infrared heaters??

Hey folks,
Any experience with these things? I have one with a propane tank that I use to heat a small room when needed but was reading that they heat objects and not the air. Same thing went on to say that you could set them out in the open (driveway) and point them at a tractor, frozen tank, etc and they would warm it up without wasting heat into the air. I have a hard time getting a grip on that. Is it true? I have a couple water tanks on the pasture that need thawed but didn't know I could use my infrared heater without just wasting propane...........

Is this just a sales pitch?

Thanks, Dave

Yes infrared would be more efficient than than convective heat transfer to the outside of the frozen water tanks, assuming that the convective heat source isn't immersed into the water which I realize would be tough if it was frozen. How much is a good question. I certainly would use it.

They certainly heat air eventually, but target objects first. I have several propane-fired infrared heaters. They work very well when you sit in a cool room but want to be warm right-away. You get warmed long before the room warms up.

I'm no expert, but I suspect there are certain types of objects they don't heat well. I say that simply because I know my infrared thermometers will not read temps on certain types of objects depending on the OD material. If it cannot read with some, I'll make a mental leap and say maybe heat won't work as well either.

A pasture tank? How big? How much ice/ How is it
supplied? out here in cold country all we ever use
is an axe and a pitchfork. We plumb the water in
the bottom with a float valve and it never
freezes. Yes, i have had to thaw a tank once that
was froze solid clear to the bottom. Unknown to me
some dummy had filled it at corn harvest time and
when we turned in cattle after Christmas it was
froze solid. What we did was start chopping with
the axe til we got a nice size hole and then
turned in the water once we had a place for it.
That one fed from a hydrant from the top. Had it
been a bottom feed we'd be chopping yet. If you
can get fresh water (50 degrees out of the ground)
you can displace ice pretty fast. I wouldn't even
mess with propane. the ambient air will rob all
your nice heat.

if its froze on the top just chop it out. if frozen all the way then turn it over the sun will heat the outside or use your heater so that the ice will fall out.
Walt

I am not really understanding the science of what you say.

If you heat a room to a certain temp all objects would be the same temp. although the higher density objects would feel colder (like metal compared to wood) although the type of heater you are talking about is a directive heat eventually it would warm standing air.

If used in an outside environment it would loose heating capabilities unless you enclosed it in some type of enclosure like a temporary tent.

Its not really a sales pitch as it has some ring of truth in my opinion. If you park yourself in front of it you will feel warmer sooner as opposed to if the heater has to heat up the room air around you and then you feel warm.

You still cant defeat the physics of heat lost = heat gained, the heat lost by the heater is gained by the surroundings, its just that those type of heaters would make you feel warm fast sitting by them as opposed to others.

PS When my kids used to run indoors in the winter saying it was colddddddddd outside, I informed them NOOOOOOOO theres just less heat lol I said look in the sky and theres the sun providing warmth, but thers no ice cube in the sky making it cold. I told them the fridge didnt put cold into the food, it took the heat out of it and the AC didnt put cold in the room, it took heat out THEN THEY SAID I WAS A NERD !!!

John T They were right too

No, if you take a room that's been at 50 degrees and heat "it" to 70 degrees - it all depends what "it" is . The air temp? Object temps, etc. You can take a 40 degree room and heat it up to when the air temp is 70F, and it feels like 70F, yet many objects will not be that warm unless you keep that temp stabil for X amount of time.

Infrared can send heat to an object without wasting a lot of energy heating the air inbetween. So can a forced-air salmander that does it by targetting an object and shooting hot air at it.

I was assuming this is the type of heater he was talking about.

really not controlled temperature wise and not forced air wouldn't take long to make room warm depending on size., but like you say eventually the objects will become the same as room temp.
heater

LOL I remember My Brother and I used to argue about birds on the telephone lines.

He would say they all had their feet wrapped around it holding it up and it was up to me to prove different I was about 9 years old and he near 20.

