The best way to heat a shop or retail unit
Shops are one of the hardest building types to heat well: doors open constantly, ceilings are often high, the front is glazed, and staff stand still while customers walk through in coats. Systems designed to warm a sealed room do not cope with that, which is why so many retail units are both expensive to heat and still cold.
What is the best way to heat a shop?
Heat the people and the zones they occupy, not the whole air volume. Radiant heating over the counter, till and door areas plus an air curtain at the entrance is usually the most effective combination in a unit with frequent door opening, because warm air escapes through an open door within seconds while radiant heat keeps working on the people underneath.
Why warm air struggles in retail
Every door opening in a shop dumps warmed air out and pulls cold air in. In a unit with hundreds of openings a day, a convection or warm-air system spends much of its output replacing air that has already gone. Add a three or four metre ceiling and stratification takes another slice of the output above head height.
Radiant heating behaves differently: it warms surfaces and people directly, so the comfort is not lost the moment the door opens. It is also instant, which matters for a shop that opens at nine and closes at five-thirty rather than running continuously.
The options and what they cost
Radiant electric panels or high-level radiant heaters have a low capital cost, need no flue or gas connection, and can be zoned to the till, fitting room and entrance. Running cost is electricity at around 24.5p per kWh, so control and zoning determine whether the bill is reasonable. An air curtain over the door is often the highest-return single item in the whole scheme.
Gas warm air or radiant can be cheaper per hour where a supply exists and hours are long, but requires plant space, flue and servicing. An air-conditioning heat pump unit is worth pricing for a sealed, well-glazed unit that also needs cooling in summer, since one system then covers both.
Getting the specification right
The specification questions are the heated floor area, the ceiling height, how often the door opens, the hours the shop trades, the glazing area and the incoming electrical capacity. Without those, any quote is a guess, and retail quotes are frequently guesses.
For a multi-site retailer the other consideration is consistency: identical controls and zoning across units make energy reporting and staff behaviour manageable. We handle multi-unit enquiries as a single project with one specification applied to each unit size.
A sensible shortlist
- Fit or price an air curtain before spending more on heater output.
- Ask for radiant output at standing head height in the till and door zones.
- Give the installer real trading hours so running costs are realistic.
- Check the incoming electrical supply capacity before comparing electric options.
- For glazed units, consider whether cooling is also needed in summer.
- For multi-site rollouts, standardise controls and zoning across unit sizes.
Frequently asked questions
Reviewed by the Infrared Heat Solutions technical team · Last updated July 2026 · Data sources: Ofgem price cap, Energy Saving Trust, first-party running-cost model