Workshop heat options

[Quinn McCarthy]

I have a shop that is 48' x 24'. There is an attached garage where I keep the furnace for the shop. The garage is kept cold. I am using a fuel oil furnace that the previous owner put in. I cost about 2000 - 2500 a year for the fuel oil. I have been looking at switching to a pellet stove. I don't have any room to have it in the shop. And am wondering if I can replace the FO furnace with a pellet stove. Wondering if the pellet stove running in a cold garage would be inefficient? Can a Pellet stove work from a themistat in the shop. Can I run it in tandon as an add on to the existing system?

Thanks

Quinn

[Don Jarvie]

Is your garage insulated? That seems like an awful lot of money for fuel oil.

Try sealing the doors, windows, etc, insulate the attic and see if that helps and then revisit it.

If the heat is getting out you'll be spending money on pellets instead of oil.

[Steve Peterson]

How come you have no room in a 24x48 shop for a pellet stove?

I can't answer your other questions, but we use a pellet stove in our 2500 sf house and it takes a very small footprint. Because the fire is well controlled, the pipe is only 3" diameter and can sit 1" from the wall. The entire footprint is less than 4' by 4'.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Quinn,

That seems awfully expensive.

My shop is 30'x24'. It has R-19 in the walls and R-40 in the ceiling. It has 1 insulated 10' garage door.

It's heated by a Lennox natural gas furnace and we hardly noticed a change in my gas bill when we installed the furnace.

I have it on a thermostat. The thermostat is normally set for 55º F. If I decide to work in the shop, I go out and turn it up to say 65ºF and go back to the house for another cup of coffee. When I'm done with coffee the shop is warm. If I'm finishing something, I will turn the thermostat to 70º a few days before I start finishing so the wood can acclimate. I leave it there through the finishing process.

I still don't see those kind of heating expenses.

[John Coloccia]

I heat my whole house for almost 2 years on $2500 :eek:

[Quinn McCarthy]

Part of the price for living in the coldest place in the US. There are no air conditioning bills. Were we live don't have natural gas. The shop is insulated great. I keep it 55 when I am not working and 65 when I am. With all the tools I am getting cramped for space. Last year I was thinking about adding onto the shop with concreate pad just big enough to house the stove. It is also nice having a back up. The FO form when we are out of town. I am just looking for a way to offset that cost a bit. The BTU's a year I use won't change much. But if I can pay for them at a cheaper rate I would like to figure that out. I a little looking and there are add on pelet stoves for the existing system but $2000 for a unit isn't cheap either. Last year FO was running from 2.50 - 2.80 a gallon.

Quinn

[Justin M Rovang]

Have you considered getting a large LP tank outside, and running a hanging 'unit heater' off of LP?

As for a pellet stove in a garage attached to a shop there might be some insurance questions I'd ask. My guess is efficiency wouldn't suffer.

[Bud Millis]

FO here was running a little higher. I heat the 1890 era, 2500 sq ft house with NG in a 95% effecient Trane with electric for the winter months I'm looking at $1200.00/season.

Its most likely high due to the fact the furance is in an unheated space and its using very cold and trying to heat that up.

My (free standing) shop is 18 x 48 and I have a pellet stove.

[Bryan Rocker]

I heat my house built in the 1960's on about $1,200 a year or less. I have a 500 gallon propane tank. When I build my shop I may run a line from the tank to heat it as well. My house will not cost as much to heat since I put insulation in the walls, there was none, and triple pane windows.

Yes propane fluxuates with the price of oil but it works much much better than oil......

[Matt Meiser]

Tractor Supply has, or at least had, an add-on pellet/corn stove that went beside your regular furnace.

Someone kind of asked above, but is there a cold air return from the shop? Is any ductwork in uninsulated space insulated?