heating the shop

[Ripple]

When I head out to plow I fill the wood stove but by the time I get back the stove is cold and the oil furnace has kicked on....So I gotta fill the stove again and head back out....
Got 5 cords split and drying for this season.

[cat320]

Well you at least got the furnace as your back up ,thats good must be pretty cheap to run that is if you cut and split the wood yourself.

The big thing now is the in the floor or radiant heat give ya the even heat at low levels and feels good when you have to work under the truck.

But all that is good if you can bring your truck into the garage LOL .

[bud16415]

My nephew and I put hot water radiant heat in his shop and I talked him into not using a boiler. Instead we used a 40 gallon gas fired hot water tank and a circulation pump the type used in hot water heat. We put in two zones and balanced them with just ball valves and put the thermostat in the main area. Its on its third year and working great. water goes out at 160 and comes back around 140 so the tank doesn’t have to make up a lot. The thermostat in the tank keeps the water always hot so when the pump comes on the heat is instant. No noise and very even. We used base board units but in floor would be better. I didn’t have him talked into it when he poured the slab. Only thing we had to do was add a solenoid valve to open with the pump coming on because the water was circulating all on its own and over heating the building. We made it a closed loop system with no expansion tank instead we just have a stand pipe. We plumed it into the shops water supply so it can be filled and have another valve that goes to drain on the other end. worked really good to purge all the air from the system open drain turn on water and blow all the air out replacing it with water. No bleeding required. We figured we would loose a little water as time went along out the stand pipe so the idea was to be able to turn on the water till it came out stand pipe when needed. But he has found it only uses like a cup of water a month so he just fills the stand pipe once a winter. I think the tank should last a long time most fail from minerals building up. But this water stays in the tank and once the minerals come out you don’t have fresh water replacing them. All plumed with PVC pipe.
Anyone else ever try this?

[Dwan]

Nice setup there Bud,

My shop is 30' by 56' w/4 10wide x 12 high doors. When you open one of the doors a lot of heat excapes.
The heating system concised of a waste oil forced air furnace that hangs in 1 corner and blowes across the front of the shop.This unit burns 2 1/2 gal an hour and puts out enough heat to keep the shop warm with one of the doors open. It will burn anything from ATF to 50 weight oil. the heaver weight the oil the more heat per gal I get from it.
as it burns waste oil I went to DEC and got a permit for hauling and desposing contaminated oil. I then went to a local Helocopter co. and offered to despose of there waste oil which amounts to about 600 gal a year. By the way I charge them a $1.00 a gal for disposal. There is also a mobil oil change service which uses my oil heater to despose of his old oil. I go through about 1000 gal a year and get paid for it. I do have to clean the furnace twice a year which takes about 4 hours each time.

I would like to put in a waste oil boiler with radiant floor heat in my next shop.

Furnace is overhead in the background.

[bud16415]

Dwan

Free heat is the best kind for sure. And getting paid is even better. That helps with your transport costs. Do you filter the oil at all?

Thermal mass like in a in floor system has some advantages and disadvantages the big advantage along with the ones mentioned above is the recovery rate when you open the doors you loose a lot of warm air but all the heat stored in the floor gets it back fast. The drawback is in the spring and fall when the temp outside is all over the place. It takes a while to heat the mass up and just when you get it hot the weather changes and it gets warm and then you have to much heat. the opposite also holds true. if I had in floor heat in a shop I think I would also have a small hot air system of some kind to use to take the chill off during those times and save the hot water for when it’s going to stay cold a while or change at a slower rate.

[Dwan]

That is my intention. To have a forced air makeup unit for fast recovery and use only when heat is needed for a short time. I plan on the forced air unit to use ho****er also but be on a seperate zone. there are a lot of times when I want to change the air in the shop in a hurry, like when painting etc.

[apgarconstruction]

i second the vote for radiant in the slabs. with either a hot water tank or a boiler. when i build my garage, its going to definitely have radiant heat.
can't wait to have a nice dry place to work on my truck or whatever else, all year long no matter what the weather is outside.

[Ripple]

Well...I wish I had the heat in the floor....but I am in an old building that was built over 50 years ago and there is hardly any insulation let alone heat in the floor. The building is basicaly a 50' by 100' slab with block walls and only 12' ceiling with an old tin roof.
Its nice and cozy for working on my trucks. It used to be an old Union hall and a car dealership way way before that!
According to the Almanac this is supposed to be a cold winter....trying to get some more wood split before it gets cold.
Oh Yea BTW...I do gather(cut down) all my own wood and split it too. I try to only cut down dead trees that are already dry. But usually they need several months to dry once split.

[maverickmechanic13]

I have a Kerosene heater in my shop. I use about a gallon of Kero every 4 hours or so, cranked all the way up. I like it. Heats up pretty good untill i open the overhead doors. Then tis money out the door.... literally. For you guys that have to pay heating bills in your shops, remeber - figure the money you loose per door opeining in the bills you write. Add that in what you charge people... Seems only fair.

[ih82plow]

Ill see if I can help here, I am a mecanical contractor by trade who also sells and installs hearth products.

First your wood stove. How old is it,what size is it?

There are alot of high quaility stoves on the market now designed to burn wood efficently. But its hard for some one to understand the 200 or 400 dollar unit you get from a tractor supply is not the same as the 2000 dollar one you get from a hearth shop. I have installed allot of stoves this year and people are getting a good 8 to 10 hour burn from them.


Now to the radeant heat. I would not suggest it for a comercial shop,it works on thermal mass,and has a slow recovery time.

And when you open a door,pull in a truck loaded with snow and ice your cooling down the mass.

For a work shop I highley recomend hanging warm air furnaces for a quick recovery and then he radeant tupe style heater for the balance of the heat.

Now I am not saying that warm air furnaces are the best type of heat! I am saying for a work shop that is going to have to recover quick from bringing in a BIG ice cold mass (a truck) this is the fastest way to recover.


let me know if I can help anybody

Larry