Hey There, Looking to see what, if anything anyone is doing for air handler systems in their shops. I've got a 30x50 shop w/ 14' ceilings that's spray foamed and finished in tin and I need to do something about diesel exhaust, paint fumes, etc. I'm in MN and the shop heats extremely efficiently with infloor heat on a propane boiler with a separate make up heat system and one thing I'm curious about are the impacts different options would have on heating. At the moment the options I'm looking at are a simple exhaust fan framed into an exterior wall, or something like this https://www.hvacquick.com/products....MIpbzvv4We4AIVnoSzCh1luwSWEAkYAiABEgKj1vD_BwE Whats everyone doing? Anything?
My shop space is about 24x40 with 14' ceilings. I 1st installed a largish repurposed squirrel cage blower for general exhaust. A set of 14x14 louvers can easilly be had online. That's fine for general purposes, but I think it is better to collect some things at the sources, like exhaust or welding fumes, so i also installed a 6" round inline duct fan connected to flexible duct. The fan I used is more geared towards hydroponic grow operations, but it works great.
Google can-fan. I picked up a couple at a sheriff auction for about $40 each, but they are about $100 new. You can barely hear it running. I used a 6" wall vent with damper. I wanted much more cfm than a typical wall mount attic fan, is why i went with the blower, but one this large is a little loud but effective. I used a Broan 433 shutter for the outside. It seals up tight when it is off. Old furnce air handlers are a good source for the blower.
The heat recovery units look great, for what they do. But i dont know if you would be satisfied with the cfm. My small can-fan does over 300cfm i think. I bet my big fan does 1 or 2 thousand cfm. I can stand 12' away from the outlet and easilly feel the breeze. I like to think my shop is fairly tight, and i run a tube heater in the ceiling, but I will say that when i fire up my big fan, it definitely sucks in cold air from wherever it can.
Thanks for the info, those are the types of things I'm looking for. In all reality I have makeup heat so I'll probably just have to set up a large exhaust fan or squirrel cage to clear the shop then let it come up to temp again, mainly because it looks like I can buy a lot of propane for what these exchanger systems cost v.s. their size and capabilities. This isn't something I'd have given a lot of thought to years ago but I've been working out of another shop for the last 5-6 years and the ventilation system sucks and I can tell I'm much more sensitive to it than I used to be.