Industrial Heating - Your Guide
| Space Heating or Radiant Heating |
| More on Radiant Heating |
| Destratification Fans |
| Outdoor Radiant Heating |
| Space Heating |
| Fan Heaters |
| Work out your heater size |
| Electricity Supply |
| Running Costs |
Space Heating or Radiant Heating
Industrial heaters generally split into these two categories. Space heaters are designed to warm up the air in the work area, whilst radiant heaters warm up the the surfaces but not air. Generally if the space has a high occupancy space heaters would tend to be favoured, however if the building or room is only occasionally used (e.g. Church or community hall) or if only a small area of the room is used (e.g. a packing area in a warehouse) then radiant heaters would be preferred. Although there are radiant heaters that are portable and have a stand, they are generally designed to be fitted to buildings. Conversely there are many space heaters which are designed to be mobile, either by virtue of their size or because they are mounted on a wheeled trolley.
 The illustration above shows the difference between space heating (top) and radiant heating (bottom) in a domestic setting |
 
The same effect is found in industrial settings however the |
Radiant heaters tend to be used where the running costs of space heaters would be prohibitive and where there is a requirement for a rapid increase in temperature after heating is switched on. As radiant heaters don't heat the air, it means that they are ideal for selective heating of particular areas within an otherwise cold room or building. Where a space heater would need to heat up the whole building and suffer heat losses through poor building seals and poor insulation, the radiant heaters can be arranged to heat only those areas where the heat is needed. Normally these heaters are available with small heating capacity, however they are generally purchased in sufficient quantity to cover a particular area. If say a packing area of a warehouse is 6 m wide and say 10 m long, using the calculator below the radiant heat requirement would be just over 10kw. A solution could be to use 6 off 2 kw radiant infrared heaters mounted on walls, pillars or stands, either 3 down each side or 2 on each side and one at each end. This would be a far more cost effective option than attempting to heat the complete building with space heaters.
Radiant heaters are available as either permanently installed gas heaters or as electrically powered heaters (often referred to as halogen or infra red heaters). The installation of our gas heaters would require the services of a local gas fitter with suitable CORGI registration, whilst the electrical heaters would require fitting by a local electrician.
With space heaters warm air can be 'lost' through convection, particularly with high ceiling buildings. Although with the benefit of well insulated roof the heat loss may have been minimised, the heat will be of little effect without using a destratification fan. Known as ceiling fans to the domestic market these larger industrial versions fitted appropriately to the ceiling of the building will effectively counter the tendency of the warm air to rise and by keeping the air moving will ensure that a uniform temperature is maintained throughout the building.
It is obviously difficult to heat out doors, however the benefit of being able to undertake outdoor site work all the year round has a large financial benefit for companies. The two most common options for outdoor heat are direct heaters or radiant heaters. Whilst electric heating of any type has its obvious limitations regarding safety of electrical appliances out doors, the prefered options are direct fired butane, propane, diesel or kerosene heaters. Generally these will direct a warm flow of air towards the work area, but, inevitably as they are essentially blowing hot air, that current of warm air rises. It means that even working quite close to the heater you can still have cold legs, because the rising flow of warm air has missed them. This is where diesel radiant heaters are superb. With a large perforated steel dome that glows and faces the work area the heat is radiated rather that blown, ensuring that workers are kept completely warm.
Effect of space heater outside Effect of radiant heater outside
For buildings which require warmth throughout and which are of a modern construction with good insulation, space heaters are the preferred option. We offer a variety of types, including electric fan heaters, gas heaters, and oil heaters. The gas heaters generally come in variants to run on either LPG, propane or butane and are either direct fired heaters or enclosed flame heater versions. The range of oil heaters we supply will run on either burning oil or kerosene and include both direct fired heaters and indirect fired heaters.
Our range of fan heaters includes straight forward free standing units that are designed to be located within heated space, to larger more powerful models which are designed to have ducting fitted to them. Whist these models with a spigot can be used as an unducted free standing heater, they offer much more flexibility so that they can be used to deliver a heated air flow by flexible ducting to wherever there is a requirement. When comparing fan heaters for ducted applications it is as important to consider the pressure capability of the heaters fan as the heating capability. Fan heaters with a duct spigot as as suited to being utilised in production processes, for instance to aid product drying or curing, as they are to helping to dry out buildings after flooding.
Fan heaters with outlet duct spiggots are designed to have ducting
attached so that air can be delivered to certain processes or areas
For a quick and easy method to work out how much heating capacity you need to heat a particular space use the calculators below.
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Before selecting your electric heater be sure to know the type of electricity supply available at the building. Typically for offices, recreational and smaller industrial buildings the supply will be single phase (same as in a domestic building), however many workshops and industrial building also have a 3 phase supply. Many of the larger industrial heaters require a 3 phase supply. Some heaters are either 'duel voltage' or 110v. These models are generally for use on building and construction sites where in the interests of site safety all equipment is 110V and operated form step down transformers.
The running costs of electric heaters is actually quite easy to work out. Having selected the heater(s) you require add up their heating capacity, and multiply that figure by the electricity unit price from your supplier. This will give you a maximum hourly running cost. This running cost would only be achieved when the heaters are on and on the maximum setting. In reality running costs can be much less than this when heaters are only used when needed and only at the power setting required. With thermostatic control devices running costs are usually further reduced.