Infrared Heaters

Claims of greater energy efficiency are all a marketing shell game. Electric heaters all have the same efficiency - 100% - as far as converting elecricity to heat is concerned. The differences, if any, are that some heaters may have different "comfort" levels depending on the application.

An IR heater might possiblity save you energy if you want to sit in front of it for long periods of time, and leave the rest of the house at a lower temprature. You could do the same by changing the thermostats on baseboard hearters as you move from room to room too. Or just wear a sweater and long underwear all the time.

The oil-filled electric heaters don't magically make electricity more efficient. You just have an electric heating element immersed in the oil. But, depending on what your criteria are, you might find it more comfortable in some situations. It provides a lower surface temperature, but over a larger area. The lower surface temperature can be an attractive feature in a room with small children; and some people feel it is more comfortable to have the heat radiating over a larger surface, but that is subjective. Keeping the oil-filled heater on continuously at low may, under the right circumstances, feel more comfortable than a convection (baseboard) heater that is connected to a wall thermostat, because the room temperature will cycle up & down 2-3 degrees with the latter. But they are not actually more energy effciient, and with the advent of economical electronic thermostats for baseboard heaters the "Temperature Swing" inherent in the old thermostats can be significantly reduced. (A study by Quebec Hydro demonstrated that the slow response time of conventional thermosts resulted in people setting the thermostats higher to compensate for this swing. When they replaced them with electronic thermostats, occupants set the thermosts lower, which is what saved energy.)

As OhGreatGuru explained, the type of heater doesn't change the efficiency of converting electricity into heat. Energy in = energy out. The only difference is the way the heat is distributed. Infrared offers the advantage of heating objects (including people) instead of air, as they are "tuned" to emit specific wavelengths of infrared heat that closely match the absorption spectrum of human skin. So people can feel warmer without actually raising the air temperature as much. The downside is that it only warms what it is aimed at, and doesn't do much to heat an adjacent room. But, these heaters are usually designed to heat a farily wide area so that if positioned in the corner, they will be fairly effective at providing warmth to everyone in the room.

Obviously getting better insulation and eliminating drafts are going to be the biggest factor in reducing energy costs in the winter, but if you've decided you need to buy an electric heater to warm a specific room, infrared can be a bit better. Some don't like the "feel" of it though, so make sure you're able to return it.

Electric heat questions

The topic here is close to my questions so I'm hoping this old thread is the right one...

We have a studio outbuilding (20' x 14' footprint) where we need to be 8 hours a day. It's insulated (but not that well - the walls are 2x4'') and heated via 15 year-old electric baseboards.
Last winter I estimate we spent over $250/month from Dec-April on heat

We have talked about bringing in a gas line (or install propane) & fireplace as we found the capital cost would be minimum $3K - which we don't have.
(......Any comments on this? I've read the material from
http://www.iwilltry.org/b/projects/comparing-natural-gas-vs-electric-heating/
in some detail and can see that it's hard to tell the payback in our case although I suspect the Ontario vs. B.C. situation would give us a bias towards natural gas...)

So now my questions revolve towards the use of electricity to heat this studio! After some web searching on the subject the best course to take is "clear as mud"

[1] I read about Infrared Heating - EdenPure and others - and I'm wondering about replacing the old baseboard heaters by one of these units. Is it likely to make a difference in comfort for the same electrical consumption?
[2] How about cycling the thermostat settings? It's not clear what the best policy is either. Say for 8 hours needed at 20degC we can do:
- overnight at 5deg, 12 hours set at 20deg - it takes AT LEAST 4 hours to warm up
- leave it on at 20deg all the time
- take a middle course of say 12deg overnight and 20 for the daytime.
Thanks in advance for your comments

For the reasons discussed earlier, infrared heating will not save you energy. However, with the temperature cycling you have, and the slow warm-up time with the baseboard heaters it is possible IR heaters would make you feel more comfortable until the whole room warms up. (if you standing/working within range of the radiant heat.)

Turning down the thermostat when you are not using the building will save you energy. NRCan has publications on how much you can expect to save for each degree you set back - I can't remember the numbers of hand. As you have discovered though, the "recovery" time with baseboard convection heaters is slow - they do not have much over-capacity designed into them, because of the peak electrical load it would need. Cranking temperature down as low as 5 deg if you are using the building daily may not be the best move. Variable-rate electrical billing is coming soon, and you will probably be running the heat continuously for 4 hours to re-heat to 20 Degrees during a peak billing rate period (weekday mornings)

PS: If it is taking over 4 hours to heat up, even from 5C, I suspect the capacity of your electric heating system is underdesigned.

Possible solutions: (These won't save you energy, but may be more comfortable)
a) start re-heating 4 hours earlier (this could be hard to do automatically with conventional baseboard thermostats);
b) If you have the electrical capacity, add a forced-fan electrical space heater to speed up the reheating process.

Actually you might want to re-examine the cost-benefit of investing the money to change to gas after looking at the effect that variable rate electricity cost will have.

The last time I looked BC electricity rates were 60% of those in Ontario. The price spread on gas is a lot less. But use the rates for your province in any calculations.