Comfort heating manufacturer Space-Ray is celebrating its 60th anniversary since the first gas-fired infrared heating system was manufactured in 1949. From its humble beginnings the late-1940s, Space-Ray’s product line expanded with the addition of floor model heaters for use in steel mills in the late-1950s to broad area and perimeter high intensity heaters in the mid-1960s, and to low intensity unitized tube heaters in the late-1960s. 

Today the company offers a broad and complete infrared heater product line consisting of more than 400 different heating configurations in more than 80 models in both natural and propane gas.

Beside the United States and Canada, Space-Ray heaters operate around the world in the United Kingdom, China, Russia, France, South Korea, Argentina, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania and many other countries.

Part of Gas-Fired Products Inc., a family-owned business founded in 1949 to manufacture gas-fired heaters for tobacco barns, Space-Ray was the first U.S. manufacturer to offer unitized tube heaters. A subsidiary company, Gas-Fired Products (UK), was formed in Ipswich, England, in 1964 to manufacture industrial and commercial gas heating equipment as well as brooders for the poultry market in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe.

Innovations throughout the company’s 60-year history include:

• First company to offer corrosion resistant calorized aluminized steel emitter tubes that are highly radiant emissive on the interior and highly radiant emissive on the exterior to prevent flaking or peeling.
  
  
• First company in 1968 to offer a unitized design tube heater for lower installation costs, simpler rearrangement within the facility and less maintenance. By not being dependent on other heaters in the system, Space-Ray heaters can be thermostatically controlled individually or in groups for greater operator control of heating requirements.
  
  
• First company to offer a unique Tube Integrity Safety System™ (TISS) on its positive pressure low intensity tube heaters that provides the ultimate in fire safety protection.
  
  
• First company to offer monitoring lights on tube heaters to facilitate floor level diagnostics.
  
  
• First company to offer iron oxide coating on ceramic heaters to improve radiant efficiency.
  
  
• First company to offer an exclusive COMPUHEAT heat loss analysis free of charge to qualified plant managers, contractors and building owners.

Source:Space Ray