quickly once the heating turned off and this is one of the biggest advantages I've found with infrared. The heat does indeed stay within the room for the most part as it's the objects in the room which are heated and not the air directly. The heat for me is far more natural and pleasant. Maybe try one before deciding to spend money for the whole house. You are thinking of one already in the Cinema room so it would not be wasted. The only downside has you pointed out is the hot water but there are options for that too. I’ve got a small 1.5kW water heater in the bathroom with a 5L tank for example. I’m thinking of getting air conditioning which can provide both cooling and heating has I find my house is hard to cool in summer but easy to heat in winter. Air conditioning is an air-to-air heat pump which seems better to me that air-to-water which then goes back to air via radiators.

Dear Andy. Thanks for taking us all along on your "Journey", Its really apreciated as many of us are looking at the same choices. How are you getting on with your home battery?. Now I have got the "Smart meter" working properly and switched to Octopus Go it seems the next logical move. Maybe you could do a quick update ?.

I agree that heat pump is the way to go. Thoroughly researched on your part. Go for it!

Spot on. Excellent video. Although infrared heating is useful in some situations, for me in my bathrooms, they are expensive to run. Panel salespeople rave about how they are 100% efficient but don''t mention that heat pumps are 300% to 400% efficient. Additionally heat pumps don't heat up the planet, they just transfer heat from outside to inside. This is not the case for infrared panels. My solution was a multi split heat pump system with one compressor outside unit and five inside heads (three floor units and two standard wall units). My hot water system is a separate heat pump. The added advantage in Australia is that a multi split heat pump system can also cool the house. Internal insulated walls and doors allow just heating or cooling my office during the day and the living area at night. I have 1960s infrared strip heaters in my bathrooms. All the above plus cooking and an EV is powered by my solar panels. As you said, there are different solutions for different situations. I do plan to put an infrared panel in my daughter's very small office in her house.

Always really appreciate the hole energy vids. Living in a rented purpose built flat, I'd come to same conclusion for slightly different reasons re:panels flowing a chat with a manufacturer at FC live.

I do my indoor cycling in our summerhouse during the winter. Would panels be a good fit in that situation. We had to get a dehumidifier to stop some damp. Would they help with that situation?

Thanks EVM... and also for the link to Geek Heat...

I thought that you were supposed to be a Yorkshireman. Real Yorkshiremen don't have heating upstairs, and it's never on in any vacant room. Doors are kept shut when not moving between rooms. Any transgressions are met with "were yer born in a field". A coal fire in the kitchen keeps everyone warm. If you have visitors you take a shovel full of coal from the kitchen into the front room to start the fire going, taking care to put out any embers which might fall onto the front room carpet.

My experience of actually being involved in the installation of an air source heat pump system confirms your view that installation costs and upgrading the building are VERY significant. The system works best when the house is entirely insulated from the outside. This then means you need an air recirculation system to draw fresh air in, through a heat exchanger, to every room. Also, be aware that heating systems and hot water cylinders depend on a buffer tank, with a 3kw immersion in it and a cylinder with one or two 3kw immersions. These are computer controlled and, certainly on the system I was involved in, you cannot tell when they are in use (for warming the underfloor heating systems and the hot water cylinder)......so, your heating and hot water will be reassuringly effective, but, at least in this particular system, you will not know when and for how long the immersion heaters are turned on. This would be something to ask your supplier, because monitoring very precisely how much the heat pump and how much the electric immersions are providing your heat is very important, I would think. In a worst case scenario, the heat pump may not work at all and your electricity bill will go through the roof.

Good thinking. Every usage situation is different.

