What is Infrared

Effectiveness of Infrared Warmth and ideal installation conditons.

What does Infrared mean - technically

Infrared radiation was discovered roundabout 1800 by Friedrich Wilhem Herschel during research measuring the amount of heat in the various colors of sunlight. He routed sunlight through a prism and placed a thermometer in every colour range. He discovered that the thermometer showed the highest temperature beyond the red end of the visible spectrum. He concluded from this temperature increase that sunlight is continuing beyond the red coloured sector.

Infrarot-Strahlung
Infrared thermal radiation

The human body is only a fraction of the total light spectrum. This is limited from around 380 nm (violet) up to around 780 nm (red).


In Detail

Sonne der Wintersonne

Nearly everybody has experienced the effectiveness of Infrared radiation as natural heating. If you can feel the heat from the Sun on a freezing cold day, you are experiencing infrared radiation.

You experience this more strongly during Spring or Autumn Sunlight. Standing in shadowed areas, it’s cold, moving out into the sun you feel the warmth. The positive heat radiation is meeting your body and this is experienced as positive warmth.

This can be explained scientifically but we prefer to show you some graffic examples. Normally, heating systems are predominantly heating air and not objects. Infrared Heating systems are predominantly heating objects by radiation and our bodies as well.

The stored thermal (heat) energy will be delivered, little by little into the room. All walls and objects in the room serve as heat storage vessels and supply the room with heat. This stored heat energy remains for a long time, even when rooms are ventilated.

Natural stone Infrared Heating is using  the same principle.Human beings notice this heat energy, which is around 3 degrees warmer than the actual room (air) temperature.

This shows that objects, walls and bodies are heated by radiation instead of using the air as medium to heat up. You feel infrared radiation heat at a  comfortable 21 degrees in rooms with real (air) temperature of only 18 degrees. Just this 3 degrees increase is reducing the heating bill by around 20 %.

Naturstein Infrarotheizung

Ventilating – but properly

(Illustration of a total air exchange in a standard room)

Window partly  opened: within around 30 Minutes
Window completely opened: Within 10 Minutes
Door plus window open: Within 2 minutes