This month, I’m interviewing 20 UK households who are heating their homes with Infrared heating. How do they use it? How well does it work for them? How much energy does it use?

As an experimental psychologist, I’m trying to unravel the complex interrelationship between (a) people’s thermal comfort, (b) types of domestic heating (radiant, convected, conducted) and (c) energy.

My motivation is how we can keep individuals (who are wildly variable in both physiology and behaviour) comfortably warm in houses (which are wildly variable in size, age and energy efficiency) without wasting energy or money. I think the clue may be to switch thinking from heating space to heating people.

The research follows on from the trial I ran exploring person-centred and hybrid methods of heating in rural Welsh homes earlier this year.

Thank you to the Herschel customers who are helping me with this research and Herschel Infrared for enabling it to happen.

It would be interesting to do a similar set of interviews with heat pump households.

My findings will be published on this website in December.