GREAT REVIEW.... THANK-YOU!!! Amen Retired, Veteran

Depending on the total heat needs of a proeprty, it might make sense to use simple electric heaters Heating isn't just the fuel cost it's also the capital cost and maintenance costs. The capital and maintenance cost for resistive heaters is close to zero Considering a heat pump costs £10,000+ and lasts about 15 years you are looking at a capital and interst cost of £1,200 a year If your property uses 12,000 units of heat per year That means the cost.pf the system is 10p a unit on top of the fuel cost. If your proeprty uses 3,000 units a year that means the cost of the system is 40p a unit pm top of the fuel cost If we assume future electricity bills are 25p a unit and a COP of 3.5x then the break even point is 6,720 KWh. If your home uses less than 6,720 KWh per year for hearing you are better off just buying resistance heaters Lots of modern builds will use less than 6,700 units so no need for a heat pump just use eletricity directly (it might still be worthwhile to have a cheap air to air unit to provide some baseload heating needs as they cost closer to £2000)

From some other point of view: Why I DID install the IR heating... Thinking about the future... gas & electric cost is going up and it will do so. 13MW/year solar panel installation + underfloor IR heating (not the bullshit IR panels on walls / ceilings, that is an old technology in 2022 ). Result: no more energy bills. Thank you ;)

As you already said, infrared heaters work with surface to surface radiation, like a being in front of an outdoor fireplace. It gives you instantaneous comfort, but it would take ages to get the air in the house heated, and when you leave the irradiation zone the heat comfort disappears as fast as it comes. BTW, humans normally need cooling like an old ICE engine, that’s why air at body temperature (36°C) doesn’t feel comfortable either, but too much cooling isn’t good either. Keep doing those videos, I think you are good at explaining things for normal people. I would have lost 90% of your audience after 2 minutes 🤣🤪

With the war in Ukraine, electrification in general, heat pumps and solar panels on as many buildings as possible in particular, just went from something that you do the math on vs. gas and other options, to something that is important for as many people in Europe and the UK to do as possible to fight back against Russian aggression.

We are currently having a 9kw air source heat pump installed, thankfully as far as initial cost for us is concerned it is being paid for by our landlord who is also installing them in our neighbours house. He tells us he is paying around 12k per house for it. Currently we have a coal fire with a back boiler for our heating and hot water. We currently have no heated water as we have never used our immersion since we moved in. The whole house has taken a week to re-plumb and all radiators have been changed. We will also end up losing the power shower we currently have (which costs us around 70p per day) and this will be replaced by a plumbed shower which apparently will have a very much improved pressure (without the power shower the currently plumbed system only trickles out as we have low power). We are waiting on the engineer to now install the heat pump itself though it has taken them a week to install next door. Will be watching our smart meter intently when all is turned on! Have to say though, the heat pump is huuuuuge!

For us in future. Thinking of heat pump. But, where outside can the fan running unit be mounted without. Taking up most area of patio. Without causing noise (know fan is low noise) to neighbours. Got solar water tank so partilly there. Alternative option is aircon. Heating lower floor and perhaps infrared upstairs. As you say it depends on situation. I remember when most homes had infrared tube heater with pull cord in unheated bathrooms

With an existing wet heating system in a well insulated home an air to water heat pump makes good sense for all the reasons you say in this video. However, there might be more to infrared panel efficiency and all is not as it seems. My home is a 1st floor flat in an old house dating from around 1910. All my walls are external except for 3 metres that border the communal hall. Walls face all aspects, north, south, east and west. The west facing wall gets no sun in winter months. No insulation, lots of large windows and 2.6 metre ceilings. There's no gas into the building, although there are still remnants of the pipes from the original gas lights in the walls. Consequently heating has been electric panel heaters on the walls. It's difficult and expensive to heat. I've replaced the panel heaters with infrared panels. 6.5kW of panel heaters have been replaced with 2.8kW of IR panels. Bathroom and bedroom location of the panels was easy. Directly replacing the existing heaters worked which made wiring to the existing heater power outlets easy. Their locations on the wall covered the whole rooms without causing heat shadows. The large open plan living area was more difficult and panels were mounted on the ceiling. Heating bills are lower and the flat is easier to heat. So despite both filament panel heaters and infrared panels being nearly 100% efficient the lower power IR panels work better. the rooms feel cosier. My unscientific explanation is that the IR panels cut out the middleman, the air. The heat goes directly to the things and people in the room cutting out the middleman. There must be losses in the transfer of heat from a panel heater to the air then people and things. In an older building that air has lots of ways to try and escape as well. Also, cold walls, especially the bathroom used to suffer light mould growth in the winter and that's gone. The only thing that seems to be a bit difficult is controlling them. Thermostat control is monitoring the air which is the last thing to warm up so I find myself setting it high initially then, after a bit of time feeling too hot and turning it down. They need a better control system but I'm not sure what. It's difficult to compare infrared to heating systems we know and for that reason they will struggle to sell themselves. It's a bit like comparing a muscle car to a lotus. They both get to 60MPH quickly but have very different ways of doing it.

