Garage heat? I have a 1500 sq ft shop 20' ceiling height that I need to heat. Wood is out at this point because of the time involved to split, load and monitor stove. No natural gas but can put in a propane or oil tank. Do not have a enough used oil to use a used oil heater. Want to hang something from the wall and have about a $1000 budget. Would like to use something that is economical and heats garage fast. Have insulation so I am making garage as insulated as possible. Any suggestions? Have a torpedo heater now, and plan on still using that for initial heat up.
fuel oil is still the cheapest form of heat overall, Gas apliances are uasualy cheeper then oil fired ones but the cost of btu runs 3 to 4 times what oil cost. With that tall of ceiling I would install a fan about $50. By the way a waste oil furnace will also burn fuel oil but they run between $2500 and $5000. You may be able to find an old furnace out of a tralier house for next to nothing and thay only take up about 4 sq ft. of floor space and will heat 1800 sq ft.
Thanks Dwan, Thats the kind of info I was looking for, cost of oil compared to gas. I think the oil will cost more to start but cost less to run. The fan is good idea to. I am going to look for a oil furnace and I will need a tank. Any idea's. Thanks again Dwan :thumbsup I was starting to think no one was going to answer.
I will need diesel storage also; I think I will need two tanks, one for diesel and one for oil.
I second the oil furnance I don't know what oil is worth but its fairly expensive here it costs about 4.25 per gallon for regular stove oil. As for a diesel storage tank its probably going to be a double walled fuel tank the days are gone when you can use single walled storage tanks. I would try mount the furnace out side or on the ouside of the shop so it isn't on the inside with a pilot light burning that could cause a explosion. Another source of heat is portable 220 volt heaters they work well but they do use up quite abit of juice. Usually they are orange or blue in color a square metal box.
home depot carries 250 gallon oil tanks. There like 250 a piece.
Check the price differance between stove oil and diesel #2. You have to pay road tax on any fuel used on a public road which is about $0.26 per gal. here. You can not run fuel oil on the highway but you can burn #2 in a furnace. They are the same except for the tax and in some places they add die. To save the cost of an aditional tank you may want to use your road fuel to also heat your shop just that you would be paying the aditional road tax on it. Here the fuel co's charge more for heating fuel then they should. it is only about .06 cheaper then road #2. @ .06 a gal it would take 10,000 gal before you would save enough to pay for a second single wall tank. The requirement for comerical and home heating tanks are differant. also things start getting sticky when you store over 1000 at any 1 location. It is easer to install a above ground tank then a below ground one. because of the code requirements. In my shop at home I use 1 tank. I put taxable road fuel in it and have a pump on it with a meter. I keep good records as to what goes in what. I also have a meter on the furnace. @ tax time I apply for a refund on the fuel that was not used for the road. I get back .26 cents for every gal that is not used on the road. This includes what I use in my excavator, bobcats, loader, space heater, compactor, and shop furnace. Hope this gives you something to think about.
Again thank you, a friend of mine uses farm diesel for every thing including his pick up truck. I think the fuel is colored but in 15 years he says he has never had anybody ask. So you think one tank will do. Will one of the tanks F350 mentioned from Depot work? That fact that one tank for everything to include my heat for the shop sounds great. So I can use off road diesel for everything? I think we have a tax on road fuel also here. How do you do the plumbing to have a pump for use for the equipment and feed the heater for the shop? I have looked on the net for oil furnaces any suggestion on finding a heater. How many BTU do you think I need? What is involved in venting heater, can I go out the side of my building or do I have to go out the roof? Thank you very much for the help. :thumbsup Ps, you guys in Alaska know a lot about heat!
3 You may have misunderstood me!!! You can not use offroad fuel on the road but you can use on road fuel (taxed) for everything. it is just that you will be paying road tax for everything till the end of the year when you apply for a redund. If you want to PM me with your phone number I could call you and explane how to pipe in a fill, vent, pump, and furnace line. 1800 sq ft well insulated with no cracks around the doors should be able to heat with a furnace that burns between 1 and 2 gph. Now this will not heat it real fast nor will it make it 80 degrees when it is 0 outside but it will make it nice and warm to work in. The fan is important to help keep the floor warm. without it there can be more then 30 degree differance between the floor and ceiling.
