a mate of mine has given me a blown air heater from a council flat which runs off gas. i have bulk lpg at home and will either have to get 47kg bottles, or run a pipe the 20 meters down to the garage. or there are paraffin/diesel heaters sold by machine mart..what are the pros and cons of each...ultimately i want to have a heat source that is cheap to run for occasional use, and heats up my workshop fairly quickly, is controllable so it don't over heat the place.
tia
Steve
The pipe will be the cheapest way, probably. However, you really want to consider insulation first.
Electricity + insulation can be cheaper than gas + no insulation.
A salamander heater that runs off old car engine oil is great. They can be a bit Smokey Joe though, so make sure you get a good flue system. They're also cheap and cheerful on running costs. Get a local garage to supply you with the old engine oil and you're off and running. My one is never off, summer and winter, because it also heats the water for washing up after I'm finished.
on 03/01/2005, BigWallop supposed :
I once saw one of these (or similar) in a local garage. Very effective it was too. The owner had run the chimney flue up at an angle through several adjacent bays and added a fan blowing on the flue to help circulate the warmed air.
Another idea might be a stove capable of burning wood off-cuts, if start up time is not an issue. Local joinery companies give off-cuts away for free.
I have to de-lurk to share a cautionary tale here,
The Fire Brigade rolled up at a small workshop in Lochgelly, smoke belching from every pore of the building, and a frantic wife yelling for help. Once rescued her husband said he thought it would be safe to fire up an old, unflued, Aga in the workshop, because he was cold, and the bag of coal stated quite clearly that it was "Smokeless Fuel" !!
First of all contact
ROFL !!! Nice one.
But remember that every kg of gas burnt produces a kg of water. So for an unflued appliance thats going into the space. So as it cools down condensation might be a issue... Hmm, isn't that where we came in?
IIRC natural gas is mostly ethane, CH4, with a bit of methane - C2H6 Out of 2 O2 + CH4, you get CO2, and 2 H2O. CH4 has a weight of 16 mass units, H2O 18, so the total weight is 36/16ths of the gas input, or about double.
For oil heating (where there is more carbon) there is less water produced, and it does go down to about the same weight.
erm, Methane is CH4, Ethane C2H6. B-) But natutal gas is mostly Methane.
However the OP was going to use 47kg cylinders of presumably Propane or his bulk LPG supply not natural gas...
LPG is propane or butane. And the air blaster I was thinking of blows air over a heated element. I think blowing the combustion products of any gas directly into a garage is a rather quick way of avoiding part P - and anything else HRPrescottness can think up.
how much do these things cost to run? i.e. gas vs. paraffin/diesel?
Steve
controllable
I think costs per unit energy for these fuels are fairly similar assuming you mean red diesel and not automotive stuff. Gas is a bit more of a pain to refill though if you are using cylinders but for deliveries there's little to choose. If you are talking about large tanks then I seem to recall that oil tanks have a larger planning exemption than gas.
If it came from a council flat its almost certainly designed and built to use natural gas NOT propane so unless you are very well clued up about gas combustion and there is a propane conversion available its best you forget this idea. Try a portable unit designed to use Propane or the kerosine ones are a decent alternative, rlatively simple and for occasional use should be ideal.
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