Lovely. We have a house relatively good in running cost being 3 years old. We have 4 kw of pv with a solar iboost unit on the immersion heat which produces free hot water 5 months in a year. This allows the gas boiler to be switched off in summer. I am looking for a way to use an air-source heat pump to replace the boiler and save the standing charge mainly in summer. We have under floor heating downstairs and small radiators upstairs. Don't know what you have...

A good example of thinking through the detail and consequences. Many can learn from your thought process rather than just accept the advertising blurb.

I’ve never even considered infrared panels. Thanks for the insight though dude!

Great video EVM. Wondering if you considered infrared matts, like nextGen heating. A UK invention.

Just watching the video now and agree with the ‘what fits for me…’ comment. I’m probably the polar opposite in that I have no wet system and a quote of c. £20k for pump and pipe work/radiators puts me in the same thought space as you. The disruption is less for panels than a heat pump, esp if we went for underfloor heating downstairs. For context my ‘systems of systems’ includes Octopus Go, GiveEnergy 8kW battery, solar (on a good FiT tariff), Zappi with Edi to follow soon. It is, therefore, a decision that needs to take into account all the above. When the FiT tariff ends in 14 yrs or so it may be that is the ‘change’ that triggers a rethink.

Very good video, i like your car reviews but there is not enough videos on this kind of thing and i am hoping to move to Clitheroe in the next 18 months and i can compare your research with my research. Well done and i hope you have a good weekend, next time i see you in person hopefully will get an opportunity to say hello

Very informative, I’ve been waiting for that thanks. I’m now looking at ASHP but in a 1930s house the insulation despite being upgraded is pitiful

One thing to consider is if you do work out that infrared panel installation is much cheaper than heat pump, you can use the left over budget for solar panels, which quite dramatically alters the long term costs equation.

Are you looking at Octopus Energy to install your heat pump? I did also consider electric heat storage systems.

All good points. We’ve had a heat pump for more than 16 years. Air to water and underfloor heating. We do use timers and thermostats and have a benefit from that. But it is slow to react. So in addition we have a wood burner in the living room and I am considering IR heating for an office that is used only a few times a month so I keep it cold-ish. I live in Norway and there are dramatic swings in temperature. This week has gone -11C to +4C. And the system works pretty good. And before comments, Norwegian house built 20 years ago are similarly insulated to a UK new-build.

Thanks for your video and have to say I am somewhat confused as in your previous video you clearly said AHP does not work for you and it’s better to stick to gas boiler for the time being. I also had a look into AHP and found that the COP rating was good in summer around 4:1 but can drop as low to 1:1 in winter which is when you need it most and therefore cost more to run in winter. I noticed that you have been looking at a smaller AHP 7Kw is that because it works better than a larger unit? What size is your Gas boiler you plan to replace?

Electricity on the ceiling, what like a light fitting! Great video Andy thank you and good luck

In canada, a lot of people love the look of radiators. There are companies that refurbish radiators with electrical elements. So you keep the radiators, but replace the plumbing with electrics to connect them up. Now every radiator is it's own zone. There's no way it will ever be as cheap as a heat pump, but as supplemental heating in a prticular area, it can make sense.

We have had infrared panels for more than 5 years and they are fabulous, reasonably economical and silent.

