Any suggestions for a wood construction workshop 4m x 3m size
The workshop is basically a large heavy duty shed with a UPVC door and UPVC window with no internal insulation.
First insulate. Second, fit a two unit air conditioning plant. Heat pumps are a particularly efficient way to use electricty to heat with.
Colin Bignell
All electric heating is 100% efficient. Insulate insulate insulate.
NT
And none of it is low running cost
Yes, but also decide if you want radiant and/or convection heat
Without any insulation, the only type that will be remotely efficient would be infra-red. i.e. try to heat yourself without heating the air. It works reasonably well if you're doing something fairly active, but it's a bit crap if you're not moving much.
Why not insulate it though? My shed is a bit over 4m X 2m. It's insulated all round (including floor and ceiling) with cheapo polystyrene under plasterboard and it's nicely heat-tight. I put in a
3kW convector for a fast warm-up, but it'll easily maintain a nice cosy temp on a mid-winter night on the 1kW setting. The room thermostat barely has it turned on once it's warmed up on most nights.Cheers,
Colin.
I have to agree with all the comments about Insulation - TLC still claim to have this on their books, though out of stock currently
Insulation is everything unless you are going to be in there only a few minutes each day.
Running a 2kW fan heater flat-out for 120 days (winter), at 2hrs a day, at 10p/kWhr =3D =A350 for 480kWhrs. Running a 2kW fan heater flat-out for 120 days (winter), at 8hrs a day, at 10p/kWhr =3D =A3200 for 2000kWhrs. Running a 18kWhr storage heater (2.55kW x7) for 120 days (winter) at
5p/kWhr =3D =A3108 for 2160hWhrs.You can see how Economy-7 is useful - if only for background heating. An Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) basically goes better than Economy-7 costs per kW/hr but on-demand 24hrs a day, but the downside is a DIY system starts at about =A3299. You only need one quite probably.
You will have to set up a spreadsheet with your intended use - as well as start planning insulation :-)
Once insulated if you are working with legs under a desk for a lot of the time, you may find closing off the desk a bit and using a 400W oil filled radiator makes things quite comfortable. A storage heater gives thermal mass (65-145kg of it), so can be useful although I would not want to mix fine wood dust and a storage heater... the core temperature is above the ignition temperature of very fine dust. The industrial fan heaters use a MICS (copper sheathed) element rather than bare wire, along with a "fan oven" style metal impellor and motor, so more useful in a workshop environment.
No, some is more than 100% efficient. If it's a big workshop, expensive and you can afford the capital, heat pumps make as much sense there as elsewhere.
Otherwise, at moderate cost, a carpentry or joinery shop is best heated by long-wavelength IR radiants, the sort with white ceramic non- glowing elements. These are best at heating you rather than the atmosphere. Provided that you're moderately active (hence carpentry), this is fine.
For other tasks you might need to warm the workshop up, just so that stuff works. I was using epoxy last night - impossible job at 5=B0C. Then you need draughtproofing and insulation first. Then like you say, everything is 100%.
Solar is work looking at. Under a grand will give you a powerful space heating system for a big workshop. =A3300 - =A3400 for a bare-bones systems on a double garage (half a dozen vacuum tubes and recycled radiators).
I don't like woodstoves in amateur workshops - only if they're commercial workshops, with someone in there all day and you run the fire down an hour or two before leaving. At my place if I have spare wood waste, I'd rather burn it in the house.
hmm... when things get really cold, the effective efficiency of those drops badly. Workshops spend most days unused, giving them not so good payback. If you're going to use one, you'd get far better payback using it in the house.
NT
I was pleasantly surprised to find one frosty morning recently that my latest shed was pleasantly warm inside. It has no windows and, as yet, no electricity, so I have to work with the door open and it had warmed up nicely the previous afternoon. Unfortunately, it also cooled down quickly with the door open in the morning.
It has 25mm insulation on the walls and under the 22mm chipboard floor, with 100mm of insulation in the flat roof. It is also built of blockwork, clad with 15mm timber to blend in with the other sheds, and, probably most important, when I open the door the door seals making a sucking noise, suggesting it is air tight too.
Colin Bignell
I forgot to add to my earlier post that you should go to Costco (I'm sure there are other sources) and get the rubber interlocking floor matting - insulation, foot protecting, dropped items protecting, easily swept - all in one. =A320 will do a small workshop and it makes workshop life so much pleasanter.
rob
I will echo what the others have said. Insulation is key. I did mine with 50mm PIR foam and 12mm ply over it. I did not bother using battens, and just screwed through the ply, through the foam and into plugs in the block work walls. Sealed any gaps with expanding foam. Its for intermittent use, so I have a wall mounted fan heater on a stat to keep it about the dew point and stop stuff rusting. On really cold days, the fan heater can lift it to a comfortable temperature in about 20 mins. I also have an IR radiant heater to take the chill off me in those first
20 mins. This time of year I find just leaving the lights on for a few hours is enough to take the chill off.
Heat pumps are more than 100% efficient when using electricity to heat, most of the time.
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