On Jun 26, 2009, at 3:47 PM, Ron Nossaman wrote: > Air is heated in these systems by contact with a warm surface. A > warm wall panel, floor, iron mass, or heat exchanger in a forced air > system. A correctly named radiant heater doesn't try to heat the > air, it directly heats distant objects by infrared radiation. Okay, fine. Correct nomenclature is a wonderful thing. That still doesn't negate the fact that a hot floor radiates heat. And that it does heat not terribly distant objects (like a piano on top of it) by infrared radiation. It's a side effect, not an intention, but it has some importance to us as piano technicians. It is also true of many other heating systems, whose "intent" (what they "try to do" as you put it) is more on the level of convection, but whose side effect is radiant heat resulting in nearby objects becoming hotter than the surrounding air. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu
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