I've got one like that. I think I bought it 20-30 years ago with the Coleman brand-name. We used it a few times to keep baby goats alive in the barn when they were born at minus 20F temps. It did the job just as well as infrared lights do. Air temp is freezing, but their skin warms up fast - as long as they stay close.

In the house, we have non-hard-vented Pro-com 28K BTU infrared heaters. We only use them at times when our wood furnace isn't going. We sit 5-10 feet away when watching TV and we get warmed almost instantly - even if the room was otherwise cold. They were great and use no electricity.

John T along this line and saving energy I was past the substation when we had drizzel wet damp air. You know the one on Breeden road??Well couple days ago Buick & Deere was saying how he put scrap electricty in a plastic bucket at his nuke plant. Well got to thinking you and I could take one of those 2000 gal septic tanks (new of course, we wouldn't want no stinking electricity) Put it at the fence of the substation with an old tv antena insulated and into the plastic tank, there-by saving the scrap elerctricy . I could hear sizzeling and buzzing around that substation so there has got to be a lot of scrap energy. It we had one tank each when yours was full we could switch to mine. Could'nt you being an electrical train driver (engeenier) figure some kind of radio signal to tell us when the tank as full???????????? Also you being the country lawyer could figure leagely how we would have a right to salvage this scrape energy. Yes it's a slow sunday afternoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No nascar races till last of feb. Hey tell your family my banjo would make you a fine gift.

Great questions Roy, so heres the deal. But remember my education was in Electrical Engineering NOT Mechanical or Thermodynamics SO NO WARRANTY LOL

Different materials exhibit different heat transfer and thermal storage characteristics.. Metal say transfers/conducts heat better then wood, if a big cooking pot has a wooden handle you wont get burned as if it had an iron handle. Welding gloves transfer/conduct heat very very poorly which is why when you touch hot metal the heat doesnt get transferered to your hands, the gloves are poor heat transmitters. If theres insulation in your walls, the heat generated inside doesnt get transmitted (wasted) to the outdoors quite so easily.

HEAT ENERGY CAN ALSO BE STORED:

Similar, You can use passive thermal heat to store heat energy in say a big heavy mass of concrete during the day when the suns rays strike a heavy stone pillar (a good thermal energy storage device) inside a thermal heated home, but then when the suns gone that heat is given back up into the room REMEMBER HEAT LOST = HEAT GAINED. In a big old stone fireplace, the fire heats up the big stone mass (good heat storage) and it in turn gives it up into the room. If it was the fire only, some would get radiated to the room and a lot go wasted up the chimney and that wouldnt be near as efficient of a heat source as a big stone or heavy metal mass stove, you want the big mass to absorb n store n give up heat to the room more efficient then if it all went up the chimney.

NOW MORE TO YOUR QUESTION:

Once the t stat is satisfied that the room air is 70 degrees, that dont mean all the objects in the room have YET to reach 70 degrees right?? Given enough heat energy (out of the heater) and enough time, everything in the room will eventually stabilize at room temperature SUBJECT TO their heat being transferred/conducted elsewhere !!! If theres a big metal pole that goes outside the room, Im sure you understand some of the heat will get transferred outside, it serves as a heat conductor sucking heat energy out of the room.

HEAT TRANSFER:

If you touch a metal pole in the room and its a better heat conductor then a wooden pole, it feels colder right?????????? Buttttttttt cold is the absence of heat, so consider the object feels colder because its transferring your body heat off your hands (they feel cold cuz less heat) at a better rate then the wooden pole.

When you step wet out of the shower you feel cold because the water is evaportaing (giving up heat of vaporization) and transferring your body heat to the room so it feels colder then if you were dry.

