Shop Heating

[Russ Boyd]

I'm going to be building a 28x26 shop with 2x6 walls and 9' ceilings. I need your advice/ideas on best way to heat it. I have gas available and would of course like it to be as space saving as possible. Ceiling unit? how many BTU's? I live in Spokane wa. so need something adequate for our crappy winters. In floor is not an option due to cost. I appreciate any help you can give. Thanks, Russ

[Nathan Conner]

Hi, Russ. I live over near Vancouver, and have almost the exact same shop size, although my ceilings are higher.

I used a wood stove for awhile - time consuming, dirty, and wasted good turning wood. Then I used an electric diesel blower - heats up the entire shop in a minute or two, but sounds like a jet engine and stinks to high heaven when it starts/stops. On occasion, it goes out and sprays a nice diesel mist all over. That's GREAT!

I finally resorted to some big (I think they're 7500w) hanging heaters that came out of a small aircraft hangar. They are spendy to run, but I keep them on 50 all winter, and for once I can stand to work in the shop all winter. They're a godsend. If you have gas, that's certainly a better option - this with my really poorly insulated shop raised our electric about $50/month this winter keeping the shop at 50, then cranking to 55 when I'm in there.

Hanging somehting on the wall or having a ceiling heater is a much better option, and if you can put a real furnace in there, great! I don't know if gas has any issues with condensation - I don't think I've ever used it. Nicest thing about the electric has been that everything's bone dry, even after this winter. All table tops are sparkling, not a speck of rust in sight.

Good luck, and Welcome!

[Joe Chritz]

First is excellent insulation. Some disagree but the spray rigid urethane is the only way to go if you ask me, which I guess you did sorta. I have 1- 1.5" in my shop and it takes nearly nothing to heat it.

I really like my woodstove. Messy and unless you have access to firewood not as great of a deal but saves tons on fuel.

FWIW, I use a very small Volgezang stove and a 45K BTU HotDawg hanging furnace. The shop is 24x30 with one wall R13 fiberglass and an unheated area on the other side. 1 8x8 over head insulated garage door and two walk in doors.

Ceiling radiant heaters would have the advantages of wood without the mess but are still expensive and fuel is high. The only thing I don't like about the wood stove is giving up the floor space.

If I can get a small corn burner/pellet stove I may do that someday.

Joe

[Pete Kurki]

Joe, have you looked at the corn prices recently?

I am currently running two electric heaters in my 20 x 60 shop. One is 220V/30A unit and another is 220V/20A. They total about 8 kW. Not cheap at all even though I keep them at the lowest setting during the week when I am not working in the shop. The lowest setting easily maintained the shop at 45F even during the coldest days last winter when we had 30 below outside.

I have recently studied a possibility of using solar heated water for radiant floor heat. Based on what I have been reading it might work quite well during bright sunny winter days even here in Minnesota, and I would potentially only need electric backup for the nights after cloudiest days. I will probably build a test unit covering a part of the shop floor before the next winter and if it works well I will expand to the entire shop.

Pete

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Russ,

I live in Lewiston. My new shop is 24'x30'....2x6 walls.....R-19 fiberglass in the walls. R-40 fiberglass blown into the ceilings. My finished ceiling height is 9'6". I have a Lennox 75,000 btu natural gas hanging ceiling furnace. Works like a charm. I typically have the thermostat set for 58º F. If I'm going to do some woodworking, I'll go out set the thermostat for 63º F and go back to the house and have another cup of coffee. 30 minutes after turning it up....it's warm.

[Ken Ganshirt]

I have an 18' x 32' shop with 11' vaulted ceiling. Walls are 2x6. The shop is wrapped, well insulated and vapor barriered.

I'm using an electric 4800W/240V heater. February was the coldest month this winter and the second coldest February on record. Up here on the Canadian Prairies that means many days with lows and highs in the -30C to -40C range (-23F to -40F).

I have an hour metre on my heater. It ran an average of 5 hours a day during February to keep the shop an average of 16C (60F).

When you consider the cost of a new heater like mine is around $100, including a decent dumb analog wall thermostat, it's the cheapest heat you can get.

