With winter immanent, I'm looking at putting some heating in my shop so I can work and not freeze. I've heard people say that any kind of open flame heating is dangerous because it could ignite saw dust--I've heard others say this is rubbish.
Could people share their opinions and advice? Is an open flame heater dangerous? What type of heating do you use? Any recommendations to heat my shop: it's about 20x20 with a 12 foot ceiling.
Thanks, Dave.
I use a small karosene heater and keep it on a bench near the overhead door, also prop up a small fan behind it to circulate the air and a coffee can of water on top of it. I'm in a 12X18 uninsulated shop and haven't had any problems with it. I also have a electric heater that's mounted to the ceiling over the bench. I use it when I first go in the shop till the karosene heater warms the shop up and also put it on low if I have some finish drying. Mike S.
I have been heating a three car garage/shop with a 24K BTU kerosene heater for years but it demands attention and discipline.
1) Heater is always kept away from work (ie. Heater is usually in bay 1 while work is done in bay 3, some assembly in 2. 2) Heater is cleaned regularly and kept clean. 3) Fuel and flammable materials are kept completely away from heater 4) Any time finishing is done with flammable substances, the heater is turned off. 5) I keep the shop cleaner during the winter (sawdust, etc) when using the heater.I do supplement the kero heater with a small quartz heater that puts out a surprising amout of heat.
I have a permanent shop building in the plans and I hope to heat it with a recycled forced air furnace. I have done this before in a shop and it works well and is fairly economical. My previous installation was raised off of the shop floor about 1-1/2 feet which put the firebox about 3-4 feet off of the floor. These used units are available through salvage building material dealers or heating contractors. I paid $25 for my down-draft unit and just let it blow out on the floor of my small shop. My cousin did a similar thing with an updraft unit that he uses to heat a 1,200 sq ft shop. He put a simple two-directional plenum on top and it does great - think he paid about $100 for his. He used a similar lift to get the machine up off of his floor.
"Dave Rathnow" wrote in news:OZ3Xc.55635$X12.38428@edtnps84:
I'm less concerned with dust explosions than I am about the various oils, solvents and finishes I store and use regularly.
A little more detail about your shop environment, your location and your requirements would help us give you all the opinion, misinformation and conjecture for which USENET is famous. ;-)
Patriarch
Dave Rathnow asks:
Open flame can be worked with...I've got a good friend who has been heating his shop with wood for over a decade. It requires specific care with finishing in the winter, but otherwise is fine. I know a local pro who heats with wood, too, but the stove is isolated, in the basement, and not a problem with fumes and dust.
I've used propane catalytic heaters for mine. They work well, but are expensive as all get out...tendency to burn a full 20# tank of propane per day in cold weather is not good. The cost of the stuff is way up...last time I used it, I paid $9 and that was 3 or 4 years ago.
Currently, I've got an electric furnace almost hooked up. IF you have the wire capacity, it's a good way to go. Mine's in the shop "attic." I'm lazing my way into hooking up the 60 amp breaker one day soon...when it drops under 80, probably. Cost? Zip. Got it when it was removed from a house for a new type of furnace. Check with local HVAC people. Other sources: mobile home supply houses. They often have small, surplus electric furnaces.
While I use kerosene to clean some tools, I do not like the stench, and have been through the kero heating mill. No more. Stinks. Requires care both because of the open flame and the fact that output heat losses are high if you don't keep the heater extra clean.
Charlie Self "A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers." H. L. Mencken
Dave - it's pure hogwash. Thousands of woodworkers both professional and non have burned firewood in their shops since forever. There has indeed been a great deal of discussion surrounding this and in fact a great deal of real fact. In the end, you won't be able to create the type of air/fuel density necessary for combustion with your shop tools. You can do a google search and find the reports of exactly what particulate count and what size the particulates have to be in order to support combustion if you choose, but you'll find that you really can't create that environment.
