We recently built a 50'x100' shop. It has 2200 square feet of living space & the rest is shop. It has 4:12 pitch so it has a lot of space to heat. I am wondering what types of heat y'all ar using for similar size building. Not interested in wood & natural gas is not available. Its all insulated with insulated doors as well. Thanks in advance.
All things being equal, floor loop heat is best in a shop, but it sounds like it might be too late for that. Second best would be infrared overhead loop on propane I should think, unless you generate tons of waste oil. This type of thing:
I would be more worried about AC were you live. Another vote for the tube heaters they seem to work great in cold places. Are you going to have 2 diffrent kinds of heat one for the shop one for the liveing area?
Northern Tool has a heck of a sale going on now on electric heat. check out the website.
A buddy of mine has a shop he heats with wood. He built a stove outta a buffalo steamroller... It is 6' deep, and has a door you can fit a bale of hay through it. Come to think of it you could cremate a body in it...
Thanks guys. Yes we will have central heat & air for living area. I am interested in the tube heaters. I am just wondering if electric will be more efficient or LP. I'm going to install some type of fan to circulate the warm air down from the Ceiling.
For that amount of square footage I think LP will be considerably cheaper than electric. I think radiant is the best setup if the budget allows. I've meant to put heat in my shop for years but always end up using my kerosene heaters. I don't work in it every day so I usually start them an hour or two before I want to work. Not exactly efficient but not having something running constantly it balances out ok. My plan this winter is to build a big wood stove out of some 24" pipe I have. I always have wood so fuel supply isn't a problem. I know the stove won't make it tshirt weather in there but I'd like to think it'll keep it warm enough the other heaters can catch up quickly. Have a heat and air company come out and give their educated opinion. The radiant style aren't terribly expensive if memory serves. Junkyard
I've checked out LP heaters on line. I think infared is the only way to go. I've been in lots of shops that use the kerosene or diesel heaters but I can't get on board with the fumes. Talked my wife into living in a big metal building so I don't want to rock the boat by letting shop fumes into the house
The thing with the radiant tube heaters, they heat objects, people, and floors with the radiant energy, though obviously you do get some air heating, the main benefit is you don't get near as much energy loss from the hot air rising. They're better when operated more or less constantly so everything gets somewhat warm and stays that way, they're not like the big forced air heaters that blow hot air at you. Good luck with your project!
A friend has the LP radiant heat in his shop. You can pull a rig in and leave the windows up and within two hours open a door and it feels like it's been parked outside in the summer with the windows up. Mike
I'd love to see pictures of your setup, I've talked to the wife about it, but never overly seriously. My theory was 24' eaves and two floor living area.
We have a solid concrete shop, 60x30 not much insulation and its buried below grade for the most part. I am running two small btu propane heaters hung from the cieling. I keep the shop at 40 degrees when not occupied and they take a couple hours at most when left to themselves to warm up the whole area. If I need to work on something and I'm in a hurry, I'll fire up the big diesel fed salamander and between the three heaters, the building area will go from 40-65 in about 20 minutes. We have the radiant at the FD but it heats the area between the trucks and the sides of the trucks but between the truck and the wall it gets chilly, or if you're working on the floor not near the heater. If I had to do it all over again, I'd likely add a potbelly stove in there some place and include the waste oil drip heater inside it like some folks do, it looks like it burns pretty clean for a home made low pressure setup. I might make 50-80 gallons of waste oil a year, might as well use it along with some wood. But for Arkansas, my two propane heaters only use maybe 20 gallons of propane a month each in the dead of winter. They are the Modine Hot Dawg 45,000 btu units, guessing the consumption is 1 gal/hr between the two.
Floor heat, propane-fired boiler if you don't have the electrical capacity for off-peak. If you do have the capacity for off-peak electric boilers, and you think propane is never going to get above $1.10 per gallon, then go electric. We went with propane because it would have cost us $38,000 to have another primary line brought in. Our local electric company has a 150 kVa transformer limit per line/per customer/per quarter-mile of property. Our shop heat alone would have required 100 kVa of transformer, and the house and old shop already were using 50. We did some math, and IF off-peak electric were to remain comparable to $1.05 propane, and IF propane was $1.50 per gallon for the next 20 years, and IF we burned 5000 gallons per year, we MIGHT start to see a return on the cost of electric. Right now, propane is $0.79 delivered. On the subject of radiant heaters, I'm not sure of the infatuation with these, but I can personally say that with floor heat, you do not need ceiling fans, nor a creeper if you keep the floor reasonably clean, and you have storage if you run out of gas, or the power goes out. My $0.02.
