Garage heat

[fordguy]

Charlie,

Do you live in the city or the country? I built a 30 X 50 shop 2 years ago. I put in radiant floor heat, but not the wysbro it was electric cable. It heats offpeak @ 2.7 cents a kilowatt. Plus my rural electric company gave a 1500.00 rebate on top of that. I installed 2 zones because I use part of the shop for storing my lawn equip. ect. that way I can set the temp amywhere I want it. It costs me more to turn on the lights than to heat the whole place!!!

Hope this helps,

Fordguy

Charlie Self wrote:

second idea

present, unless

[J. Clarke]

While this is true, it's difficult to get that particular dust/air ratio inside your dust collector, let alone in the shop in general. You'd pretty much have to set out deliberately to do it. A spark popping into a dustpile on the floor is more likely to be a problem.

A more significant concern.

[J. Clarke]

Make some kind of access provision if you can figure out a good way to do it. Friend of mine lives in a very nice house that her father (an architect) built. Used to have in-floor radiant heat, in the slab. The pipe broke a while back and it cost less to put in a new warm air system than it would to fix the leak, so no more in-floor heat.

[Charlie Self]

I lived in the city when I had the fire, back in the country now. We built a 25 x 48 shop here about 6 years ago. If I ever get the thermostat hooked up (tomorrow? But I've been saying that for 3 years), I'll have an overhead electric furnace on-line and working. Right now, I'm using infrared propane,

45,000 Btus. Radiant floor heat would have been nice, but I built that shop myself for less than 11 grand, so it wasn't in the picture. My current heating set-up cost me the price of a 60 amp breaker and some #6 cable, cheap thermostat, and a bit of metal work. I don't really know what the KW cost is here, but I promise, it's not 2.7 cents. More like 9, at a guess, plus fuel adjustments that will knock your panties into a knot.

I've got propane heat in the house and very much regret changing from oil. The first year the heat pump/propane was in place, my combined electrical and propane bill was more than double the preceding (cooler) year's costs. You save on furnace cleanings. You get screwed on the cost of the fuel which has been on an apparent near perpetual up-tick, at least around central VA, for several years now. I expect my heating bill this year to be about three and one half times what it was four years ago.

Charlie Self "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." Sir Winston Churchill

[Larry Jaques]

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 10:32:43 -0500, Bob G. calmly ranted:

Man, heavy-duty warming unit, eh?

Great!

And you had to put up with the smoke, cleanings, fire tending, etc. They're a lot of hassle and the warmth goes from chilly to melting you in a period of 15 minutes. No fires for me any more except on a campout or beach where ladies are present. They love 'em. ;)

I've been using creepers since I was 18 and won't crawl around on the ground again if there is -any- other choice. On gravel, one makes do sometimes, but not on concrete or pavement. I'm on wheels every time.

No, I'd opt for a solid, insulated wall and a wide door separating the wood half from the gasoline half. I don't want gas and oil fumes stinking up my shop or the wood stored there, TYVM. Uh, uh!

One guy mentioned having to change filters several times a day, and I bet

1) he didn't have a dust collector (or no .3u filters if so) and 2) he used a -sander- a whole lot

if he had that much maintenance trouble.

[J T]

Thu, Dec 16, 2004, 5:17am (EST+5) [e-mail] (Rick) My wife and I bought a house OK with the idea of building a garage 2x the above size 48'x24'

Sounds good, but you're using the wrong math. Figure 2X the size as 48"X48".

JOAT Ask any question you please of the Gods. They do not have to answer.

- Ko'a Orto'o, Gnomic Utterances, II xvi

[Stephen M]

I don't really know what the KW cost is

I hear ya. It's closer to 11 in my neck of the woods.

Ouch. I feel your pain. I switched from Oil to NG a few years ago. For me, I think It was a wash, but it's so hard to tell. I suspect my home heating costs are close to doubling over the course of a decade with minimal inflation.

About 8 years ago, I remember buying fuel oil at 70 cents a gallon. I hear it's close to $2 now. The oil and NG costomer are taking it in the shorts too.

If it helps, you have company.

