The Prestyl far infrared heaters are a new type of heater that heats the mass in front of it so you keep toasty warm without heating the air of your house that can dry out your home.
Ease of Use, Performance: 23/25
Look & Feel: 22/25
Features 20/25
How much I enjoy 20/25
Total: 85/100
Prestyl has introduced a new type of thin film far infrared heating panels that only heat the mass in front of them instead of the air so you get the benefits of the heat with energy conservation. Far infrared heat is a newer technology and the panels are safer than conventional heaters, no danger of fire or burns from a large hot element.
Far infrared heat only heats mass and not air using radiant energy and the new thin film technology has brought the cost of these panels down from past types of the same type of heaters. Conventional and even infrared heaters will heat anything in front of them including air and the elements used for heating get hot, too hot to touch and hot enough to start things on fire.
Ceramic heaters are one example of infrared heaters but they are not so far into the infrared spectrum that they are considered far infrared. Advantages of using a far infrared heater include the obvious fact that it does not get as hot as a regular heater but also it only heats the objects such as people and furniture and not the air.
This may seem odd but when looking at a room that is not cold but cool and you want to enjoy a bit of warmth, say when watching TV the far infrared heater can deliver heat to you. The use of a heater like a ceramic one will heat the entire room and the air which is wasting electricity if you are only concerned about cold toes.
Heating the air will dry the air out while heating mass will give a warmth and residual heat that can last longer than heated air. The far infrared heater will also heat objects like walls and furniture so you can get the benefits of heat from solid objects like the sofa your sitting on which will also store some of that heat for you.
If you point an electric heater in front of you the hot air is not all getting to you and some if not a majority of it is rising toward the ceiling and moving around your house. The warm air is also being dried out so you have more of a problem with a drier environment and this is another problem with using space heaters in general.
We tried it out in the living room but placement is an issue, we do not have a good spot to mount the panel in direct line with our sofa so we are going to check it out in our small bathroom. Our bathroom has no heat whatsoever, our home has a boiler with hot water radiators and our small bathroom does not have one for some reason.
We have been okay with no water pipes freezing if we leave our bathroom door open but it gets chilly when you get out of the shower so I installed it on the wall of our bathroom. The heater panel is mounted on the wall opposite our shower but also faces the sink from the side so we get a nice little warmth while we are working at the sink.
If this doesn’t work we may try rearranging the living room but for now it is nice and toasty while we do our thing in the bathroom, get ready for work or right out of the shower. The Prestyl heating panels come in two by two foot or two by four foot panels that can easily be hung on the wall or used as ceiling panels.
The panels are the size of those acoustical ceiling tiles and can easily be fitted into a two by two or two by four foot suspended ceiling. The panels come as regular 120 volt plug ins or you can order them with just the cord for being wired by an electrician as a custom order directly from Prestyl.
You can currently purchase the panels from the Skymall in plain white panels for $315.99 up to $650 for 2 x 4 foot panels with or without artwork. The panels come in plain white or black along with customizable colors as well as art prints in a wide variety from Van Gogh’s Starry Night to a simple sea turtle.
The panels use the same amount of electricity as a regular heater from the tests I did using a watt meter and can even be controlled using a switched outlet or a thermostat controlled outlet. I also received a Lux Products Programmable Thermostat that plugs into a regular outlet to control the heater by temperature.
This simple device controls the heater panel much like your home thermostat and works simply to control the panels on and off according to the room temperature by the temperature probe on the unit. I am also going to try a simple outlet with a switch next to it connected to our regular bathroom outlet so I can switch the panel on and off while we try it out in the bathroom.
The panel gets warm enough that you would have a hard time keeping your hand directly on the panel but not so hot that it would cause burns. Children would be safe around the panels because they are not hot enough to cause severe burns like other heaters would.
The panels surface temperature can get up to 200 degrees Fahrenheit but this is not anything like the elements from other heaters which can reach five hundred degrees and higher. The Prestyl panels will not get much higher than 200 degrees, I checked this out on the panel I received and never got above 208 degrees.
This is not hot enough that direct contact will cause a burn but it gets uncomfortable to hold your hand against the panel for more than a few seconds. The panel is easy to use for wall mounting and very simple for a suspended ceiling as the panel simply plugs into a regular outlet.
You can use the included four piece mounting brackets that keep the panel about two inches from the mounting surface and install easily or you can use a suspended ceiling system. The panels are slightly smaller than two by two or four by two feet but they do fit a common ceiling panel for easy substitution.
The panel has a small one and one half inch by one and one quarter inch half inch thick box on the back where the cord goes into the panel but the rest of the panel is flat and about a half inch thick. The cord is short for the typical heater length of four feet once you’re past the edge of the panel but you can use an extension cord or an outlet strip if you need to.
The panel has worked well and while it is costly compared to a simple space heater it does have the safety benefits and the easy mount system as well. The panels are also made from recycled materials as well as fully recyclable so the environment will thank you as well as the cold family member.
I highly recommend the Prestyl heating panels for a safe easy way to use far infrared heat to keep you warm and cozy with several options for decorative or simple ceiling tile heating.