I was thinking of putting an IR panel above my woodworking bench - at the moment it goes unused all winter. I also suggested that the Village Hall, which is a large draughty space, swap from oil to IR heaters.

Have you considered keeping the ch system & gradually adding Far IR panels to eg bathroom & lounge only, with PIR detectors to only come on if people are in the room, whilst turning the rads in those rooms down very low. Far IR would work well with your battery backed solar panels as they are fairly low drain kW.

I would be interested to learn what your expected energy use is for heating in the cold months. Have you factored in the additional batteries required to avoid paying for peak rate electricity?

I've tried, experienced and built most systems and I think you are about right. The only place I've experienced heat panels is in hospital corridors where the erratic traffic kept flushing out the warm air, that and the porters wedging the fire doors. The panels were mounted in the ceiling and were hot water radiators controlled by wall mounted thermostats. I think they would have worked if pure electric IR and operated by motion detectors. They kept the corridor warm enough but possibly with considerable inefficiency. There was one point I'm not sure about, does IR radiation go out through windows? The glass in wood burning stoves suggest not. Perhaps a panel in your living room by the TV lacked that particular disadvantage. If it doesn't then that would account for the hospital corridor being reasonably warm while having large windows all the way along it on both sides. It is possible that conventional radiator systems with convective heat transfer would have lost the heat through conduction from warm air to cold glass. So I suspect that large glass sided rooms with high ceilings might be another area where radiant ceiling panels might work. Grand Designs delight in that kind of room, so maybe Kevin McCloud knows. I'll ask the next architect I find. I had assumed that electric panels would be far more effective than hot water, but googling indicates hot water is also approved www.variotherm.com/en/wissen/how-does-ceiling-heating-work.html. After all that I still agree with your choice.

Have you looked into the tepeo thermal energy storage system? We are in a similar position to yourself. However our upstairs only have the smaller pipes to the radiators. So heatpumps mean a lot of messing about. The tepeo would use cheap electricity or excess solar and store it for when needed

What about ihelios heating films? infrared heating underfloor or in the ceiling, hidden away from eyesight?

Your Heatpump will require some servicing, IR panels are solid state so won't require any maintenance. You could go for an IR Patio heater for your cinema room, dual use helping you to enjoy your garden more too.

Floor boards up drill small hole for cable ? Where does the plaster and painter come in?

Keep at it Andy. I’m edging closer to our ASHP. Was toying with Ir panels too but as you say it’s the disruption adding circuits and not as efficient, I too want bang for buck or electrons spent?🤔 You mightn’t need to raggle/ chase ceilings if they can get access under the floors in the rooms above, carpets? Oh and in preparation for higher daily consumption of leccy for heating, did I spy a 2nd Givenergy battery in your last video in the garage? 👀

Great video EVM, very clear and well reasoned. You've reached the same conclusion I reached about infrared panels vs a heat pump. We installed a ground source heat pump last year making best use of the grants available which in our case offset the additional cost compared to changing to the most efficient gas boiler or infrared panels. The same team removed the old gas boiler as well. The only decision now is whether I can make Octopus Go work for us, the smart meter was installed yesterday 🤔

After lots of research I'm having a new regular gas boiler fitted next week. I would have gone for a Tepeo ZEB but they are still in the pilot stage and will not supply in my area yet. That would have cost me around £3000 more than gas for the install and I have a good gas price for the next two winters so I'd not see any savings at all until winter 3. I looked at heat pumps and if I could have got the grant it would still have been around £10,000 extra. While it's not all about capital costs it still has to be sensible. Some friends wanted me to rip out the hot water tank and have a combi but that just seems daft to narrow my options for the future and be paying to put back pipework. The fact that the boiler is obsolete and not efficient means I have to get it done now.

For me if I was getting infrared panels installed I think I would get the CH system drained down and leave the radiators installed in case I decided to get an ASHP later. If you install the infrared panels on the ceiling then cant you put the cable through a hole in the ceiling behind the panel? Then you wouldn't see it.

