Herschel Select XLS Infrared Panel review

This week’s blog is a review of Herschel’s Select XLS infrared heater. This is a relatively new product in the line up, launched late last year, so we asked (bribing with M&S vouchers!) one of our recent customers to give us her thoughts:

I was asked by Infrared4Homes to provide a review of the Select XLS panels that I bought for my home. To set the scene a little, we moved into a modern property just outside Guildford at the beginning of the year. It has 3 bedrooms on the top floor and a kitchen and living room downstairs. The house sits at the end of a terrace, but one of the first things we did when we moved in was to install cavity wall insulation which made the house a lot warmer.

The house was built in the early 90s and had storage heaters instead of a central heating system. I don’t have a problem with electric heating at all as my first flat had the same set up! The issue with the storage heaters was more that they are big bulky units and 2 of them in the bedrooms were broken. Not ideal when it is cold outside.

The Select XLS line-up

Electric heating  – endless choices!

We did quite a lot of research via the internet, and looked at all sorts of options including the Fisher storage heaters, the new Dimplex Quantum Storage heaters and the Riointe Kyros heating system as well as infrared. We even ended up getting a quote from British Gas for a new central heating system, but it was extremely expensive!

Infrared turned out to be the best fit for a couple of reasons. Firstly it was the best value (along with the Kyros heaters) because an average size heater is about £300. The storage heaters started at about £700 so were more than twice the price.

The second reason was the fact the infrared heaters were very low profile, so were pretty non-obtrusive in our home.

Choosing the right infrared heaters!

I know there are loads of infrared heaters now available, so our next task was finding one that would suit our needs. We came across infrared4homes while looking on the internet so we thought we would give them a call for a bit of help. I know we have been given some vouchers to write this, but I can honestly say they were incredibly helpful, explaining all the different types of electric heating available.

One of the major things when moving from storage heaters to another form of electric heating was to change the electric meter in our home. We were told to give E.On (our energy provider) a ring and get our meter switched from Economy 7 to a standard meter.

In terms of infrared, we were informed we had a huge amount of choice, but the Herschel infrared heaters are brand leaders here in the UK. Infrared4homes also don’t deal with infrared heating panels with a guarantee of less than 5 years, which certainly put my mind at rest.

Select XLS infrared heaters – the perfect balance of budget and style!

I’m really pleased with the panels. Select XLS are just right, as we wanted to balance budget with style. These were still affordable, but we wanted to avoid the cheaper Select panels, as we didn’t want the frame. They start working really quickly and you can feel the heat almost straight away, unlike with radiators, because you’re not waiting to heat all the air in the room. When I turn them off I can still feel the heat for quite a while afterwards.

We got the Select XLS panels the very next day after placing our order. On the advice from Infrared4Homes, we got a local electrician to install them for us and it took him just under a day to install all 6 panels! The bit we did decide to spend a bit more on was the ability to be able to control the heating from our phones (this was a request from my husband!). This involved installing the heaters with smart thermostats in each of the rooms linked to our smart phones. It means we can control each room individually and turn the heating on, off, up or down with just a couple of taps.

The panels really do work great and they are very discreet on the wall, so I really would recommend infrared heating to anyone!