Is infrared heating good for poorly insulated homes?

In an old, draughty room, warm-air heating struggles because the heated air is constantly replaced by cold. Infrared side-steps that: it warms the floor, walls, furniture and people directly, so you feel comfortable even while some air is being lost to ventilation. That makes it genuinely useful in conservatories, period cottages and hard-to-treat solid-wall homes.

Comfort is not the same as cheapness. Our model uses a heat-loss figure of about 1.1 W/K per m² for a well-insulated room and 2.4 W/K per m² for a poorly insulated one — more than double. That gap flows straight through to the bill: the same infrared panel in a leaky room runs far longer to hold temperature, so it costs more to run.

The takeaway is not 'avoid infrared', it is 'target it'. Heat the room you are in, when you are in it, and pair it with cheap wins like draught-proofing, loft insulation and heavy curtains to cut the heat-loss figure.

For off-gas-grid homes, listed buildings where wet systems are intrusive, and single rooms used intermittently, infrared is often the most practical option even before insulation work. For continuous whole-home heating of a poorly insulated property, a heat pump plus fabric upgrades will usually be cheaper to run over the year. We will always tell you which camp your home is in.