This study investigates experimentally the
thermal perception of indoor environment for evaluating
the ability of radiant panel heaters to produce thermal
comfort for space occupants as well as the energy
consumption in comparison with conventional portable
natural convective heaters. The thermal perception
results show that, compared with conventional convection
heater, a radiantly heated office room maintains a
lower ambient air temperature while providing equal
levels of thermal perception on the thermal dummy head
as the convective heater and saves up to 39.1% of the
energy consumption per day. However, for human
subjects’ vote experiments, the results show that for an
environmentally controlled test room at outdoor environment
temperatures of 0°C and 5°C, using two radiant
panel heaters with a total capacity of 580 W leads to a
better comfort sensation than the conventional portable
natural convective heater with a 670Wcapacity, with an
energy saving of about 13.4%. In addition, for an
outdoor environment temperature of 10°C, using one
radiant panel heater with a capacity of 290 W leads to a
better comfort sensation than the conventional convection
heater with a 670Wcapacity, with an energy saving
of about 56.7%. From the analytical results, it is found
that distributing the radiant panel heater inside the office