Good golly Shimmy! I'm paying something close to 3.05 a gallon for Propane, how much are you using?
As much as we want, LOL. Delivered by the bulk truck, right now it's $0.79 per gallon. We used a little over 3000 gallons last winter to heat the shop, so far this winter we are around 1500. I'm guessing we are going to eat it this winter thanks to all the snow pushing and bringing ice-cold iron in every night to thaw. There are other guys around here that have invested in 10K gallon bullets to take a tanker load, and right now you can buy a tanker for $0.40 per gallon.
BTW, fast_st. Our boiler for the shop is a 450,000 BTU.
Radiant propane ceiling heaters are the most common ones around here. Probably because they would be much cheaper and easier to put up than floor heat. They are not really "comfortable". They sort of burn the top of your head and the sides of your face but not in a really unpleasant way. They are much better than no heat at all. And equally easy to do electric if costs figure out to be cheaper that way. And much better than a Reznor heater with the doors open or a tall room where it is very comfortable if you are standing on top of a rig but freezing down by the floor.
I think I'm gettin screwed, I get charged a rental fee 200 clams a year for the tank and at close to or slightly over $3 a gallon for almost 800 gallons a year, I think I'll buy the 1000 gallon tank that's sitting in the yard and call for a refill when its damned near empty. I'd love to have a liquid valve to fill my own 25 and 100 pound propane tanks. Sounds like I have to start shopping around.
I feel like the inefficiencies of the radiant heat would make floor heat a much better choice, even in milder climate. It would take very little energy to maintain the heat in the floor if it never gets below 30° for any length of time. I would think the efficiency of a electric or propane boiler would offset the higher installation cost, plus it's so much more pleasant to work in.
Wow. I pay $90 per year to lease my 1000 gal tank for my house, we bought three 1000 gallon tanks for the shop at $1800 per tank. Sounds like you should be in the propane-selling business out there. Our local coop sells the liquid tubes to add to your bulk tank. Standpipe and valve is about $100.
Floor loop heat is always the best choice, if you don't have the slab in yet. Difficult to do as an afterthought.
I agree with Birken Vogt, the tube heaters are really uncomfortable to work under. I worked in a fab shop doing electrical bench work. The top of your head is always hot. Your feet under the bench always cold. Step out of the 'heated' area, and your freezing all over. Add to that, any flies in the shop, and they're landing on your head.
Anybody into directional boring heat lines under the floor in an after the fact installation?
You can always pour a thin top slab, or if you can put up with wood, use the routed panels with aluminum laminated on for houses. Neither is optimal but better than nothing maybe...
So shimmy, it sounds like us guys getting our 5's and 7 1/2's filled are getting bent over without vaseline!! Mike
I've done some things of that sort. The tough part is getting the insulation underneath it! Now if you're talking about something like wood, solar, off peak electric, or you get your propane for $.40, then going without insulation isn't that big a deal IF you're not expecting your shop to be hot. Arkansas has a ground temp of about 55, so keeping the floor at 65 isn't going to cause an extraordinary heat loss, assuming the water table isn't exceptionally high etc. With the right soil a pipe can be jetted 50' pretty easily, just a garden hose hooked to a piece of electrical conduit will do it. The response time will be terrible, you won't turn it on and use the heat the same day. Radiant heaters being uncomfortable is partly a factor of how they're used, you can turn them on and feel heat immediately, but if the building is cold, you'll feel the heat and still be uncomfortable. If they're left on a thermostat then the whole shop will warm up and it won't be as uncomfortable when they come on for a short time. Of course if the shop is warm, then you lose the huge energy savings from having instant heat only when you want it.
I'm not even sure what they charge to fill a cylinder around here. I have a liquid line on my tank, a lot of people around here do. You waste a little while filling because you have to bleed the vapor off, but I'm sure it's still cheaper than having the station fill it.
Propane here delivered with a 150 gallon minimum is running about $1.00 a gallon currently. None of the dealers charge for the 500 gal tanks. They also will not fill any but their own or owner tanks. Most folks pre-buy at the summer rate for even more savings. My daughter bought at $.89 last fall. They just bought a house with natural gas heat so the former landlord is buying what they did not use. If the vendor whose tank you have raises the propane price above the others folks call another vendor and they are only to happy to bring out their tank. We are lucky to have 4 propane vendors in the area. 100 LB bottles are about $40.00 to exchange. I have hot water heat with an outdoor wood boiler. In my 32 X 36 ft insulated garage I have a fan coil unit hanging from the ceiling. I have a 110 volt t-stat with a light switch connected in line. Normally I leave the light switch off so the water just circulates thru the fan coil on the way back to the outdoor boiler. It stays +40 F even at -25 F. When I want to work in real comfort I flip the light switch and the fan kicks in for further warm up. I'll have to post a picture of my stove and the live deck feeding it one of these days.