So Id say eventually everything in the room will stabilize at room temperature but different objects (different heat transer capacity) take different times to get there. And the fact of how some things "feel" colder or hotter (EVEN IF AT SAME TEMP MIND YOU) has to do with how effective they are at absorbing and transmitting your body heat away from you to themselves YEP METAL "FEELS" COLDER cuz it sucks the heat off you better then wood

Not a mechanical or thermo engineer

BUT THATS MY STORY N IMA STICKIN TO IT UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE

Ol John T (Still a Nerd n proud of it)

Hey neighbor, kiddin aside some folks who live near HV transmission lines have tried to rig big transformers and coils close to the lines as possible to get energy via electromagnetic inductive coupling HEY IT WORKS YA KNOW

Of course theres no free energy lunch so if youre suckign energy off the lines the utilay has to pump more in and they seem to frown on that

John T

Some body shops around here use them. If you turn the heat down at night it takes a while to warm the metal up to paint,these heaters would do that faster and they liked them because no forced air stiring up dust to get in the paint

A junk yard over by worthington years ago had a flock of sheep for years to keep weeds and grass down around the equipment. After the high voltage line was put through his pasture where the sheep had seemed to bed dowh for years he started having so many wierd birth defects he gave up and bought some old broken dow n sheep each spring and sold in fall. didn't make money on them but keep area neat. The lines sagged so low on some hills I would not dare drive my wingh truck or combine under them at there would be only 5 to 10 feet clerance.

Dave, I have a 24x24x8 garage I use as a metal/wood workshop. Have (3) 1500 w IR heaters hanging from the ceiling. Point them in my direction and it feels like you are standing next to a fire. As an added bonus, each has a 100w high intensity quartz light built in. I feel like I'm working in an operating room with the bright lights. If I'm working on a wood project, I use an old folding ping pong talbe. Make a great work table for laying out the wood. Biggest wood project was a large china cabinet. Took 3 months to build from rough sawed oak.

35+ years ago, I worked in a steel mill where they had natural gas IR heaters hanging over 30 feet off the ground. You felt warm without heating the air.

Only one down side to IR, make sure you don't point them at something that could catch fire, like shop rags soaked with gas or straw.

The major upside is that the heat is instant, where it would take hours to heat the place with wood. Not to mention, the wood stove would take up too much valuable space in my small workshop.

George

(quoted from post at 11:03:32 12/05/10) A pasture tank? How big? How much ice/ How is it
supplied? out here in cold country all we ever use
is an axe and a pitchfork. We plumb the water in
the bottom with a float valve and it never
freezes. Yes, i have had to thaw a tank once that
was froze solid clear to the bottom. Unknown to me
some dummy had filled it at corn harvest time and
when we turned in cattle after Christmas it was
froze solid. What we did was start chopping with
the axe til we got a nice size hole and then
turned in the water once we had a place for it.
That one fed from a hydrant from the top. Had it
been a bottom feed we'd be chopping yet. If you
can get fresh water (50 degrees out of the ground)
you can displace ice pretty fast. I wouldn't even
mess with propane. the ambient air will rob all
your nice heat.

Click to expand...

Have a few of these. There is a drink bowl on the back that freezes first but it's been about 20 degrees a week or so. Need to thaw them enough to get some water out so they don't bust. Have two full ones I have to get some water out of then I can fill a couple empty ones to use. Saw on a forum here where someone made a thing out of a bucket to fit the contour of the bottom of the tank then put a couple longburning candles in to keep theirs from freezing. Gonna try that when I fill one fresh. The heater I have is close to the one Oldroy posted.

Dave

Think of it this way. You can be outside on a cold day, say 10 degrees or less but if you are standing out of the wind, in the sun you are not cold.

Why not paint them flat black and turn them into solar hot water heaters with DC pump to run off the tractor, and shower head and curtain. Not only will you no longer have to thaw the bowls and you get free showers!

LOL leave it to a lawyer to confuse and occupy a dumb old hillbilly for an hour trying to understand a theory.--- I do see your point though ---- err I think. LOL

I do believe what Showcrop says would work to a certain degree but the water temp would be too hot in the summer. Maybe causing unwanted bacteria.

Your idea would work faster if you could semi enclose the heater with like a tarp or plywood directing heat at the frozen area but only be a temporary fix.

Glad it helped, have a good day now

John T

Everyone Be Careful!!

One bad side about infrared, as far as it being a heating device, is that the IR rays do not travel that far. Often the distance is not enough so the need for multiple devices in a room may be needed.