...ken...

[Joe Chritz]

Joe, have you looked at the corn prices recently?

Pete

I have but I have an "in" with a farmer if I decide to ever use it. Currently pellets are a bit cheaper if you find a sale, $180/ton vs $220 for corn.

Today the costs for me for 3400 BTU is

Corn about 5 cents
LP about 8 cents
Wood pellets just under 4 cents
Electric (reading an electric rate is a science I think) but around 7 cents.

These all assume equal efficiency.

I am researching geothermal so I have been doing some figures on different heating for the house.

Joe

[Russ Boyd]

Thanks for all the input. I appreciate your help. Russ

[Walt Nicholson]

Russ, I am just next door in Post Falls (and crappy winters is right!) and have a 30 X 50 pole barn type shop with open beam ceiling (16' to bottom of the trusses) and R19 in the walls. I installed a commercial style ceiling fan to blow the heat down and a large 240v electric, hanging heater with a real basic thermostat. The combination gets the building very warm in a hurry and I keep it around 45 to 50 degrees when I am not in it. I liked the idea of no flame, fumes, plumbing, exhaust etc. However, I still have a day job so the last two winters I have spent a lot of evenings and weekends in the shop. As a result, the monthly electric bill has jumped up to around $200 per month on top of the regular bill for the house. Some of that is from the lights, tools and such but I think most is from the heater. Good luck on the new shop!

[Bryan Rocker]

I am not sure I understand why you would put heaters at the ceiling. Maybe some of the HVAC experts can chime in but I would think a heater at the floor level would do a better job of heating a closed space because it would heat air that is cooling off providing a more even temperature. I have a small 2 car garage that I put into service as a shop. It is 20X20 ish. I have a 220v electric heater in my garage. I didn't realize it had that much capacity until I just went out and checked on it. It is 4000 on high and 2800 on low. Having said that I had it the built in thermostat barely off low and it maintained the garage at 50 degrees all winter long, bump it up 20% and it would hold 65 without any effort. It sat on the floor. It did up my electric bill some, maybe $15-20 a month. I would think a heating source down low would be more efficient that one up high. Vice versa for air conditioning.

My garage walls have maybe r-13 and the ceiling has maybe r-19.

Bryan

[Victor Stearns]

Russ,
Greetings. The shop you have in mind is what we built in 2003. In your post you state that the floor heat is not a option due to the cost. We did do the floor heat due to the cost! When we researched the various forms of heating this space, electric, forced air hanging furnace, and woodstove, the floor heat won. I think in 03 I invested in just under $1000 for the tubing, water heater, pump, theromstat and various piping. It is the best thing for the winters. (I am in northern Indiana, where all the snow stops coming off Lake Michigan.) I normally leave the temp around 50. We do turn it up when we go out to the workshop and back down later. The installation is definently not the system that a heating professinonal would want to sell you. They want to add flow and zone valves, $$$. My system just turns the pump on when it needs to. One big zone. As to the cost of operating the system, I cannot say for certain as to the cost increase in my gas and electric bill. However, the LOML has never metioned an increase in the bill after we turn it on for the winter.
Good Luck in the building of your new shop. It too was an amazing summer as the kids, brothers, sister and family were all involved.
Victor

[Ron Jones near Indy]

I like the Enerco radiant heater. Inexpensive to buy and economical to operate.

[Jim Creech]

I used to heat my shop with a kerosene torpedo heater which warmed things up in short order. One cold winter day while I was spraying lacquer with my F-22 engine running,it dawned on me that I was inviting disaster. After consulting with a friend in the HVAC business, it was decided that a heat pump was the only safe way to go. I now have central heat and air with little chance of blowing myself up. If you are going to be working with volatile substances, be careful with a heat source with open flame.

[David G Baker]

Bryan,
Not sure of the reason for ceiling heaters other than finding a way to get forced air heat to the furtherest corner of a larger building.
Heaters at floor level are not permitted in buildings that have vehicles parked in them due to the gasoline. Code requires them to be 18 inches off of the floor.