In the midwest we get cheap LP because of Canada and the distribution network/gas supplies. The caves in Kansas store summertime production and the rest gets flared. Canada by law cannot flare so they give it away! Invest in your own LP storage. The discounts are tremendous for summer fills. I contracted 2yrs @89 cents I had radiant in my 30x40 12h and took it out. With 2 bays full of 10+ foot machines there was no floor area exposed to receive the ray. Forced air and a couple fans, toasty.
We are living in some fat times as far as energy prices go. I am sure it will go north in the future but propane as cheap as it is now and I have not been burning any wood except for ambiance. Accounting for inflation it is as cheap as I have ever seen it. Back in the late 2000s when I worked in the business it was getting close to $4/gal but not these days. But just be warned it will probably come around again, eggs in multiple baskets and all that....
We use two jet heaters at 150k btu. 3 hours in just using one im turning it off becuse im starting to sweat. We use off road fuel in them instead of kerosene they work just as good
ayep, when I used to heat the shop with just two good sized salamanders, all my everything smelled like smoke at the end of the day, I think it was from the startup/shutdown as there wasn't much smell when it was running. Also, burning diesel indoors does make a bit of condensation but only a small fraction of what unvented propane makes. I was getting some damp spots on the ceiling so opted to go with vented propane ones. I'll use the salamander to defrost and dry out equipment before working on it, also when using the bay as a paint booth, warm everything up to 100f before starting.
Mine would always grow stalactites on the spark plug when using straight diesel. A couple of cups of gasoline made it better, don't try this at home kids.
Rooster's wife is willing to live in a poleshed, and all he has to do is keep the fumes outside. I say he should abide by that agreement. A ground or water source heatpump is worth considering. It's competitive even with cheap propane. The cost is usually considered extremely high, but a lot of that is in the excavation. If your situation allows (well and a place to dump water), a water sourced heat pump works fine without the excavation. It can be extremely cheap if you do the work yourself and it's not that complicated. The refrigerant is sealed, no lines to run like a central AC. Most units do air conditioning with half the electricity of conventional AC. AC is especially nice to keep the condensation off your stuff on warm spring days. If you have slab heat you can heat the slab and cool the air to dry it out and keep it dry.
Delmer, a farmer around here tried geothermal to heat his shop. I have been told they actually increased the size of the "field" by 30% over design, still would not keep the shop warm when temps were below 0°. They now use electric to heat the shop. Here in central ND with flat ground and no trees, it takes energy to keep a 10,000+ square foot building warm.
Coal pot belly in a 34x70 with 20' eaves, plus electric heat for work bench...need to put new internal stove pipe up... Howard
Sounds like the old homestead up in Minn where my dad grew up. They heated with wood pot belly stove at one end of living room stove pipe ran to opposite side of house just below the ceiling to the chimney. Each morning to "take the chill" off the house grand dad would toss a couple chunks of old car tire in the stove to get things started! There are advantages to having the nearest neighbors a mile or more away out in the sticks.
When I farmed in Mn we had a rather large wood fired boiler. Average winter we would burn 25-30 tandem truck loads of wood. It was not exactly efficient. If I knew I had work to do the following day I would throw in a couple tires, or as we called them "black oak" just after the sun went down. It would give it a little kick so things were a little more comfortable in there. Shop was an old dairy barn we took the loft etc out of. Terribly inefficient but at the time just coming out of crp we didn't have two nickels to rub together. I worked there full time a few years then every spring and fall until it was a good productive small grain outfit and suddenly I wasn't needed anymore. Oh, and I was working for shares in the place so I got effed financially but I LOVE to farm so I still feel good about it. Made some great friends up there. I'm overdue to visit. From the looks of things I could hit come forum members on the way up to my old stomping grounds! Junkyard
*some not come. Lol fat fingers
Mine is a new build shop to my personal specs...high bay for a second level, insulated, with plenty of power capacity. Pot belly stove design to use inexpensive local supply. However, coal is cheap enough that we do not burn tires...we recycle those. Howard
I'm going to have part of the shop set up for blacksmithing with a big forge. That'll probably be the only thing I do for heat. But then again, today is Christmas and it was 75 degrees.....
But you are in Houston, so heat really isn't needed...
Yeah kinda my point, I don't need much. Those heaters shown back in post 2 worked really well in a shop I was in a few weeks ago when it got close to cold. (In the 20's-30's for a few days). Uninsulated with gaps in the sliding door and all.