How much kw is your heat pump using on a daily basis, does your batteries last in the winter when your using the heat pump

Thanks for the video. I install IR panels and also have some in my own home. I think you were maybe over-egging the installation costs and inconvenience a bit to be honest. Compared with installing a new central heating system the disruption would be fairly minimal. There havent yet been enough studies to show relative efficiency but here are some things that are worth considering: - we need to break free from this cultural acceptance that we have to have one solution that provides both heating and hot water. We are conditioned to accept this due to our long standing love affair with gas boilers. I truly believe this is one of the reasons why ASHPs get so much publicity - it's easy for people to understand as it provides heating and hot water, same as the boiler under the stairs. The moment we break free of that conditioning then we can see that there is no reason why we can;t have a separate solution for our heating (eg. IR panels) and our hot water (eg. Sunamp heat battery). - ASHP's are efficient, that is true. However, as with all forms of water based heating they require a long run up to get the space warm. This encourages you to have the heating on/ASHP running even when the space is not occupied. This doesn't FEEL like an efficiency. This feels wasteful. IR panels on the other hand actively encourage you to be more conscious of your energy usage. Why heat a space that isnt being occupied for large portions of the day when teh space can heat up within 15 minutes using an IR panel. Look at how you use the rooms in your house: Bedrooms at night (where a lower maintained temperature is acceptable - say 16 degrees), bathroom for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, lounge for a few hours in the evening. Working from home? Just heat the space you need to occupy. Have a small panel overhead in your designated working from home space - hell, even put it on for a bit in spring and autumn if we get a cold snap.

Is it possible to use an air source heat pump to run a warm air heating system? I'd rather have a few small air vents and ducting under the floorboards than install massive radiators or underfloor heating through the house which they say is optimal for heat pumps.

Will IR panels improve an EPC value where only ordinary electric heaters were used before?

So, when you enter a house with infrared panels - the air is unheated? If this is correct, then unless you're standing or sitting near the panel - you'll be cold! On the other hand the idea of a heating system without the complicated mix of piping etc and the regular servicing necessary for wet central heating - is very appealing!

Had no t'internet until late so couldn't get this video up on time! Stoopid ISP!

And before Economy 7, there was White Meter which gave 11 off peak hours. Coal and nuclear power stations just couldn't be shut down at night so there was loads of overcapacity that had to be absorbed. It's why Dinorwig was built.

I am looking at fitting one IR panel in our kitchen extension which haemorrhages heat from every orifice and has one wet radiator that is clearly inadequate. However my wife asked me a question that totally foxed me, when you leave food to cool in a rack, for instance biscuits, does the IR panel heat them up.

An infrared panel can be fitted on purpose stands, it then can be moved around to suit best and then stored away out of sight in the summer.

I'm hoping my gas boiler lasts a few more years to give me the time to make the decision. ASHPs are extremely expensive, and with more and more people fitting them, I'm concerned that the installers won't have as much time to make the required calculations for a good installation and will instead rely on rules of thumb which will leave houses either not sufficiently heated or paying way more than necessary on heating bills. IR panels look interesting to me so I'm going to give one a trial run this winter. My bedroom is always pretty cold, so I bought one (of the correct output for the size of the room) for about £200 and have it set up and ready to go. This winter I'm going to give it a thorough test to see how well it performs and how much energy it uses. I gave it a quick test on the day it arrived and the initial signs weren't great - the room barely got any warmer after an hour's use and, as expected, it used about 600W of electricity. At that rate, it would end up being phenomenally expensive to run the panels as the primary source of heating for the house - around 40p per hour just to heat my living room. But that wasn't the best test as it was on a day that heating wasn't required, so I'll wait and see how it performs in the cold weather at the end of the year before making any real judgements. As much as I like the idea of ditching gas and going fully electric, with the addition of solar panels and batteries further down the road, I'm only going to do it if it is financially viable. Otherwise, sorry to all those fossil fuel haters out there (me included!), but I'll be sticking with burning dinousaurs.

