Radiant Tube Heaters

A gas burner fires down a long steel tube, and a reflector above it aims the infrared energy downward. The tube gets hot, radiates, and that energy is absorbed by whatever is beneath it: the floor, the racking, a vehicle, a person. Nothing depends on warming the air first, which is why these work in buildings where a forced-air furnace struggles, such as a high-ceilinged warehouse or a shop with a bay door that keeps opening.

Length, not heat. A U-tube folds the burner tube back on itself, so it reaches the same output in roughly half the run. A 150,000 BTU straight tube needs about 41 feet; the U-tube version of the same heater is about 23 feet. The straight run spreads heat more evenly down a long line, while the U-tube concentrates it over a tighter footprint. Choose by the clear overhead run you have, then by which pattern suits the space.

Outdoors and under open cover, no. Indoors you have a choice: vent the exhaust through a wall or roof with a 4 inch flue, or run it unvented in a space with enough ventilation air. Code sets that minimum at 4 CFM of outdoor air per 1,000 BTU/hr, so a 100,000 BTU heater run unvented indoors needs 400 CFM designed in. That is a decision to settle with your installer before you choose an output, not after.

It scales with output. The smallest units in this collection mount at 8 to 10 feet, and the largest want 20 to 25 feet. That is not a preference, it is how the heat pattern works: mounted too low the energy is uncomfortably intense directly underneath, and too high it spreads thin before it reaches anyone. Check your clear ceiling height first, because it will often rule out the largest outputs before anything else does.

Not from a square-foot chart. The manufacturers deliberately do not publish one, because coverage depends on mounting height, ceiling height and how much heat the building loses through its walls, roof and doors. These are sized with a heat loss calculation instead. A well-insulated shop and a drafty hangar of the same floor area need very different output. Tell us the building, its height and what it is used for, and we can help you work it through.

Yes, and it is a common use for the shorter models. Infrared is the right technology outdoors for the same reason it suits a warehouse: it heats people and surfaces rather than air that a breeze would carry away. The practical limit is mounting height, since a tube heater needs real overhead clearance and a structure to hang from. For a standard residential patio, a compact wall or ceiling mounted infrared heater is usually the better fit.