Dwan, I will PM you, thank you for the offer. I could call you so you can save the dime. I will wait till I find a unit. Found allot on eBay, they range from $50 to over $1000. Do think it would make sense to buy new? How efficient can these old one's on eBay be that are selling for under $500 and how do you know they will work until you hook it up. The point I was making about the farm fuel is how does anybody know you are using it in you truck unless they look in you tank for red dye. My Mack dump's tank cap was stained red when I bought it. I wonder what the fine is. I am the kind of guy that will play it safe anyways but.... Deducting it from my taxes gives me back $.30 on the dollor so thats good, never would of thought of that. I think a 100,000 btu sounds ok. What do you think? I still have to take the second story down in the shop and install over head door. I think 14 x 14 door is what I will buy. I plan on leaving some of the second story up for a loft and storage. When I get started I will post some pics, hopefully by the end of the month.
The fine is more then any one man can afford if you get stoped. any reason to check will not be worth the expence. Like an acident. To tell the truth I make more money off the goverment doing jobs for them then I ever have had to pay in taxs. So I don't mind paing my share. 100,000 btu should be just fine if the building is tight.
How about those radiant tube heaters? Have been in acouple of shops and they seemed to heat good, not sure if they were natural gas or LP?
The fine for running dyed fuel on highway is $10,000 for each occurrence. There was a small auto parts store nearby me that had 2 trucks running dyed fuel, got their tanks dipped and was fined $20,000. It made the newspapers and they were out of business a short time after.
Need to burn alot of fuel to make a fine like that worth it. Guess good ol uncle sam dont like it when we dont pay our taxes
I guess so "holy bat butter batman" I think I got my answer. That’s a bigger fine than not paying any taxes at all. I think the guy that just got arrested in an armed robbery at the gas station with a gun will pay less than that in a fine. I think I will need at least a 250 gallon tank. That will give me about 200 hours of heat plus the machine and truck use, so a bigger one would be better. I have a Hunter fan in my garage "original" is the model. I have had the fan from the days when I was a rep. Hunter fan was one of the manufacturers that I represented back in the day and they would give you free samples. I wish I only kept all the stuff I had back then from manufacturers that gave them to me as samples. Just not enough room. Now I have to go and buy the stuff. I also represented Cooper Lighting, wish I saved all the Halo, Edison stuff I had. I did save all the Stabila levels and lasers and allot of the Freud saw blades so don't have to buy that stuff for a very long time. I was surfing the web and found Shop forum, look under shops and they have a lot of new shops being built and the progress from start to finish. Very interesting read. Found the link on here somewhere. Steve is it ok to have another Forum link on here? I wish we had something like that, Steve take a look I think you will be impressed. Thanks again Dwan.
So if I do the math correct the heat should cost me; $3.00 per gallon and around 1.5 gallons per hour. Run the heater 2 to 4 hours a day depending on how well shop keeps heat in the shop and not outside. Use about 4.5 to 6 gallons a day at about $15.00 a day, use shop for 5 days a week or $75 a week or $300 a month. Does that sound rite? I would also need about 100 gallons a month to just heat shop. If you use farm fuel and save $.30 per gallon that would amount to $30.00 a month. I can live with the spending the extra $30.00 a month. :yup I think a 250 gallon tank would work because I would not be using much fuel for equipment during the winter months when I am heating shop and during the warmer months I wouldn't be using fuel for heat when I need it most for equipment.
jmac, do yourself a favor, check out your local fuel oil company and get a 500 gallon diked fuel tank . use it @ your shop for your heat and machinery needs. buy your truck fuel @ pump . A 500 gallon tank keeps you under the size limit for DEC. and pump fuel eliminates book keeping for OTR fuel. Jim
Jim, that sounds good also, I could always fill pick up and dump at the pump. I think I found a 100,000 Btu unit; I can still use my portable unit to heat up the shop for the hour while the door is open etc. So as far as any one can tell me oil is cheaper than LP and you can't use LP in my equipment. How about condensation on my tools and stuff, any problems with oil heat? As far as placement of tank I think close to building so I can run power to it, maybe a little roof over tank and an outdoor light sounds good. Do you think the insurance company will have any issues with above ground tank next to building?
