Harry Mäkelä has an impressive terrace in his house. Mäkelä uses his grill a lot in winter, so the Airrex infrared heater may be switched on from Friday until Saturday.
“We used to use this duct-shaped fuel oil heater. We found its flame and blast slightly dangerous in terms of heating a BBQ hut constructed of log beams with a diameter of 20 cm. A few years ago, when my son acquired an infrared heater and put it by the door of a 200-square metre maintenance hall as a kind of an air curtain, I decided to get these devices for our personal use as well.
In temperatures of 20 degrees below zero, we consume around one litre of oil per hour in the BBQ hut. The 2-storey terrace is 17 metres wide and 5 metres deep. One Airrex AH-300 heater is in the lower terrace and one is upstairs. When we had to start refuelling the old heater with fuel oil, the tank of the new heater, in comparison, remains almost half-full,” Mäkelä describes his experiences.
In Mäkelä’s experience, an exhaust pipe is not necessary in a big terrace or even in a BBQ hut. The heater does not emit any smoke at all because the oil burns so cleanly. Switching off the heater only causes a small fizzling sound, after which you can smell fuel oil for a while.
Mäkelä, however, reckons that the consumption and odour emissions of older Airrex infrared heaters could be reduced if at least their filters were replaced. The heaters have been used for 3–4 years without requiring any particular maintenance.
“I can warmly recommend these heaters to everybody, I have been very satisfied with them,” Harry Mäkelä says, summing up his experience.