Nothing on the walls. Heat only the rooms you use. Slim white PowerBoard panels on the ceiling warm people and everything in the room directly, instead of heating the air first. Supplied and installed across the UK.
Kevin already had solar on the roof, so using more of his own electricity made obvious sense. He just did not want to gamble the whole house on it.
We installed 15 surface mounted infrared panels across 8 separately controlled rooms, on their own dedicated board and their own circuits, completely independent of his existing heating.
The gas system stayed exactly where it was. Nothing disconnected, nothing removed, still there and still working.
That means he runs the infrared and judges it for himself, room by room, through a real winter, with the old system sitting there as a safety net. If it does everything he hopes, the radiators come out and he gets his wall space back, on his timing rather than ours. If it did not suit him, he has lost nothing.
We think that is how this should be done. You should not have to take our word for it in October and find out in February.
The final column is planned, not installed.
Because the infrared runs on electricity, it can use the solar Kevin already generates rather than exporting it for a fraction of what he pays to buy it back.
The limitation with solar on its own is timing. Panels generate most in the middle of the day, which is usually when the house is empty and the heating is off. Battery storage is what fixes that. It stores what the roof makes, and it can also charge overnight when electricity is at its cheapest, then run the heating through the morning on stored power.
That is why we always suggest battery before more solar. It works every day of the year, sunshine or not, it is the cheaper and less intrusive of the two to fit, and it does the most for a heating bill in winter, which is exactly when heating matters.
Kevin's system is wired and ready for that step whenever he wants it.
Every unit of heat that comes from the panels instead of the boiler is a unit that is not burning gas in the house.
Electric heating also gets cleaner over time on its own. Every year the grid carries more renewable generation, so the same heating produces less carbon than it did the year before without you touching a thing. A gas boiler cannot do that. Paired with Kevin's solar, and later a battery, more of that heat comes from his own roof.
Our panels are transformer free, running direct from standard 230V mains, so there is no separate power supply unit to fail. The packaging is 100% recyclable and we keep plastic in it to a minimum.
“I am very happy with the work that Nick and his team at PoweRad have done for me. They installed 15 panels on various ceilings and although they had challenges along the way nothing was too much trouble. The electrician was very friendly and went the extra mile. My dog also loved him!”
The en suite is wired and waiting. Bathrooms need a panel with the right water protection rating, so rather than rush it, we ran the cable and left the connection point in place. When that panel goes in, there is no mess and no rewiring.
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This part is for anyone who wants to know how it was designed and installed. If you only wanted to know what it is like to live with, you already have it above.
The number of panels came from the heat loss of each room in kilowatts, not from counting rooms.
This is where infrared usually goes wrong. Fit a panel too small for a room and it never quite gets there, so the owner turns the thermostat up and leaves it running. The panel is cheap, the running cost is not.
We worked out what each space genuinely needed, then specified to it. That is how we arrived at 15 panels across 8 areas, and it is why the system holds a temperature instead of chasing it.
Every electrical installation in a home has to meet BS 7671, the national wiring standard. When the work is finished it is inspected and tested, and an Electrical Installation Certificate is issued.
That certificate is your proof the work is safe. It matters for your insurance, and it matters when you come to sell, because a buyer's solicitor may well ask to see it.
Kevin's installation was tested in full and issued with the certificate, along with a Schedule of Inspections and a Schedule of Test Results.
The insulation came back hundreds of times better than the minimum, and the worst circuit for fault clearance was still at roughly a third of the permitted limit.
That is a perfectly sensible way to do it, and it is how we would suggest most people start. We will work out what your rooms actually need, fit it alongside your existing heating, and let it prove itself before you commit to anything else. If you already have solar, so much the better, and we will tell you honestly where battery storage would and would not pay.
Every system we fit is designed from the heat loss up, installed on its own properly protected circuits, and certified to BS 7671. You also get dedicated aftercare support, with a guaranteed human follow up within one working day.