How you heat your home has come a long way in the history of electric heating. Perhaps you remember the one bar room heaters, popular in the 1960s. Or the portable fan heaters that make a noise as they work.
Now thanks to ‘smart technology’, you can heat your home at the touch of a button from anywhere in the world.
The technology of electric heating is changing rapidly. Given these points, if you’d like to know the latest ways of heating your home, you can contact us at IPF Electrical. Our engineers are happy to give you advice and make recommendations.
We can trace the history of electric heating back to Thomas Edison. He’s the man who patented the electric lightbulb in 1880. As a result of this, the first portable electric heating system was produced by General Electric.
However, electric heaters also need a durable high resistance wire in order to work. In brief, a man called Albert Leroy Marsh discovered Chormel in 1905, an alloy created from nickel and chromium. This was 300 times stronger than other heating elements at the time and was the next step in electric heating.
In due time, further inroads were made in terms of electric heating thanks to ongoing British innovations. Along with this, portable technologies were also developing.
Meanwhile, thanks to consumerism, more families began to add heating systems to their homes. Over the next 50 years, bar heaters became the most prominent form of electric heating in homes. Mostly thanks to its easy use and portable design.
By the 1960s, electric storage heaters were mass produced and became a staple in many homes. The heaters stored thermal energy throughout the night heating up homes during the day.
In the modern era, we now have ‘smarter’ and more portable heaters. Moreover, we can customise the heaters ourselves, thanks to Bluetooth and wi-fi technology. Additionally, modern heaters are also more energy efficient than ever before.
In brief, the design of this storage heater utilises low cost energy to make it more economical for homeowners. Therefore, it is the most highly rated storage heater for the use of off peak energy on the market today.
A thermostat system allows you to really control what temperature is being outputted into your home. With intelligent sensors as well, it allows the storage heater to react to changing temperatures within your home.
In terms of efficiency, quantum is up to 27% cheaper to run than a standard storage heater system.
A fan heater works by using a fan to pass air over a heat source, known as a heating element. This heats up the air warming up the room. A fan heater can heat a space faster than a heater without a fan, but it does create a noise.
Usually, electric fan heaters can be less expensive to buy than other heaters due to its construction. All electric resistance heating is 100% efficient which means that all energy input goes into the room.
On the other hand, they can be more expensive to run than fuel powered heaters due to the cost of electricity. Therefore they are better suited to occasional use rather than as regular heat sources.
Infrared heaters work by converting electricity into radiant heat. You may like to think of it as the same form of heat that emits from your own body.
For example, infrared is the direct transfer of heat from the heater to the object. This takes place without heating the air in between. Overall, infrared heating is an emerging technology and relatively new to the market.
In fact, Infrared radiation lies on the electromagnetic spectrum. The infrared part lies between microwaves and visible light waves.
You can use a portable heater, or space heater to heat a single, small area.
The portable heater’s power comes from electricity or a burnable fuel such as natural gas. Overall, they are usually electric because they need a permanent exhaust to burn the fuel.
A convection heater is a type of heater that uses convection currents to heat and circulate air. These currents circulate throughout the body of the appliance and across its heating element. This process heats up the air, reducing its density relative to colder air and causing it to rise.
For the heating element, convection heaters usually use metal coils, nickel chromium, resistance wire, thermal liquid or ceramic.
Next, there is the tubular heater. This tube shaped heater provides heat through electricity, heating the element inside the tub structure with the heat radiating out.
Primarily, tubular heaters provide background heat. Henceforth, they are good for keeping frost away from rooms that are not used very often.
In conclusion, the digital age is incredible for electrical appliances of all kinds, including heating systems. By and large, simple switches and turn dials are giving way to LED screens and digital programmes.
Ultimately, users can create their own heating schedules on an hour by hour basis every day off the week. Furthermore, all the information is stored in a memory bank in the event of a power cut.
On the whole, there is a greater emphasis now on energy efficiency as more people are conscious of how we use fuels. With this in mind, it’s worth noting that modern heaters are much more energy efficient in comparison with electric heaters from 60 years ago.
To sum up, the trend towards smart technology is happening so quickly, sometimes it can be hard to keep up.
‘Smart technology’ takes the form of smart meters, WI-FI controlled heaters or internet-enabled thermostats. Essentially, electric heating benefits enormously from smartphones and internet devices. Mainly because it can provide customers with a point of contact they can access from anywhere in the world.
At IPF Electrical our team of experts has been working in the industry for many years. They are trained to the highest levels of industry standards as well.