I think you were over thinking this, panel heating could be the perfect compromise for old houses that cost a lot to heat.

No mention of long term running costs, pretty sure ASHP will need some sort of maintenance to keep them quiet. IR have no moving parts and some manufacturers give 20 years warranties on them. How long is an ASHP expected to last?

Has a solar, load-diversion controller / immersion heater solution been considered for hot water ? Especially given the ability to electrically heat the water during off-peak times ( if you have such a tariff ) ? My device is called "Immersun" which is since discontinued, now there is the "MyEnergi Eddi " which works seamlessly with the Myennergi Zappi charger and accessories...

For ceiling mounted infrared panel, would you feel hot head and hair but cold feet? In cinema room, can’t you get heated chairs? It would be direct heat transfer to your body so even more efficient than IR heat panel?

I watched video where it was said, if you are going to get a heat pump, then a reverse heat pump which will give you cooling in the summer and heating in the winter, so that might be a thing to consider.

Good vid. I’m in the process of buying a property, witch has old electric heaters and no access to mains gas. Personally I’m probably leaning know to replace all the electric heaters to new smart ones. I’ve considered a heat pump air or ground and found so far also due it would need everything else extremely expensive compared to new top of the line smart electric heaters. I’ve checked out the heat geeks good channel but they definitely have invested interest’s so I do take there advice with a pinch of salt, just what I’ve found with my research. No one form of heating is suitable for every house or lifestyle, key is to research and find the best that suites you and key you can comfortably afford and makes sense in the short and long run. Like with ev cars these singular so called solutions are being marketed as the singular only way to go, When there is clearly other ways even with efficient combustion. All I want to see is options and allow the market to chose not to force. But I’ve still got a few months to decide and get some more quotes and do some more research.

Air to air heat pump would be most efficient but would take a bit extra to install, but I think you've made your mind up!

Good choice after buying a couple and installing them on the roof of a garage and garden Room I would they heat the user but do nothing to warm the room up and it used a lot of electric

At about 6:30 you talk about hot water. Our house is three floors and the water heater (currently a combi gas boiler) is on the top floor while the only places that use that hot water are on the first floor (bathroom) and ground floor (kitchen). What I have noticed is that if we have to run hot water in the kitchen, the time to get hot water from the time is fairly long. So we are running away water (actually we try and capture that and put it to use in the garden) and then we get hot water, more commonly we tend to save doing the washing in the kitchen until just after someone has showered so that the time to get hot water in the kitchen is less. Obviously either way a large volume of hot water is going to go cold in the pipes between the top floor and the kitchen. Our alternatives are to install an electric water heater in the kitchen and bathroom, or to move the hot water system from the second floor to the bedroom that is adjacent to the bathroom and above the kitchen. We could simply install a heat pump water heater in the current location (second floor) and use some clever electronics to use solar power to heat that on a sunny day. Some complex calculations need to be done here.

Would an air source heat pump work better inside than outside 🤔 as it warms the pump would become more efficient as there would be more heat inside ??

I purchased an infrared panel it made zero different to the room you only felt the head when standing directly Infront but nothing else & did not heat the sofa or walls, so not like the sun. Unless more expensive ones do actually work? They look like a perfect idea but not from my experience.

I’m heating my house with 3000 Watts. 6 zones. I’m still on my same tank of oil for the last two years. I used 3/4 tank in that time. House uniform temp is 73 F. Mass is heated / radiated. Not air. The fenestration issues of incoming air is pleasant. Temp doesn’t drop. It’s a pleasant heat. I’m trying different transformers. The system - works really well. I’m not using a panel. I’m using a foil and it’s painted over. Invisible. I’ve pioneered a Carbon Nano tube liquid coating for glass. All windows are coated. 99% UV shield. 90% Heat block in summer. 90% IR Mirror in Winter.

We have a house built in 1980 , would cavity wall and loft insulation make it feasible for a heat pump or does the house have to have triple glazing too?..