Stop Heating the Air and Start Heating Your People
If you’ve ever spent time in an industrial changing room, you know the struggle. Those places are usually freezing. You’ve got massive ceilings where all the heat just disappears and doors that are constantly swinging open, letting in every bit of winter air. We’ve found that the best way to fix this is with ceiling-mounted infrared heaters. Most systems try to warm up every single cubic inch of air in the room. That’s a waste of time and money. Infrared is different. It sends out heat that hits people and objects directly. It’s like stepping into sunlight on a cold day. The best part? It’s fast. Really fast. When you flip the switch, the elements heat up almost instantly. There’s no waiting around for warm air to slowly drift down from the ceiling to the floor. You feel the warmth on your skin in seconds. You aren’t fighting the room’s temperature; you’re just making the people inside feel warm. Now, to make this actually work, we don’t just throw a heater on the ceiling and hope for the best. We look at the height of your roof and pick the right wattage—usually short-wave or medium-wave—so the heat actually reaches the floor with enough punch to be felt. We also look at your square footage and how well your walls are insulated to figure out how much power you really need. My advice? Go with a zoned layout. That way, if half the locker room is empty, you can just kill the power to those sections and stop paying to heat an empty room. There are a few things to watch out for during install, though. These units pull a lot of power. You’ll want to double-check that your electrical panel and wiring can handle the load, otherwise, you’ll be tripping breakers all day. Also, because the heat is so intense, you can’t tuck them next to plastic pipes or anything that might melt or catch fire. We usually keep them at least 2.5 meters above the floor. It keeps everyone safe and prevents the people standing directly underneath from feeling like they’re being baked.