Hi. I've installed the piping in the concrete slab of my new shop and am wondering about an alternative way of heating the glycol. The boiler systems are fairly expensive. I know of some people who have used hot water tanks to heat the fluid. Has anyone here had any experience with this type of installation? The shop is 24' X 20' and it has 4 loops of tubing. Any info or rundown of equipment required would be helpful. Thanks.
You can, but hot water heater are not very efficient compared to a boiler. with oil at 3 bucks a gallon, 'expensive' becomes relative.
We heated the floor of a pig pen in IL. with a water heater and a small circulation pump. It worked well. Can't say if a boiler would be more efficient or not. The thing that bothers me is: I can understand wanting a warm floor, but is it a good way to heat the shop? I'm guessing it depends on how cold it gets in your area??
Al
I live in Manitoba where electricity is very cheap, so I'd be looking at an electric hot water tank to do the heating.
Woodstove.
Not catching the drift. Do you use a woodstove to heat your glycol or are you suggesting I get one? Getting one seems kind of pointless since I'd have to always keep it stoked to make sure the shop was always heated.
In which case it doesn't matter what he meant. You're not able/ willing to stoke it so it's a null point (no offense intended there). Keep it simple and go with the water heaters. A friend in the western hills of PA uses three of them to do different zones in his huge shop (40'x60' I believe).
Might want to ask this over in rec.woodworking
You mostly need to figure out if a water heater can supply enough heat, and that depends on how cold it gets, how well insulated the shop is, number of windows and doors, etc.
Paul
there are those super high efficency heaters 98% designed to provide domestic hot water AND radiant floor heat.I lost the link but think it pelonis as one of those available...
A WH would work okay, provided you have the necessary BTU's to supply the heat. An average WH is between 35K and 40K input. If your heat loss is more than that, it won't keep up.
A boiler is a more efficient way to heat the water.
Do you know how he setup his system? What kind of components did he use? I'm guessing the hot water tank, a low volume cirulating pump and some sort of pressure tank.
I live in Manitoba and winter runs from the end of October until the end of March. Temperature can run as low as -40C, more with the windchill. That's why I need heat for my shop.
Been there, done that. In our experience you have only one choice. Install on demand tankless water heater. The one that we use is called "Luna Baxi". It has the capacity to heat the floor and the hot water at the same time. Check out:
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