I use an open pilot propane furnace in my garage. It's a forced air unit and if anything was going to stir the air up, this thing would be the ticket. I do woodworking, autobody repair and painting, and I even hang a deer or two or three a year in there, and well, here I am writing to you, so it can't be all that bad. My garage is 26x36 with 9 foot ceilings and I have a big furnace - maybe bigger than I need but it was free. Don't know the btu rating but you could ask just about any HVAC guy and he can tell you what you'll need in a heartbeat. I'm up in Central NY and the winters here are long and cold, but my furnace warms the garage in minutes even on the worst day.
Dave: I forgot to mention one VERY important thing. I don't care how good of a buddy your insurance agent might be - DON'T LET HIM/HER KNOW!!
Woodworkers have been moving toward the lower reaches of the insurance company client appreciation scale. Don't need to provide powder. They tend to react negatively to a lot of things they don't understand.
snipped-for-privacy@aol.comnotforme (Charlie Self) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m01.aol.com:
Just a note: I refilled two gas grill bottles Monday at $2.19/unit, 7.7 units. (I don't recall if it was gallons or pounds.) About $18 & change. In California. At ACE Hardware.
Patriarch
Lee Valley offers an interesting Quartz Overhead Radiant Heater:
I salvaged a woodburning fireplace insert from a job that was never used. It came complete with flue, flashing and cap. I've used it several winters to heat the shop (24'x22' insulated) without problems. I am just careful to clean the sawdust off the floor often. Takes about 1 hour to get a good fire rolling and get it warm in there. I just love going out into the shop on a snowy morning and building a fire-- who'd thought a woodshop could be "cozy". On especially cold days i also use a kero heater. These type of heaters will give off soot and odors when the wick needs replaced, otherwise they work well. If you decide on a wood burner i would strongly suggest getting a fan kit with it. Furthermore, if you need to buy wood, call BEFORE it gets cold, prices are usually better. I go through about 2 cords per season in the shop which amounts to about $150 split and delivered. (the guy gives me a little deal 'cuz i refer his services to my own customers). Keep in mind, you should also have plenty of endcuts to use for indling. --dave
I have had two shops and have heated both with small direct vent gas furnaces. There is no open flame so there's no risk of an explosion. The furnace draws and exhausts air directly to and from the outside and the air is heated in an enclosed chamber.
They're hassle-free and you have the benefit of a thermostat. I turn it down to 50 when I'm not using it and up to 65 when I'm in the shop so the shop is heated to some degree all winter which I like. Only takes about 15 minutes to bring it up to working temp. My current shop is 22 x 26 and well insulated and doesn't take much to heat. Cost for the furnace was about $700 and they are easy to install yourself. You just need a gas line to tap into and an outside wall.
The heater Frank mentiioned with the link to Lee Valley is the one I mentioned in a earlier post that I have over my bench. It puts out a lot of heat.
Don't let him/her know what? What kind of heat he's using? Not a good idea. If something goes wrong and there is a fire, whoops! Lots of difficulties over the coverage.
Charlie Self "A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers." H. L. Mencken
Dave,
An open flame heater is not dangerous as long as you respect the fact that whatever you are doing in the garage may have the potential to put that garage into orbit ;-)
Basically what I am saying is just use your head when you have an open flame. You can rip, cut, saw and plane all you like as long as you keep the sawdust piles cleaned up and not near your heater. I have never heard of sawdust in the air exploding like gasoline fumes.
Don't have a messy shop with piles of sawdust all over the place. Get youself a couple of STEEL garbage can's and when you clean up your sawdust keep it outside in those can's. The reason for the steel can's is that if you ever happen to get smouldering embers in the sawdust, it won't melt the can if it does start on fire. And make sure you keep it outside, if anything does go wrong and you have a fire, it's not inside your garage. Same goes for shop rags etc. that you may use for refinishing. Put them in a steel container when finished with them and don't keep em inside your shop. Spontaneous combustion is well known to happen to solvent soaked rags, you don't even need an open flame for them to go up !