-Steve

[Charlie Self]

Stephen M. responds:

It doesn't really help. This upward sprint for prices of everything related to oil production is sooner or later going to have to affect the entire economy. It's not just transport and heat. Most of today's plastics--vinyl, Styrofoam, etc.--are based on oil, so construction costs have to rise to absorb that cost rise, as eventually do the prices of toys with cases and other parts formed of plastic, whether those toys be a cordless drill or an X box.

Currently, we've got our heat pump set high enough that the gas furnace only kicks on when it gets below 30 degs. F., here.

One distinct saving with gas: the furnace does not need cleaning and new needle valves every year, a service that had risen from about $50 17 years ago to over $100 a few years ago.

Charlie Self "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." Sir Winston Churchill

[John, in MN]

On 17 Dec 2004 15:04:23 GMT, [e-mail] (Charlie Self) wrote: [snip]

Thats interesting Charlie, up here in cold Minnesota heat pumps usually switch off at about 10 degrees F . I'm fortunate enough to be on a load shed plan from the power company and pay about 3 cents per kwh for the heat pump. Never been shed in the winter that I'm aware of. Maybe the efficiencies balance out different with your higher power cost. Also have propane for alternate fuel.

-- John, in Minnesota

[Charlie Self]

And maybe I'm getting screwed. Hard to tell. I was told that when the air is much below freezing, heat pump efficiency drops dramatically. I'll have to dig out some information on the thing, as we seldom get down to 10 degrees here, so a setting of, say, 20 or so if it is reasonably efficient, might prove a money saver when the guy in the rolling propane bottle pops down the drive.

We're supposed to have a guy coming out to check it fairly soon, so I'll ask him to show me how to re-set the temp and then I can test it.

Charlie Self "Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power." Eric Hoffer

[Ron]

My Father in Law had a ground water heat pump installed on his farm. It extracts its heat from ground water which is supposedly at 55 degrees year round. It was efficient but you had to return the water you extracted some distance away from the source to prevent the gradual lowering of the temp from your source. Not much of a problem if you have the land but a pretty big one if you don't.

[John, in MN]

On 18 Dec 2004 10:57:16 GMT, [e-mail] (Charlie Self) wrote: [snip]

Charlie, I did a temp plot last night of the heat pump. It started to lose ground at about 10 deg. About 30 minutes later it switched over to the propane furnace. We had 9 below last night. At 20 degrees your pump should be happy. The manual for mine specs down to 0 for outside operating temp. Also the measured power on ours is about

2200 watts. So it only costs about 7 cents per hour of run time.

-- John, in Minnesota

[Bob G.]

IF I only had more ground water.... lol...

If I did I would sink 2 wells and install a water to air heat pump , pulling water out of one well then putting it back in teh other...

Ground water her in Mid to Western Maryland is a constant 55 degrees year round... just about the perfect difference from the desired room tempature...

Got to be some reason Water to Air heat pumps are not the "thing"...

Oh well... house is total electric baseboard heat.... see the meter spin!...Shop is heated with a Propane furnace... watch the guade drop ... Bob

[Duane Bozarth]

That's quite high (for a closed loop system, anyway)...there was about a $5k premium over a similarly efficient air/air heat pump which can be hidden somewhat if the excating is all done when the house excation is done rather than completely separately last I looked...

[Greg O]

I think it has something to do with the ~$20,000 it takes to install one! Greg

[Greg O]

A loop system perhaps, but drill a couple wells! Greg

[Charlie Self]

John, in MN responds:

Eeeeeeeeeee! Nine below? Just think, I moved down here as a geographic cure for a marriage that had failed, and escaped that kind of weather, too. It did hit five below here...IIRC, in 1985.

Thanks. I'll have the guy who's coming check the settings--and show me how to recheck and reset--and I'll also make sure he gives the whole shooting match a good going over. It has been in just over three years, so I don't foresee big problems for another four or five.

I don't even know if we GOT a manual with this thing. I'll check around the washing machine area (basement appliance manual files).

Charlie Self "It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable." Eric Hoffer

[Duane Bozarth]

...

Yes, but the wells aren't a necessity was my point...

[GregP]

If it's a heat pump system, couldn't you also rig it to lower air conditioning costs in the summer ?

[Charlie Self]

GregP asks:

Naturally.

Charlie Self "It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable." Eric Hoffer