How do you Heat your Shop?

[Brian Kent]

How do you Heat (or cool) your Shop?

Even here in Sunny Southern California working in an attached garage, I'm thinking ahead to a safe heating and cooling unit. The inside shop temperature varies from about 45° to 100°. I can wear extra layers in the winter

What do you do to heat your shop in the really cold parts of the country?

Stay warm.

Brian

[Mark Carlson]

I'm in southern CA, and use a radiant heater (link below). It removes the chill pretty quickly. I dont do anything for cooling.

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=44590&cat=1,43456,43465,44590

[Dave Richards]

Maybe overkill for you but I have a Hot Dawg natural gas fired heater. You could probably manage with the smallest one they sell.

[Brian Kent]

Do you keep a fire extinguisher next to it? I can't believe the sample photo has a radiant heater right over a lathe! What about flying curlies???
Maybe a few feet over to the right.

[Dave Cullen]

In my basement workshop I have a portable electric heater that plugs into a 220V dryer outlet. Enough to take the chill out and limitless (tho not cheap) fuel. Glad you asked though - I've considered using a propane heater to get the shop up to temp quicker, and I'm curious if anyone else uses them:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Dyna-Glo-...ane%252Bheater

[Doug Herzberg]

Brian, I have a Vogelzang boxwood stove and a radiant heater like Mark posted suspended over the lathe. I got the stove at HF and the radiant heater from Amazon for the same price as Lee Valley. The radiant heater is pretty good at heating the tool you're working on and you when you're in the line of fire, but it would take a long time to heat up the shop because of the way it works.

I've heated similar spaces with small thermostatically controlled forced air heaters I got at Grainger. http://www.grainger.com/search?searchQuery=space+heater A pair of 1500 watt heaters can maintain a 10 - 15 degree temperature increase in that size space. A lot depends on insulation and how many air leaks you have. Uninsulated garage doors leak air and radiate a lot heat to the outside.

[David Weaver]

Mine is halfway underground, surrounded by dirt on two sides, the house above and on one side, and a garage door in the front. If it's zero here, the shop will be 45 degrees usually at the coldest. I don't do anything for it other than take the glue-ups inside to a heated part of the house if it's that cold, and run a dehumidifier in the summer. It can be pretty stuffy and warm in the summer.

After putting a split system in another part of the house, if I ever decided to heat and cool the garage separately, I'd put in a split system without a doubt, but I'd install it myself. I'm really impressed with the efficiency of the newer split systems - unless it's extremely cold or extremely hot, they don't make the meter move much.

[John Downey]

Before the ceiling and insulation was done, I had to have a roaring fire in the woodstove

IMGP6785.jpg

Now that the interior is finished, those south windows keep the shop bright and warm most of the time. I still build a fire during cold snaps or if we have a couple overcast days in a row.

IMGP7095.jpg

For cooling, I'm lucky to be close to 7000' up, so just opening the windows and running a fan is enough to keep it comfortable. The roof projection is such that there is no direct sunlight into the building in the summer.

[Doug Herzberg]

Do you keep a fire extinguisher next to it? I can't believe the sample photo has a radiant heater right over a lathe! What about flying curlies???
Maybe a few feet over to the right.

Mine is directly over the area where I stand and hasn't been a problem. And yes, I keep a fire extinguisher close at hand. Curlies landing on and around the boxwood stove are a bigger issue but so far it's been all smoke, no fire. I keep a pretty close eye on that.

[Bill Bukovec]

I use a small wood burning stove theat I got free from a coworker .

It as about -7°F overnight. On Saturday it took about 5 hours to heat until it was 30°.

I stoked the fire and closed down the damper overnight.

Sunday I was able to get things toasty 10:00 am. I also use a propane fish house heater to supplment the wood fire when it's this cold.

I would have had the shop warmer on Saturday but my wife needed me the help her run errands. The "errands" cost me a new cell phone and a tablet at the Verizon store.

[Henry Kramer]

A natural gas horizontal furnace in the attic with flex ductwork to 4 ceiling vents. It doesn't take up any shop space and heats the garage up in no time. The best money that I ever spent.

[Peter Quinn]

I'm in a basement with 7' ceilings and a leaky wooden bilco enterance, old single pane windows, mostly below grade. I use a 22k btu kerosun kerosene heater in winter along with a few 1500w forced air electric units to take the chill out, and a radiant oil filed unit in a small spray room to keep the temp high enough for WB finishing. The machine part of the shop rarely gets much above 62 degrees, last winter I had a built in to spray and a stubborn cold spell, so I ran the kerosun in the spray room (10x10), got things thouroughly heated , then pulled the heater out to spray with the exhaust fan running, replaced the heater after spraying, then kicked on the radiant heater to maintain temp during flashing/curing. All very ramshackle, but cheap. I have a very large oil fired boiler and have plans to put in a forced air hot water zone in the basement, maybe this will be my year.

[Doug Herzberg]

I use a small wood burning stove theat I got free from a coworker .

It as about -7°F overnight. On Saturday it took about 5 hours to heat until it was 30°.

I stoked the fire and closed down the damper overnight.

Sunday I was able to get things toasty 10:00 am. I also use a propane fish house heater to supplment the wood fire when it's this cold.

I would have had the shop warmer on Saturday but my wife needed me the help her run errands. The "errands" cost me a new cell phone and a tablet at the Verizon store.

Below 10 degrees, I don't have a chance. It was 8 degrees the other morning and two loads of firewood later, it was 18. On the -17 degree day, I didn't even go out there.

[Lee Reep]

I empathize with anyone in an outdoor shop or garage shop. My shop is in the basement, and stays pretty constant in temperature year round. I block the vents mostly to keep the cold air out in the summertime when the AC is running.

When I grumble about lack of space -- both square footage and overhead space, I just have to walk out to the garage this time of year to turn on my compressor. It actually seems colder in the garage than outside, but I know it is just the shock of leaving a warm house and stepping out barefoot first thing in the morning onto the concrete floor.

Today it looks like the temperature is above zero -- it is 1 degree (F). Yesterday I fired up the compressor, and realized I had not drained it in maybe a week. No draining, the water in the bottom is frozen solid.

[Mark Carlson]

I do have a fire extinguisher handy and use the heater sparingly and unplug it when not in use. Its not something I'd leave on and then go get lunch.

Do you keep a fire extinguisher next to it? I can't believe the sample photo has a radiant heater right over a lathe! What about flying curlies???
Maybe a few feet over to the right.