How to Keep Your Infrared Heaters From Blowing Up in Wet Areas
If you’ve ever put infrared lamps in a bathroom or a livestock pen, you know the nightmare scenario. You’ve got a lamp humming along at a few hundred degrees, a single stray drop of cold water hits the glass, and—pop—it shatters. It’s called thermal shock. It’s basically the glass panicking because one spot got cold while the rest stayed scorching. To stop this from happening, we use explosion-proof quartz. Why standard glass just doesn’t cut it Now, regular quartz is pretty good with heat, but it has its limits. In a place where you’re hosing things down or people are showering, the temperature jump is just too violent. The glass shrinks too fast in one tiny spot, and that’s how you get a stress fracture. We fix this by changing the chemistry of the glass and using a specific cooling process. It gives the tube a bit of “give,” so it can take those sudden temperature swings without giving up the ghost. The guts of the lamp Inside, we use a high-purity quartz core. This is what lets that short-wave heat blast through without getting trapped. But safety isn’t just about the glass not cracking. We seal the housing tight to keep electricity and water far apart. And if a tube does happen to fail? The explosion-proof rating means it won’t send shards flying across the room. Instead, it just crumbles into small, dull pieces. Much safer for everyone involved. A few things to keep in mind Here’s the trade-off: these specialized tubes don’t always throw heat exactly like the clear ones do. You might notice the heat pattern feels a little different. Also, a pro tip on the install: check your brackets. When that glass hits peak temperature, it gets heavy and flexible. You don’t want your lamp sagging over time. And for heaven’s sake, use high-temp leads and make sure your IP-rated housing actually breathes. If you trap all that heat around the socket, you’ll fry your connectors long before the quartz tube even breaks a sweat.