Hi everyone, I've finally made the decision to install a Vertical Wind Turbine on my roof and it is being installed next week. But.... my quest to make my house more energy efficient continues:

To recap, I have solar water heating (when the sun can get enough rays through the clouds) a wood stove (space heating only, not water heating) and next week will have my VAWT.
To make the most efficient use of the power coming from the VAWT I need to cut down my heating costs (upstairs only has electric heat).
I'm looking at infrared heaters with ceramic elements. Has anyone got any experience? The wattage is much lower than other heater types I've looked at.

Posted By: corktree I'm looking at infrared heaters with ceramic elements. Has anyone got any experience? The wattage is much lower than other heater types I've looked at.

The short answer is to pick one that provides the power you need not the lowest or highest power. That depends on how well insulated your house is and how fast you need it to warm up from cold.

The longer answer is..

ALL electric heating is 100% efficient (except for heat pumps which are more than 100% efficient). Every watt of electricity is turned into heat so it doesn't really matter what sort of heater it is. If you need a certain number of Watts to keep the room warm it won't make any difference if that's provided by a ceramic heater, a fan heater or an old fachioned bar heater. What effects the running cost is the amount of insulation you have and the temperature you heat the room to.

Having said that, some things do matter...

Fan assisted heaters distribute the warm air around the room more evenly so you don't get warm and hot spots.

Some types of heater are designed to heat the air and some are designed to heat you directly. The latter are called radiant heaters and are normally used in draughty places like garages where the door has to be opened to let cars in and out. That type could potentially save money if you lived in a very draughty house but they have their disadvantages - for example you have to be sat or stood in front of them and only the side of your body facing them tends to get heated.

I wouldn't pay money for a fancy heater. I'd go for a fan heater with a good controls. Perhaps a time clock as well as a thermostat.

Does anyone have any more recent experience of infrared heaters, redwell for example? I'm in process of converting our basement into my office and it is a little cold, the windows are not great so i think i'd be much better with a radiant heater than a convention heater. thoughts and experiences appreciated.

Shiny metals do, indeed, tend to have low IR emissivities but glass has quite high emissivities. It's not clear on the Redwell site how those heaters are made up but if the outer surface is glass (Pyrex/borosilicate, perhaps) they should emit quite well.

http://www.redwellheating.com/home/our-products/mirror-heaters.html
http://www.optotherm.com/emiss-table.htm