I just realized something. You guys down south don't insulate and seal your buildings up, do you? Uninsulated buildings probably wouldn't benefit from floor heat.
Holly Molly, 25 to 30 tandem truck loads. 8 cords to the tandem load is normal or you talking gravel truck. I thought I was bad using 25 to 30 cords a year heating house, garage, man cave and my wifes 32 X 36 X 10 ft sidewalls women cave. You are welcome up this way any time. After you see my collection of toys you will probably try to give me your handle. LOL
Most newly constructed buildings are insulated unless the person paying the bills cuts corners. Mine is all insulated. My roll up doors are cheap and account for the majority of my heat loss when it's that time of the year. Funny thing is we seldom have more than a week of bad cold then we get a break. Last Sunday it was zero or thereabouts. Today is was in the 60's and we swam! Even had a little thunderstorm. Can't say I miss the winters up there. Pushing all that dry snow. Damn Alberta clippers would burry us. Push snow for a few hours to get one load of grain out. I threaten to do something permanent heat wise and never do. Funny thing is the insulation becomes a bigger deal in the summer. It can be 100 or better outside and easy 20 degrees cooler inside. I did 20' sidewalls as much for the air space as I did equipment clearance. Junkyard
No not really. Most shops just have a radiant barrier under the sheet metal, if that. Thats what I'm having put in my shop, and its really not for the winter. More so to try and keep the summer heat from turning the shop into a solar over and to prevent condensation. And yes doors are your big loss areas. I'll be building my own and will be insulating them with foam. Eventually I think I'll finish the interior of the shop with batt insulation as AC would be nice one day. Floor heat is pretty uncommon (at least I haven't run across it) and insulation below the slab more so.
OIH-in all the Xmas calamity I overlooked your reply. Next time I get up that way I'll drop you a note. Might be a few months from now haha. That old boiler was something else. The whole system was cobbled together. Between the boiler itself wasting who knows how many btu and the shop itself not being insulated it was a huge waste. However, as cold as it got it felt tropical in there. Kept the combine warm enough to go back into the field when we were trying to finish corn. He's since insulated and done a liner panel as well as upgraded the boiler to a newer more efficient one. 2009 was the last season I worked up there. Or volunteered I should say! Junkyard
Well, finally got the stove pipe in the shop replaced...I had to erect scaffolding to get to the bottom of the chimney box, and then make a forming tool to get the ends of the pipe nice and round. The forming tool was a chunk of native beach turned to a taper on the wife's bowl making lathe! Probably about 8 hours work, working alone...having a helper would have made it go MUCH faster! 16' vertical, 2 feet horizontal then 2 more feet vertical. I would pay extra for good stove pipe that had nicely formed and reinforced ends. Oh, also added a damper in the horizontal section and a secondary brace so the stove pipe can be taken apart and cleaned from the bottom leaving the main internal stack in place. Stove is rated at 200,000 BTU/HR on coal or about 15lbs/hr at $100/ton or about $5/day during heating season. I took off Monday to do a 90k miles maintenance on the pickup, went through most of a five gallon bucket of gear lube! Howard
Is that an Agg Dryer gas price or can any Joe Blow get a commercial price on that based on volume? That's Crazy cheap. I'd second the infloor heat on a propane boiler. I've got a small shop (30x50) that's got an ICF stem wall that goes 4' in the ground and sticks 4' out. 13' Ceilings, spray foamed walls, fiberglass bats in the walls, and blown in in the ceiling. Finished in steel inside. The floor stays at 50 all winter and there's a regular house furnace to kick it up to 65-70 if you want it. Last winter it heated on 400 gallons for the season. I was contracted at 1.20 last year, but the summer fill was .89.
QE2 called, they want their boiler back.
We heat all of our shops (3 of them) with propane. My home shop is all steel 40X60 w/ minimal insulation. I leave the thermostat on 45 when not occupied mainly to keep moisture down. My heater is a 125K BTU "Hot Dawg" and will heat my shop from 45 to 65 in less than 15 minutes. For a backup in case I run out of propane I use wood heat. It takes about 5-6 hrs to heat the shop from 40 to 65. Here's a pic of my heater before during my shop remodel
I had to do some research, and if you're talking about what I think you're talking about, that's kind of funny.
We have a pair of the hot dawg heaters HD75's , One started getting crazy noisy in the exhaust blower, pulled it down, and where the motor is riveted to the blower housing it had a little rotational wiggle, squeezed some silicone into the gap and put a bead all the way around the gap between the two from the outside and let it cure up. Quiet as a whisper now. I'm pondering ordering some spare parts just to keep on hand. igniter and blower perhaps. Overall very happy with the units.