Recommendations for workshop heating?

[Lobster]

I have a small workshop at the end of our free-standing garage (about 3m square, single=thickness block walls, plasterboarded/insulated ceiling, solid uninsulated floor, efficiently draught-proofed and dry).

I want to put a heater in there and would be grateful for thoughts as to what type to get, especially as there are conflicting requirements:

(a) warm the place up quickly in order to do swift jobs at short notice (eg use a 3kW fan heater?)

(b) maintain it at a comfortable ambient working temperature for a reasonable duration of working time (eg 500W oil-filled radiator?)

Is there something that would be a compromise? To be honest scenario (a) is the majority of my use these days. Not sure I want a fan heater in there though due to clogging with dust, and air moving around eg if painting.

What about halogen heaters? Don't know much about them - would they fit the bill? Maybe I just need two heaters :)

Thanks

[Mentalguy2k8]

How about using a fan heater at the far end *and* an oil-filled radiator near where you work, turn them on at the same time and turn the fan heater off once the radiator has warmed up.

In my experience, the fan heater will warm the whole place quickest, I've always found that you need to practically sit on halogen heaters to feel the benefit. I can't be held responsible for your electric bill though :)

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 20 January 2013 13:08 Lobster wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Oil heater would be the safest - I would avoid fan heaters, unless wall mounted - too likely to get buried in wood dust or have something drop onto them. Bloody dangerous things IMO, firewise.

A wall mounted quartz IR heater might give you the fastest result for personal warmth.

Re Oil heaters - do not buy some s**te from B&Q - those have such poor ability to convect that they duty cycle so as to be on about 20% of the time if you are lucky.

Long single panel rad form for low temperature medium power or for compact high power, get a DeLonghi Vento or DeLonghi Dragon3 - those have fairly fast (20 mins) heat up time and when hot, boy they do actully convect like motherf*ckers. Worth the extra. Argos usually sell them. And occasional hoover or blow out keeps them that way.

[David.WE.Roberts]

I'm using a two heat fan heater with thermostat at the moment. It provides me with frost protection and I can turn it up a bit when I want to work in the shed.

It is sitting up well clear of the floor and any flammables and seems to do a good job of circulating warm air.

As per previous discussions (about converting electrical energy into heat), I would have thought that a fan heater would be more effective than most other options as long as you have a clear space to mount it in.

Cheers

Dave R

[geoff]

In message , Lobster writes

A small one of these?

[Nthkentman]

In message , Lobster writes

A small one of these?

will produce moisture as a by-product of combustion increasing dampness and mould...

[Dave Liquorice]

What energy sources have you available, wood offcuts, waste oil, new oil, gas (mains, bottled), electricity?

How often used, daily, weekly, monthly?

If you have a suitable electicity supply then the fan heater is the quickest but noisy and blows the dust about. Note that 3 kW of heater and

2 kW power tool may cause a 32 A MCB to trip on start up of the power tool...

A gas heater running off bottled gas can chuck out the heat to warm the place up the be turned down to keep it cosy. For every kg of gas burnt it will produce a litre of water vapour but our "radiant plaque" gas heater is specified at 1.48 kW minimum and 105 g/hr. In a reasonably ventilated place that won't be a problem, flat out (4.2 kW) the heater needs 105 cm^2 (tad over 10 x 10 cm) of ventilation anyway. Be aware that butane (blue cylinders) doesn't like the cold, below about 10C you might start having vapourisation problems.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Lobster writes

Are you using glues? If so you may need glue and work somewhere above

10deg.C

Fire risk may limit your choices as has been said. Fan heater nice and quick. You can get radiant gas powered heaters.

I would say for swift jobs, heat the person; some form of radiant heat. You won't be warm, just feel you are:-)

[Lobster]

Basically I've just electricity; that's what I'd assumed I'd use, but could at least in theory be bottled gas I suppose.

On average, say weekly?

Hadn't really considered using gas TBH but suppose it's a possibility - yes would really need to be propane due to the low temp. Not very keen on the water output (having gone to a lot of effort to try to keep moisture out of the place!) plus the need for ventilation.

Thanks for all the replies to date: so far I think it's still looking like I may need two heaters; one for instant gratification and another for longer-term background heat when needed... would prefer to avoid that!

[Adrian C]

Dell PowerEdge 2650...

[John Rumm]

I use a combination of wall mounted fan heater on a 2kW setting, driven from an external room stat, and a free standing 1.2kW halogen heater.

The fan heater is left on permanently, with the stat set to frost protection. Which means it kicks in a for minute or two each hour when cold, and keeps the room above dew point. When I am working in there, a twiddle of the stat will let it warm the room to something more comfortable. (its a single skin brick building but well insulated with

2" PIR foam on all the walls and the underside of the roof)

If I only want a quick blast of heat (or faster warm up) then the halogen heater will take the chill off while the fan heater gets the place warmer.

One of the proper IR heaters that are supposed to heat the people rather than the space would be another consideration for short duration workshop use.

I have not had any issues with circuit trips due to the heating load in conjunction with tool use feed to workshop & garage is via a 32A fuse in the house, and the garage CU has a 32A MCB for the power circuit)