For some years now, I’ve wanted to try out a mobile FIR heater.

You’ll have gathered from my many comments on domestic heating on this site that I am a great fan of FIR heating. However, conventional FIR heaters are generally fixed panels and this can often mean that the beautiful low intensity radiant heat is not delivered in the optimum way to a receiver sitting in a chair. For example, there may be no room on a wall or the ceiling to fix the FIR panel close to the receiver; or maybe furniture gets in the way and blocks some of the radiant heat.

On the other hand a mobile FIR heater ideally allows a user to position the heater in a place which optimises the radiant heating experience.

After several years of trying in vain to buy a mobile FIR heater I finally decided to make one! I bought a conventional FIR panel (with the lowest power rating I could find – 400W) and instead of fixing it on a wall I attached it to a mobile structure which I have constructed. This can be seen in the two photos. [In designing and building this I was very conscious of the need for it to be safe – in particular I wanted it to be very stable and also to be able to be easily moved without a person’s body coming into contact with the hot surface.]

It is early days, and we have missed winter, but my wife seems to really like it. She has happily been using it on most evenings as we make our way through an unusually cool Canberra spring.

My mobile FIR heater