Damp in your home can be a real worry, and it can also be really difficult to banish. If it’s really bad, your may have mould on your walls which, aside from being ugly, can actually be a threat to your health. Damp can also make decorating difficult and lead to structural issues if left untreated.
Infrared is a solution you may not have heard of. As well as helping prevent damp in walls, infrared heating panels can also help dry them out if damp has already taken hold.
How does infrared heating work?
Infrared rays are the reason you feel warm in the sunshine, even on a cold winter’s day. Unlike conventional methods of heating such as radiators, infrared works through radiation, not convection. It heats objects and people directly, rather than air, making it much more efficient because heating does not escape through draughts. Then these things will start to radiate heat themselves, even after the panels are turned off. Don’t let the word ‘radiation’ put you off – it’s 100% safe (in fact, it’s the same form of heat that our bodies emit naturally!).
How can infrared help with damp?
If left on for 15-30 minutes, infrared panels will heat the thermal mass of a room. This effectively means that furniture, floors – and most importantly walls – heat up and continue to radiate warmth even after heating panels have been turned off.
Because infrared penetrates walls and keeps them warm, the more uniform temperature means the wall surfaces is less likely to attract condensation. Therefore, it is less likely to become damp.
If your walls are already affected, infrared will help to dry them out from the inside, thus eliminating localised damp.
Bear in mind, though, that if there is an underlying problem causing the damp, that will have to be treated at its source before attempting to dry out the walls and prevent it from coming back.
We hope this has given you something to think about if you are struggling with damp. And while this is one advantage of infrared heating, it is by no means the only one – upgrading your heating system today could benefit you in a number of ways!
Good post this. make sense too as water absorbs infrared better than anything, so damp walls will absorb the infrared well and warm the wall helping it dry out.
Can Infrared heating panels damage items such as televisions which generate a lot of heat Themselves?
If you are outside of the London area and need a qualified infrared heating installer, use our friends at the GreenAge – they have a local infrared installer map you can access by clicking here, Just enter your postcode to see infrared installers near you!