Shop heat

[Trent]

What kind of shop heater would you reccomend?

My shop is 28x32 with 10 foot ceilings. It would have to be electric for there is no gas line nearby. I could easily run 220 in the ceilings and use a drop down ceiling heater. I have seen some on the Internet but not quite sure what I am looking at.

Winters can get to the low teens. It would probably only be used in the evenings and weekends, so it would not have to be heated all the time. I have used the propane bottle heaters and it can raise the temperature a bit so as not to freeze your butt off. It is well insulated.

Trent

[Brian In Hampton]

[Dave in Houston]

Get a 200, 300, 500 gallon propane tank. Won't suppliers rent/lease you the tank?

[Lyndell Thompson]

I have a waste oil heater I bought used on ebay that does well. When the waste oil runs low wood heats the shop. My shop is 24 x 36 x 14 high. The waste oil is a little nasty and the heat pan has to be cleaned almost daily (with an air chisel- carbon deposits). It is clean burning just nasty to deal with. You need all your friends waste oil and barrels and pump with a filter to move the oil to the heater. Mine is the Eliminator and there are others of course. After the cost of barrels, pump, heater and install matierials it is free heat if you can find enough oil. It started out slow for me but friends are telling friends that they can drop oil off at my house and the environmentally conscious are really helping me out. Mine will run up to 36 hours unattended when I can't be there to load the woodstove and this really helps me when I am finishing a project. Good Luck Lyndell P.S. I forgot, the fan is a little noisy but not a problem when you are running a router. :-) 115v will do the trick, you are running a small pump for the oil and a fan motor and circuit board.

[DerbyDad03]

A few years ago I worked on a over-the-winter project involving lots of spray primer/paint, paint thinner and acetone. We cut steel plates on a radial arm saw and regularly took a grinder to metal of various kinds, shooting sparks in every direction. All the while we heated the garage with a 2 burner open flame camp stove fueled with natural gas and a 20 YO kerosene heater. On days when we were painting, we'd open the gargage when the fumes got too thick and watched the cloud float out along with the heat. Many nights we'd go to sleep with the burners on full so the epoxy/fiberglass could cure.

How we never blew up the garage or set the place on fire is beyond me.

[Lew Hodgett]

"Trent" wrote:..

After natural gas, oil or propane.

Electric strictly for spot heating.

Lew

[Morris Dovey]

Trent wrote: | What kind of shop heater would you reccomend? | | My shop is 28x32 with 10 foot ceilings. It would have to be electric | for there is no gas line nearby. I could easily run 220 in the | ceilings and use a drop down ceiling heater. I have seen some on the | Internet but not quite sure what I am looking at. | | Winters can get to the low teens. It would probably only be used in | the evenings and weekends, so it would not have to be heated all the | time. I have used the propane bottle heaters and it can raise the | temperature a bit so as not to freeze your butt off. It is well | insulated.

If it's well-insulated, then you're invited to take a look at shop with passive solar heating at the link below...

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Propane. At least where I live. Electricity here is 17¢ a kW making it much more expensive than any other form of energy.

[Charlie Self]

Holy smoke! I need to check, as the local utility has been really getting into the swing of screwing the customer--catching up with the outside world, I guess--but I think we're still in the dime a kWh or under. It might have jumped to 11 or 12 cents, though.

I was going to recommend the OP take a look at Northern's heaters. Last winter, they had--don't hold me to the spelling--an Ouilette 240 volt that would heat a goodly space if hung from a ceiling corner. But if his electricity costs like yours, ugh! I use propane heaters (two

45,000 Btu) to bring it up to toast, and then shut the heat down. I've been planning on installing one electric corner heater in opposite corners, because one is not going to be enough. My shop is 25' x 48' with a near 9' ceiling. Moderately insulated.

[Lew Hodgett]

Holy smoke! I need to check, as the local utility has been really getting into the swing of screwing the customer--catching up with the outside world, I guess--but I think we're still in the dime a kWh or under. It might have jumped to 11 or 12 cents, though.

Here in SoCal it is about ($0.$015-0.17)/KWH with a summer/winter differential in place.

Now if a "carbon tax" was added to fossil fuel generated power, you would begin to see the true cost of power.

Lew

[Jim Behning]

We had a 55 gallon barrel wood stove in an uninsulated big enough for three cars garage in Cleveland Ohio. I guess that was about 900 SF with no ceilings, just rafters. We could get it pretty warm with a box fan to blow the heat around.

[Lew Hodgett]

"Jim Behning" wrote

You must be in the tropical part of Cleveland.

I froze my rear end off when I was there.

Still remember a day in January when it hit -19F over night.

I was able to get a car started that had stayed outside all night, but when I got to work, the place was locked up and had to go back home.

Lew

[Greg O]

The answer really depends on your utility costs, natural gas costs, and propane costs in your area. Here we can get electricity for $0.3/KWH, that makes it cheaper than any other available source! Most places I would go with natural gas first, then propane, and buy a Modine Hot Dag heater, or a Reznor UDAP. Greg

[Charlie Self]

Yes. Six years ago, we installed propane as a back-up for the heat pump, to replace the old oil furnace. Bad mistake. Propane is expensive as hell now, while oil isn't much that much higher and is simpler to deal with, though it does require $100 annual furnace cleanings. For a shop, though, where heat needs tend to be intermittent, propane works decently. I had an electric furnace in my shop--actually, it's still there, but no longer wired in--that did fine, if I used the propane heaters to break the chill when it dropped under something like 15 degrees F. But, and this can be a big question for ANY kind of electric heat, do you have 60 to 90 amps to spare in your panel?

[Virgle]

I use a combination heat/airconditioner window unit in a 24 X28 with 10 foot ceiling all insulated. It requires a 30 amp breaker. I wired in a 30 Amp double pole switch and a 27v transformer (in a separatebox) with a thermostat. I just set the unit on hear or cool and let the thermostat do the controling. Works great.

Virgle

[TSW632]

My garage in Michigan is something like 25'x25', and I use an electric heater called "The Hot One" by Cadet. Does a nice job, cost about $200

5 yrs ago, can mount on the ceiling, and they have a 110 and a 220 model. I recall I had to special order it from Home Depot.

[Upscale]

Anything like one of these?

[TSW632]

these?

Here it is:

[rchanson]

No one has mentioned pellet stoves. I live on an island in the Seattle area. No natural gas, Propane is very expensive here because of the extra cost of bringing it on the ferry. I chose a pellet stove. Works wonderful and heats the whole shop (1200 sq ft with high ceislings) in 30 min or so. I do have a ceiling fan which helps a lot. The wood pellets burn very hot and a big advantage of a pellet stove is that one does not need a chimney. Just cut a hole in the wall. Of course it has to be insulated. Works great!

[Edwin Pawlowski]

May be a good choice. Be aware, however, with solid fuel heaters there may be some code considerations. They are not allowed in attached garages. Wood embers and coals can be hot and glowing for a day or so after the fire was "out" and fumes can ignite. Watch those solvents.