November 2nd, 2020 by Chris Chapman

To understand heating elements and which ones work best in a heater, it’s useful to explain the concept of resistive heating, which most heaters work on the basis of. Resistive heating works by passing an electric current through a conductive material to produce heat. This conductive material is the heating element. As the current passes through it, it meets resistance – hence the name – which produces heat.

Because the heating element is made of a conductive material, it absorbs and retains heat well. How well depends on the material and this is, in essence, what we’ll be looking at when we guide you through the best ones.

What do we mean by ‘best’?

When we talk about the ‘best’ heating elements, we’re mainly referring to how well they allow a heater to warm the space. However, there are other aspects that should be taken into consideration such as energy efficiency, cost to buy, and cost to run. We’ll include details about these aspects as well to help you make an informed decision.

The best heating elements

Ceramic

Ceramic is a popular material to use in panel heaters due to its high efficiency. Ceramic is a very efficient conductor which allows it to heat up quickly, thereby requiring less energy. It also means that it can produce a lot of heat from a small surface area, so ceramic heaters can often be very small. This is great if you have limited space or just prefer a neater, sleeker look.

Because ceramic is so efficient at storing heat, it powers off once at the desired temperature and continues to warm the room using stored heat without using further electricity for several hours so it’s very cost-effective to run. Look out for models that are EcoDesign Lot 20 compliant if you want your heater to meet the highest standards for energy efficiency.

MYLEK Ceramic Electric Panel Heater with 24/7 Timer 600W

Price: £169.99

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PTC

PTC or positive temperature coefficient is another form of ceramic in disk or plate form. It is so named due to having a positive thermal coefficient of resistance, which means resistance increases upon heating.

Like ceramic, it has a self-limiting property which acts as a natural thermostat: heating quickly and then retaining heat well once at optimum temperature.

Another great aspect to any kind of ceramic element is its tolerance to heating and cooling multiple times. This means the heating element is long-lasting, so you’ll get a lot more use out of your heater.

Aluminium

Aluminium is the next best thing to ceramic. It’s not quite as efficient as ceramic but it’s still a really effective conductor and has the advantage of being less expensive to buy. You don’t have to throw the planet under the bus either for a cheaper purchase as many aluminium heaters are EcoDesign Lot 20 compliant as well.

MYLEK Aluminium Electric Panel Heater Radiator 1.5KW

A superior all-aluminium panel heater, designed to give you an unbeatable heating performance.

Price: £154.99

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Wire

Wire is a very popular heating element to use, and it’s often the cheapest to buy. An alloy called nichrome is the most common material. Made up of 80% nickel and 20% chromium, it has high resistance, is easy to shape, doesn’t oxidise in air or water (you will commonly see it in kettles), and doesn’t expand too much when heated.

Resistance wire can be coiled tight or used as flat strips. The longer the piece of wire, the more heat it will generate. Not as energy-efficient as ceramic or aluminium, wire-based heaters are still very effective.

Quartz

Heaters that use quartz are slightly different, in that they use infrared heating. Rather than warming the air, infrared heating warms the objects in the room (furniture, walls, even people) and these increase the ambient temperature of the space. Infrared works in the same way as the sun, using radiation which means they can be used very effectively outside as well as inside.

Quartz is used to sheathe a hot filament, which is typically made of nichrome. Energy feeds through the filament and the quartz, which is usually tinted red, is used to reduce the amount of visible light emitted (this would be harmful to eyesight otherwise).

The advantage to infrared heating is that it is instant and very efficient as you don’t lose as much heat to the top of the room due to it heating the objects and not the air (hot air is lighter than cool air and so will rise). Infrared heaters usually cost more to buy but that cost is offset by their efficiency.