Electric radiant heating

Hi! I hope it is clear to all potential respondents that a radiant heater is a different matter than a heater that is supposed to generate some room warmth.

Plan: usability of a workshop shed in winter, which is used occasionally and then spontaneously for a few hours.

Problem: not heatable, chimney not possible, also legally.

Approach: electric heating. Of course not as room heating, but as mentioned, as a large-area radiant heater. The room temperature may also be 10-15° or less. Possibly supplemented with solar air heating, but the roof is unfavorable.

Advantage: very quick responding, inexpensive, simple.

My idea: I take an electric underfloor heating and build a few square meters of radiant panels from it, which I hang overhead. I know the radiation angle is unfavorable for me, but otherwise I have too little surface.

They have about 160W/m, not much, but it is only supposed to protect against freezing.

If I build two strips of 0.5 x 4m, I get 640W, which means about 1EUR cost for 6 hours of use. Just as a reference. I could increase the width a bit with an aluminum sheet as a carrier.

What I don’t know is whether the surface and power roughly suffice? For now, I would do without a control, would be easy to do with a resistive load.

Are there any experiences?

Regards, Dirk

Why not simply use an electric fan heater (or one with gas)? At least that heats up properly and isn’t such a mess

Due to a heating defect, I tried the year before last to protect a small unused apartment from complete freezing with 2 simple gas heaters (each 2.7-4.2 KW) during severe cold spells. I could not maintain a room temperature of more than 2-3° despite heating for hours per day. In an uninsulated workshop, you will therefore have to use relatively large equipment to heat the entire room, or you only heat the actual work area, for example with infrared heaters.

BECAUSE a heater that aims to increase the air temperature in a poorly insulated room is complete nonsense.

BECAUSE such a heater would only be somewhat capable of making the room usable at an estimated 3-5kw - compare the costs, that's a factor of 5-10.

EDIT: see Musketier: apparently not even that...

Besides, I can't constantly stand in the heat flow of something like that because I have to move around approximately 35sqm, which means most of the time the thing runs uselessly and heats the village.

Enough reasons?

A fan heater would be a typical "hardware store, I'll make it easy for myself no matter the cost" solution in this case.

Regards, Dirk

Due to a heating malfunction, I tried the year before last to protect a small unused apartment from complete freezing with 2 simple gas radiant heaters (each 2.7-4.2 KW) during severe subzero temperatures. I couldn't maintain more than 2-3° room temperature despite heating for hours each day. In an uninsulated workshop, you would already have to deploy relatively large equipment to heat the entire space, or you only heat the actual work area, e.g., with infrared heaters.

That's what I already said, that space heating is uninteresting. We also have such a gas thing; it prevents you from freezing, but it only gets warm right in front of it. Kind of like a campfire outdoors. In a >100 cubic meter room, pointless.

Your last sentence is exactly what I'm aiming at: radiant heating. "Infrared" or "thermal waves" is just terminology jargon; it's purely about the heat radiation that an object emits.

This is common in workshops because it's really impossible and totally uneconomical to heat thousands of cubic meters plus contents. As GAS RADIANT heaters or electric ones (60s: "bathroom heating radiators" with 2 kW with glowing coils), sometimes via hot water with reflectors – on the workshop ceiling.

Keyword: sunlight. The air can be cold, but you still feel warm.
Keyword: wall heating (supply temperature in the range of 25-35°). The air temperature can be a few degrees lower, but it still feels comfortable.
Keyword: wood stove. "That kind of cozy warmth."

Regards,
Dirk

BECAUSE a heater that aims to raise the air temperature in a poorly insulated room is total nonsense.

BECAUSE such a heater would only be somewhat able to make the room usable at an estimated 3-5kw - compare the costs, that is a factor of 5-10.

EDIT: see Musketier: apparently not even that...

Besides, I can't constantly stand in the heat flow of something like that because I have to move around about 35sqm, meaning most of the time the thing runs uselessly and heats the village.

Enough reasons?

A fan heater would be in this case a typical "DIY store, I'll make it easy for myself, no matter what it costs" solution.

Regards,
Dirk

How about first insulating/sealing the workshop shed a little for a few euros? For such a small room, I still maintain that a radiant heater/fan heater - of whatever kind - is probably the simplest/cheapest option. Why go to such lengths for a shed that is used "sporadically spontaneously"?