Now as for what I heat my shop with.... well I have used 4 different types of heat. In my old shop I used one of those propane construction heaters, and like Charlie says, they are hard on propane.... until I discovered one thing. Put a fan behind the heater. It was amazing how low I could turn the flame on the heater once I put a fan behind it. Only thing I then had to worry about was to keep a door cracked to make sure the shop got adequate oxygen. I didn't need to kill myself from carbon monoxide poisoning. The other problem I found was that the shop smelled of burned propane then, it wasn't bad, but not pleasant either.
Once I moved to my new place I got myself a little bigger shop. Now I have one about the same size as you, 22'x 22'. I used the propane heater for a while and it worked great, but then I decided to give a buddy's kerosene heater a try. It worked fine, but I hate the smell of burned kerosene so I didn't use that very long.
Then my father built himself a new house, and I inherited his old wood stove. I installed that, and it worked wonderfully except for one thing. When I wanted to paint something I had to go back to the propane heater only. I didn't want to run the risk of having the woodstove cause an explosion. I couldn't just turn the woodstove off and on easily like the propane heater. Even when you think there's no embers in the woodstove, you don't need to take that chance.
I worked like that for a couple of years. Using the propane heater when painting so I could turn it off to paint, then back on after I got the shop cleared of paint fumes etc. ( And I do mean WELL cleared of FUMES )
Two years ago I had an HVAC buddy give me a natural gas furnace out of someone's house. I installed that ( in a room outside of the garage walls ) so the furnace was isolated from the shop and all paint fumes etc. So now I use the furnace in conjunction with the woodstove. But I still make sure the furnace is off when painting, I respect the fact that I can't outrun and explosion like they do in movies ;-)
The furnace is used mainly to keep the garage at a constant temp. or if I am just going out there for a couple of hours. The woodstove is used when I am going to be out in the garage for a while and to save me from really high natural gas bills ;-) Plus it gives me a place to make my mistakes disappear.
Hope this helps.... just make sure whatever you use to heat with that you work safely around it. You only have one shot to get it right, mistakes with flames can be deadly.
Todd
PS: If you install a wood stove make sure your insurance company knows about it, otherwise if you have a fire they WILL NOT cover your losses. Plus they will insist on having it inspected, which makes sure that you installed it properly.... good for your peace of mind too.
I just bought 2 new 5gal containers last night at Sam's Club ($19ea) as they refused to fill my old ones, too old - gotta make a buck in the market again. Then took the new ones to a Chevron station nearby to fill them, $2.13/gal, plus tax, almost $23 for both. Sure glad I don't own one of the old smelly super inefficient always freezes up in the winter propane vehicles.
As for a shop heater, my son had one that screwed onto a propane bottle. The screen mechanism on the unit broke and the flame was uneven and popped all the time. Unsafe so we scrapped the entire unit. I'm uncomfortable myself with an open flame of that type in a small wood shop, plus the carbon monoxide etc so I use an electric radiant heater mounted to the ceiling joists.
Grandpa John
If your shop is free standing and you have either natural gas or propane available in your area, I'd recommend a gas fired Modine (or modine-type) heater. The unit would hang from the ceiling above the work area, is fan assisted, and can usually be hooked up to a thermostat. My first choice for a shop where comfort is not top priority.
A local Plumbing/Heating contractor would be happy to help ;-) I bet the following link has some more stuff about it, but I'm too tired right now to look at it myself:
Maybe _you_ can't create a pile of sawdust, but if so you are the only woodworker in the world who is so blessed.
One does not need airborne particulates to have a fire you know.
I'm not sure if I understand the question completely. When you say open flame are you referring to the various heaters with an actual flame that's exposed only, or are you referring to woodstoves also?
I don't see a problem with woodstoves--we've used one for my whole life, my father's entire life, my grandfather's entire life, his father's entire life..do I need to go on?
Plus you've got a great place to dispose of cutoffs and sawdust. :)
Dave Rathnow wrote:
"patriarch snipped-for-privacy@nospam.comcastDOTnet"
If that is for both, not a bad price. Tonight I filled mine at BJ's for $7.49. Non member price is $12+
In the course of the winter, I use maybe 4 or 5 bottles. Ed
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