An Old Heating Method

[iONic]

Some 20 years ago A friend of mine had this upright room heater that did not heat the air, but rather the people who were near the unit itself. What type of system was this? Were they economical? Do the dissipate much energy when there is no bodies in the room?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I really think you're dreaming?.

You 'could' do it with microwaves, but killing the people probaby wouldn't be a popular option?.

 

[Thunderchild]

haha yea the first experimental microwave

 

[Gaston]

we used to have one. it wasnt worth a damn.every thing in the room stayed as cold as hell. if you stood in front of it your front would get uncomfartably hot and your rear would be cold. it was called a quartz heater

 

[Thunderchild]

so what principle was it based on ?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

so what principle was it based on ?

Quartz heaters were just radiant heaters, usually only low power and not very effective.

 

[audioguru]

Something that is small and is hot can have a reflector behind it so that the heat is radiated to you if you are in front of it.
They have radiant heating bulbs for washrooms that work like that. They use a lot of power but not as much as heating all the air.

Insulate your house so that a little amount of heat stays there.
Seal all the cracks.

 

[iONic]

we used to have one. it wasnt worth a damn.every thing in the room stayed as cold as hell. if you stood in front of it your front would get uncomfartably hot and your rear would be cold. it was called a quartz heater

Thank You Gaston for keeping me from checking into the idiot hospital!

M thought was that it might work better that a electric space heater. Ya see, I have Polio and what comes "free without charge" is very cold feet. I am normally comfortable everywhere else, but the feet are freezing. I've looked at electric socks, but they are so very sparse in the ankle area when it come to wiring. The heat is mostly concentrated in the sole of the foot. I even wrap my lower legs with fleece with some help, but not enough. If not the Quartz Heater, than maybe someone would like to help me design a foot/lower leg electric warmer device.

Maybe I could get it to run on propane or natural gas!!! (joke!)

 

[Hero999]

They're called infrared heaters and are used more for curing resins than heating people nowadays.

 

[dknguyen]

They're called infrared heaters and are used more for curing resins than heating people nowadays.

They're used all the time in the transit centres here.

 

[Oznog]

They're 100% efficient at heating the room.
The problem is that power out of a 110V outlet is limited to around 1500W or so, which won't heat up a room really, and electricity is expensive relative to gas.

The radiant nature can make its effect fairly pleasant for the wattage but it's a limited effect.

They work by releasing a lot of their energy as a ton of invisible infrared radiation. Lots of IR is present in sunlight but this wavelength can't give you a tan or sunburn. When the IR hits something, it turns to heat like sunlight does.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

They're 100% efficient at heating the room.

I think that's fairly optimistic?, they don't waste energy creating visible light, but the ones I've seen never seem very effective?. In my experience by far the most effective are fan heaters.

The problem is that power out of a 110V outlet is limited to around 1500W or so, which won't heat up a room really, and electricity is expensive relative to gas.

That's only in countries with 110V mains, the UK 230V mains gives 3000 watts from a normal socket.

 

[Hero999]

They are 100% efficient at heating the room, any heating appliance is.

The difference is that they are better at heating small areas than fan heaters and convection heaters which isn't any good if you want to warm the whole room rather than just one object.

Here in the UK we can get 3000W from a single socket which is more than enough to heat a reasonable size room.

 

[Sceadwian]

They're useful in a large warehouse environments or outdoors where it's not practical to heat the air, a well aimed radiant heater will heat the objects/people they're pointed at very efficiently. And they do make gas powered radiant heaters. A 125,000 BTU radiant heater (only 200$ US) will give a bit more than the equivalent of a 36,000 watt radiant electric heater. A quick google search and you'll even find ones that mount on posts to heat patios on cool fall days. A fan heater would be completly useless in those applications.

 

[Hero999]

I suppose it's like standing in front of a bonfire, the radiated heat warms you rather than the air.

 

[audioguru]

A house near me caught on fire. The car on the driveway in front of the house also caught on fire (its plastic bumper and front tires) from the radiated heat.

 

[Hero999]

I wonder how much heat the burning house was kicking out, it must be somewhere in the 1MW region to do things like that!

 

[audioguru]

A silly woman saw maggots (worms from flies) in her garbage can. So she put gasoline in it and lit it on fire inside the wooden garage. There were so many people attracted by the black smoke (I was the first person there) that the fire department had a difficult drive up the steet. The house also caught on fire then the flames lit the house next door on fire. Lots of heat.

 

[stevez]

They do make/sell several items that may be useful. If I had to guess your desire would be to have "heating socks" that are fully mobile and are not an impediment to movement. I don't have much to offer there. For a relatively fixed situation I wonder about the following:

A. Heating pad (electric) such as you might apply to a sore back - more or less a small electric blanket. You might arrange that vertically or nearly so, where you sit, so that it is behind your legs. I mention this because these items are relatively safe and made for such an application.

B. They do make electric heating pads or mats that lay flat on the floor. While it does not address more than the sole of your foot this might provide some relief - and eases the burden of batteries for electric socks.

C. They do make electric or hot water radiant panel heaters. Usually a flat, relatively warm surface that is horizontal or vertical. These are usually made for fixed locations. The advantage of these - they are moderately warm rather than scorching hot.

If I had a similar problem I'd consider creating a smaller version of what we had in the house when I was a kid. We had a coal/wood furnace in the basement and one rather large metal grille in the floor where heat would rise. On cold mornings that's where we'd go to warm up.

Consider a box as a plenum with a perforated plate on top with an amount of warm air blowing upward. As with anything, you'd have to be sure you built in appropriate safety features.

 

[Hero999]

A silly woman saw maggots (worms from flies) in her garbage can. So she put gasoline in it and lit it on fire inside the wooden garage. There were so many people attracted by the black smoke (I was the first person there) that the fire department had a difficult drive up the steet. The house also caught on fire then the flames lit the house next door on fire. Lots of heat.

Well it looks like it work, all those nasty maggots must've died for sure!