Wexstar far infrared panel "review" (sort of)

We recently tried out a 400 watt Wexstar far infrared panel heater.



We tried it in our tiny tent popup camper in hopes that we would love the technology for localized supplemental space heating in our eventual passive solar home.

We returned the heater.

I had thought that the far-infrared would very quickly warm up our bodies, even though we didn't expect it to quickly heat up the air in the camper. It did give a little bit of very gentle (meaning mostly ineffective) "glow" the first night we tried it while eating dinner, and we remained interested.

The next day I tried to use it working in the camper during the day (so I wouldn't feel guilty about the 400 watt draw on our little camp solar setup). I soon realized it felt warm enough only because I was leaning my legs against it.  I just kept getting closer and closer at my standing desk (i.e. bed) until I was physically touching the heating panel. At that point I unplugged the heater and turned to my 80 watt heating pad instead.

I would love an argument back because I would love to love this technology!  It sounds so good on paper.  The Wexstar is 1/2 the price of other 400-watt far infrared heaters out there (which is why we started with it). Is there some big difference between a $200 and a $500 far-infrared heater that would make the latter as effective as I'd hoped the technology would be?

I love the idea of heating the people (and objects) rather than heating the air.  I love being outside in New Mexico when the air is 20-40 degrees but it feels warm in the sun (or when the air is 80-90 degrees but it feels cool in the shade). I sort of thought the far-IR was supposed to feel like the sun in that way, warming you when you are in its line-of-sight.

Anyone out there have other experiences or insights with far-infrared heat?

I have a ton of experience with this technology and find that if you do use these you would want one on each end of the camper.  Where typically with electric baseboard, you would need 10 watts per square foot of heater capacity, with these you only need 6 watts per square foot of heater capacity.  That being said if you under power a space with these though, then they do not work too well.   So if you have 500 square feet of space you should have about 3000 square feet or 6 of these panels to cover the space.  That is still significantly better than what electric baseboard offers.

Steve Flynn wrote:with these you only need 6 watts per square foot of heater capacity.  [...]   So if you have 500 square feet of space you should have about 3000 square feet or 6 of these panels to cover the space.  That is still significantly better than what electric baseboard offers.

Thank you for this, Steve!

I would like to understand your numbers... when you say square feet for the room, does that assume an 8' high ceiling? And I am guessing you meant 3000 watts for the panels instead of sq ft? So like 7 or 8 of the 400 watt panels for a 500 sq ft room? Or did I interpret that completely wrong?

A different question -- can these be used for short-term immediate heat, or do you need to keep them on for hours to "charge" the mass like under-floor radiant heat?

We have a 40 sq foot room with a shower, with 7' high ceilings. We were hoping to use a 400 watt panel to heat that when showering. We were hoping we could turn it on like 15 minutes before a shower. Is that realistic, or no?

Our camper is so tiny... the space where we were trying to keep our legs warm is only about 18 sq ft, and our feet and legs were a foot from the heater which sat on the floor. The camper is a popup so the walls are canvas above our sitting waist height, so it might not be a fair test... but I thought that was what these heaters should be good for; heating the objects in the room (our legs) rather than trying to heat up the air in a drafty space...

Any further insights would be so appreciated! Thanks again for your response.

Correct I meant 3000 watts.  

Its a complex formula to measure properly how much heat is needed for any room or heat type.  You also need to take into account insulation R factors.  A 7 to 8 foot ceiling is the rough height I was assuming, so using the math you should be covered, however there are two exceptional factors that will cause you to feel cold if you are using these in a shower scenario.

The first issue is that in a shower scenario you would be more prone to feel the coldness of the air.   One of the reasons for the efficiency of these panels is that it uses far infrared based heating which works similarly to light.  The efficiency gain is from less heat energy is absorbed into the air.  Think of them like an efficient heat lamp.  

The second issue that will make you feel cold is that you will only be heated on the side of your body facing the panel.   To properly mitigate this issue and to feel comfortably warm you would need one panel on each side of you.  With these two panels you should feel the warmth on both sides of you.  One other aspect is that the heat coming off of these panels builds slowly.  I would recommend turning it on at least a half hour before using the shower.

ive tried several different types of space heaters but never even saw one of these far inferred panels. ive come to conclusion that a when it is cold and damp there is nothing better than a wood fire. thats what I was thinking anyways until my neighbor invited me in on a very cold day to see the new rocket mass heater they built. its awesome. but it still burns wood and gets rid of the dampness too.

Thank you!

We probably can't put this right over the shower (nor on both sides) unless we manage to find a true wet-rated one. And we for sure won't  be building a wood fire in our shower! I assume the panels don't work through walls or we could put it on the other side of the shower wall to get our backside.

Hm. Maybe we will need to go with an old-school heat lamp for those times when we feel the need... Once we close the sun room on the exterior wall, hopefully we won't need supplemental hear too often...