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Heating Comparisons

Tansun Infrared Electric Heaters Vs Gas Heaters

Design

Gas heaters are usually an eyesore with their large metal frames and they tend to take up a lot of space. Tansun have a range of stylish quartz infrared heaters that are designed to fit effortlessly into their surroundings, with the option of having your heater in any RAL colour or even custom branding for your company.

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.

Operating Costs

The operating costs are calculable in advance and are lower than those of gas systems, given that 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. Don’t just take our word for it though, have a read of some of our case studies!

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. ‘Top of the Range’ patio gas heaters are heavy and extremely hard to move around, which creates safety concerns when moving them.

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.

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 domestic, industrial 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.


For information about what halogen heaters are, their advantages and disadvantages, please visit our "HALOGEN HEATERS" page.

Design

Standard quartz heaters tend not to be manufactured with aesthetics in mind. The materials used are usually of low quality, but this is reflected in the common low price of these standard quartz heaters. Due to the design of the heaters being so poor, the lamp life tends to be quite short as they overheat very quickly.

Tansun infrared heaters are designed to be installed and forgotten about, using only the most premium grade manufacturing materials and all manufactured here in the UK and not outsourced around the world. 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

Due to the standard quartz heaters being manufactured out of cheap materials, the maintenance on these heaters can be quite costly. Lamp life is shortened and burn outs are more common. Tansun infrared electric heaters are virtually maintenance free and have an average lamp life of 7000 hours.

Safety

Tansun infrared electric heaters come fitted as standard with a safety guard and the materials we use reflect the heat instead of absorbing it like most standard quartz heaters, consequently making the heater body too hot to touch.

Tansun have designed, manufactured and fitted special heat sinks that take the heat away from the lamp. This is to ensure that the most crucial part of the heater, the lamp cap, is kept cool. By keeping this part cool, it extends the life of the lamp and decreases the chances of lamp failure.

Most standard quartz heaters do not incorporate this cooling technology in their heaters therefore lamp failures are much more frequent and the heater runs at a dangerously high running temperature. This means that the body is very hot to touch and this can particularly cause problems in commercial environments where the heater tends to be in reach of customers.

Heating Zones

As seen on the thermal imaging graphics below, the heat intensity of a standard quartz heater is a lot less than a Tansun quartz infrared heater. This is due to many infrared heating manufacturers claiming that their ‘medium wave’ heater is a short wave heater. People then invest in the heater and find that it is ineffective in outdoor applications.

Medium wave heaters warm up the air and not the surfaces and people below. This type of heater is also heavily effected by wind, therefore if you are sat on a windy terrace then the heating effects are not felt as it is taken away by the wind.

Additionally, with Tansun’s unique high sheen smooth parabolic reflector which is 0.8mm thick, this further increases the heat output versus standard quartz heaters which mostly use ‘off the shelf’ lighting reflectors. These are in no way suitable for a high quality quartz heating solution.

TANSUN INFRARED ELECTRIC HEATERS VS STANDARD QUARTZ HEATERS

1028-Heat-coverage-diagram-of-Tansun-quartz-full-shortwave-infrared-heater.jpg

  • 6% of energy consumed is direct heat radiation.
  • Heat is directed to the person/object below and next to no heat is lost to the air.

1019-Heat-coverage-of-standard-quartz-heaters.jpg

  • 0% of energy consumed is direct heat radiation.
  • Heat is not projected directly to the person/object below and consequently rises.

1020-Heat-coverage-diagram-of-gas-mushroom-heater.jpg

  • 0% of the energy consumed is direct heat radiation.
  • Heat dissipates not far from the heater and rises upwards into the air.

Energy Consumption Comparisons Of Various Items

Domestic

PRODUCT KILLOWATTAGE (kW) USED FOR PENCE PER KILOWATT HOUR TO RUN (BASED ON ELECTRICITY BEING 12P PER HOUR)
Washing Machine 2.0 Washing clothes 0.24
Fridge/Freezer 0.4 Refridgerating food and drinks 0.04
Dishwasher 1.0 Washing crockery 0.12
Tumble Dryer 5.0 Drying clothes 0.60
Tansun Rio IP Infrared Heater 1.5 Under parasols & awnings 0.18
Tansun Rio Grande Infrared Heater 2.0 Garden Verandas 0.24

Commerical

PRODUCT KILLOWATTAGE (Kw) USED FOR PENCE PER KILOWATT HOUR TO RUN (BASED ON ELECTRICITY BEING 12P PER HOUR)
Air Curtain 12.0 Large building entrances 1.44
Storage Heaters 5.0 Instead of mains central heating 0.60
Patio Gas Heater 12.0 Terrace areas 1.44
Commercial Fan Heater 6.0 Community buildings 0.72
Tansun Monaco Infrared Heater 1.5 Restaurant terrace areas 0.18
Tansun Riviera Elite Infrared Heater 3.0 Large Outdoor Areas 0.36
Tansun Apollo Infrared Heater 2.0 Spot heating in factories/warehouses 0.24