Panel heaters vs. Electric radiators

Specifying electric heating for your home or business is a good choice, but it’s not the only important judgment you’ll be called upon to make. As you shop around for the best deal, you’ll come across a range of electric heating options – selecting the best one is a crucial decision.

Specifying electric heating for your home or business is a good choice, but it’s not the only important judgment you’ll be called upon to make. As you shop around for the best deal, you’ll come across a range of electric heating options – selecting the best one is a crucial decision.

Radiant heat (or radiation) warms people and objects within its vicinity rather than the air surrounding them. A good example of radiation is the way the Sun heats the Earth. The Sun’s heat radiates 93 million miles through space, eventually hitting the Earth and warming its surface, which then raises the temperature of the air above it.

Convective heating (or convection) involves transferring heat from one place to another via the movement of gases or liquids, typically air or water.

The main difference between panel heaters and electric radiators is that the former produce heat only through convection (typically using hot elements and a fan to blow hot air around the room) whereas the latter use a combination of radiated and convective heat.

While they are often more expensive to purchase, we believe that electric radiators are more cost-effective than panel heaters and win out over them on a number of other fronts too, including:

Efficiency

Radiant heating is more efficient than convection because the heating is direct whereas, with convection, heat is first transferred first to the air and then to the objects and people in the room. This is slower and costs more in energy bills than the combination of convection and direct radiation offered by electric radiators.

Durability

Because panel heaters are less efficient than electric radiators, they must work harder to heat the same space making them less resilient. They also use moving parts like heating fans, which have a shorter lifespan than the static heating elements found in electric radiators. And panel heaters are often cheaply made, unlike most electric radiators (our own models, for example, come with a 10-year guarantee on the radiator body).

Health

Circulating warm air (which is how panel heaters transfer heat) can disturb dust and increase the incidence of allergies. Electric radiators are less likely to have this effect.