gas versus electric for business heating

Choosing which fuel to use to heat your business is an important decision.  So it’s no surprise that many businesses owners want to carefully weigh up the pros and cons when choosing between gas and electric heating systems. Although the unit price of gas and electric plays an important part in the decision, there are a whole host of other factors you should consider when making the choice.

In this article we set out the pros and cons of gas and electric across X factors.

1. Operating Costs

The operating costs of electric heating systems are calculable in advance and are lower than those of gas systems. This is because almost all of the absorbed electrical energy is converted into heat, providing savings of over 30% compared to gas heaters.

The reason that money can be saved using electric infrared heating is that infrared heat is much more effective at heating a person/object than a conventional gas heater. For example, if you had two heaters in your restaurant - one being a 2.9kW Gas Heater, and the other a 1.5kW Infrared Heater - it would take much less time for your customers to feel the benefits of the infrared heater than it would the gas heater. Why? Because simply the body feels warmer when under the influence of infrared heat than hot air.

This is due to the shortwave infrared rays penetrating the skin and not just heating the air around. With Tansun infrared heaters, you don’t have to wait for the heater to warm up either so when you switch it on, you feel the heat straight away.

This therefore reduces the amount of time it takes to heat up a person compared to gas heaters, which in turn means the heater will be on for less time (or reduced heat output) keeping your electricity bills low. 

2. Design

With their large metal frames, gas heaters can be an eyesore. They also tend to take up a lot of space. Not that all electric heaters are beauties. For instance, standard quartz heaters tend not to be manufactured with aesthetics in mind. The materials used are usually of low quality.

Here at Tansun, we take design considerations very seriously. It's no co-incidence that commercial designers often specify our range of heaters when working in sectors where aesthetics are key, such as restaurants and bars. We use only the most premium grade manufacturing materials and all manufactured here in the UK and not outsourced around the world. We can also supply heaters in any RAL colour or even with custom company branding.

By keeping our manufacturing under one roof, it makes it easier for us to maintain our quality and high standards of our infrared heaters. With over 34 years of experience in the industry, Tansun infrared electric heaters are specifically engineered to keep ‘running cool’ and thus make sure the lamps and heat last much longer than a standard quartz heater…saving you money in the long run.

Maintenance

Tansun infrared heaters are virtually maintenance free. They have no moving parts so there’s no motor to wear out, air filters to replace or genuine maintenance required that is associated with most gas heaters. With an average lamp life of approximately 7000 hours, the Tansun heaters can be installed and forgotten about.

Safety

The gas ‘mushroom’ heater that you tend to see on terraces and in bars/restaurants are typically associated with the burden of lifting heavy gas bottles in and out every time it needs changing. Not only this, but you have the added chore of finding a safe place to store these gas bottles. This can prove a great safety issue especially in commercial areas such as restaurants and hotel terraces. ‘Top of the Range’ patio gas heaters are heavy and extremely hard to move around, which creates safety concerns when moving them. Tansun infrared heaters are modular and compact, with no gas bottles to replace or any harmful fumes emitted from them. Gas is beginning to be banned for these reasons in some locations such as Paris and Dubai. Electric shortwave infrared heating is growing and will be the future of heating.

Ease Of Use

A Tansun infrared heater is user friendly. Enjoying the warmth of our heaters is as easy as flipping a switch, or clicking a button with our range of energy saving controllers. You can adjust the heaters with our controllers from 0%-50%-75%-100% of power. By contrast, gas heaters cannot be controlled to these levels therefore only one setting is available.

Space

Pyramid gas heaters take up a lot of floor space, which in commercial restaurant environments takes away table allocation, and less tables means less revenues for the restaurant owner. For a big venue, you would need quite a few of these gas heaters to heat the floor area effectively. Tansun infrared heaters are compact and having the option of being wall hung, ceiling hung or even recessed into the wall, they take up no floor space and can be installed out of eye-line so sometimes your customers don’t even know they’re there, apart from feeling the warmth of course!

Health

Tansun's quartz infrared heaters operate without any air circulation that could raise and settle the dust. For this reason our heaters are ideal for many applications, both in the home, industrial environments and commercial environments. Unlike gas heaters that sometimes give off harmful fumes that are hazardous, infrared heaters are a clean heating product. They do not reduce oxygen in the room and unlike gas heaters, they do not dry out your sinuses and skin. Instead of a stuffy environment, you are able to relax in a pleasantly warm and fresh atmosphere.

Convenience

With patio ‘mushroom’ gas heaters, the bottles need to be replaced, so they also have to be stored and stocks kept and then re-ordered regularly. This involves more man hours and is time consuming. Tansun infrared heaters are the perfect heating solution to this, offering the ‘install & forget’ heating system.

Heating Zones

See below a thermal imaging comparison between a Tansun quartz infrared heater, a standard quartz infrared heater and a gas ‘mushroom’ heater. The comparison clearly shows the highly efficient and environmental way that the Tansun quartz infrared heater projects its infrared rays into the heat zone.