This is the tank for stove oil www.tidytanks.com/ovaltank.html This is similar to what you would want for regular diesel fuel http://www.tidytanks.com/farmtank.html If your enviro regs require it www.tidytanks.com/contain.html As for running marked fuel I would be very carefull about that our fines are not like what you have in the US our fine is only 230 dollars for a offence. You get caught once they give you a fine it will be 230 dollars you get caught again 230 dollars. We could get away with it for years running marked fuel the funny part is when the DOT nails people with marked gas is the cost of marked gas is more because it comes from a marina. Marked gas from a marina is 1.30 a litre but it has no road tax you buy road taxed fuel its 1.03 a litre. People in the more remote areas buy fuel from marina's because the nearest gas station is 40 mins away. Marked diesel is used by all the contractors they all have tanks in their yard and in the back of their pick up truck. You guys fines for running marked fuel is very high I guess thats what happens when you let the gov't push you around. We wouldn't let the CND gov't ever give a fine that high some of those gov't officials might find themselves with concrete boots taking a swim in the Pacific ocean. Make sure you follow any eviromental regs spilled fuel is a big big deal you get the enviroment inspector on your property and they see spilled oil or spilled diesel fuel watch out. That is the big problem we have here if they see spilled oil on your property or big oil stains they will shut you down and start testing your soil for contamination. Its very expensive especially if you have to dig out all the contaminated soil and have it trucked to a approved dump site.
Thanks Ford ,very helpfull. The farm tank looks good, no pump or eletric. I will check with codes to see if I need double wall.
jmac, my heating oil tank is right up against my building , no ins. issues yet. and yes a roof would be great, especially with the ice we've been getting instead of snow. jim
unless zoning requires it, the last i knew tank capacity under 1100 gallons total wasn't regulated by DEC. by total capacity i mean (1) 500 gallon tank plus (1) 275 gallon tank plus (1) 250 gallon tank all on same premises. but that may have changed by now. jim
The reasoning for a double walled tank is once you get over a certain amount of fuel you need it. It all has to do on how much enviromental damage that amount of fuel will do. You can have smaller storage tanks on your property to have more fuel because if one tank ruptures it doesn't do the same damage as one tank containing the same amount of fuel as 2-3 smaller tanks. The gravity feed tanks that are on stands work well but you need to build a ladder and platform for the fuel guy to stand on to fill your tank. Depending on local regulations you may need to have a hand rail around the platform so the guy doesn't fall off.
Thank you all for the advise. Is an oil burn hot water heater available? I called my local oil, HAVC guys today. I have some quotes coming my way. One told me the furrnace a lone cost 3k. I would like to find a used one. Any one that has done this in the last year or so? If so what can I plan on spending. As always the folks on HEF have losts of good advise.
3k for what kind of furnace jmac? that sounds a little steep, actually a lot steep. i think mine was only around 1k. jim
1k was what I found on the net so I think 3k is way off. The HVAC guy I called and he was the largest in town. I think he must be think residential with duct work or something. I made it very clear that it was for a shop. He said he would call me with some firm numbers. I was thinking about 1k for unit and about $500 for tank, and another $500 for misc stuff so total should be around 2k. Just more shoping to do to find the best deal. I have losts of time on mine hands. Look at the time I put into this thread,:bouncegri very slow and not much snow to plow. Close on building next week, can't wait to get started, have lost of free time until March. My budget is around 6k for over head door, lighting, heat, benches, misc eletrical outlets. This will get me started and make the building useable until I start back up in the spring.
What if you went with hotwater radiator heat buy using a oil fired boiler. I imagine there is lots of those old cast iron rads in the recycle yards. Forced air heat is really dry heat you may not want that in a old barn start drying out the wood pretty quick. Another thought is find out what is legal to use for heat so you don't void your insurance. If the shop burns down and they come to the cause was a furnance and your insurance company says oh we don't cover you for that because its not legal your insurance could be void.
personally i'd stick with the forced air furnace , cause it sounds like you're not going heat building 27/7. hot water boiler would need antifreeze in it and you'd probably use a heat exchanger with a blower anyways which basically gives you forced air. not to mention the cost difference with a boiler setup. as with any kind of heat from a combustible source you need to be careful about any kind of flammable fumes , fuel leaks etc. from whatever you are working on. as far as insurance i wouldn't worry about that too much, because i believe NYS building code now requires a permit and inspections from your local zoning officer for a heating installation and sometimes your ins. co. will also inspect prior to writing a policy. jim
Jmac, although this is in a house, I had to replace my furnace a couple years ago. The new one is a Lennox forced air, oil furnace, 97,000btu, and I recall it being about $1700 installed, IIRC. I was able to pick up my garage oil furnace for $100 at a garage sale. It's an old heavy cast iron antique, but it works great, and put out plenty of heat (I'm guessing around 100,000btu maybe) I think Dwan's idea of using "on-road" fuel is a good idea, with the reasoning he gives.(tax refund, etc. & no worries of red fuel in a on road vehicle) Good luck in all your shop projects.