Topic: How do you Heat your Shop?

[Kelly E]

My shop is 30' x 48' with 12' 6" ceiling and when we bought this house the shop furnace was free standing next to the electric panel with the wiring disappearing under the electric panel cover. We built a utility room for the furnace and compressor. A buddy built the upper plenum and another buddy got me 3 ten foot sections of 16" round duct pipe.
The furnace is a 1974 electric forced air commercial unit and it keeps the 1400sqft at 65° for 5 or 6 months and off the rest of the year. Here we have plenty of hydro electric power and it's not too expensive.

[BenelliSEI]

I had a Reznor natural gas heater installed in my garage.  This particular model has a sealed combustion chamber and draws combustion air from outside.  It works really well.  I keep it set to 55F, and move it to 65F when I work in the garage.

That is a slick solution.

[Dunk]

I use a Sterling NG 45k BTU unit heater on a wifi thermostat. 60* all the time, usually 72* when in the garage and takes about an hour to raise the temp in a 24'x30'x10'. I started keeping it at 50* when I installed it but 2+ hours to raise the temp and tools being cold was too much for me and gas was cheap enough I think it cost about $0.24/hr to run the heater constantly. Cost more at 60* I'm sure but it doesn't cycle much to hold temp if doors aren't being opened. I also have two ~750w/2560 BTU electric resistive baseboard heaters in the garage. One in a smaller office area and another near my workbench. PO installed these, but I'll turn them on to raise temp a bit faster or hold temp better when opening doors, typically set a couple degrees below what I have the NG unit set at. PO had an old 120k BTU furnace in the garage originally, it would heat up super fast but was way oversized short cycling with accompanying cold drafts and I hated the waste of floor space.

In my 16'x16' shed I installed a 5k watt resistive electric heater along with an insulted ceiling between first and second story. Walls are unfinished and uninsulated, takes a while to heat up but it will cook you out the rare times I turn it on. Compressor and storage on the second floor in the cold.

[Don R]

 A friend made a waste oil heater from an old oil tank and driveshafts for heat exchanger tubes. He had dampered the flue down and the shop got a bit cold, he forgot about closing the damper and opened the burner door to feed it some used oil filters. The resulting draft made the fire woosh out at him.
 After that was the first time I ever saw him with no beard and short hair.

 I have the same Sterling heater as Dunk.

[ofreen]

The shop is 30x50 insulated steel building with a 13 foot ceiling.  I used to have a wood stove in there, but always begrudged the footprint it took up, not to mention the time it took to heat things up.  So many years ago I dug a trench for a natural gas line for a 85,000 BTU gas heater hanging from the ceiling.  I had to dig over 300 feet of trench (rented a Ditch Witch), but the gas company put in the line for free.  If I am moving around, 50 degrees is all I need to keep my finger getting numb holding wrenches, so it doesn't run much until it gets down to 0 outside.  On those days, I wish I had gotten a 120,000 BTU heater to reduce running time.

[BenelliSEI]

Normally.... my “over night only” underfloor heating system pushes in some heat overnight (our lowest, off peak, Hydro rate) and then is off during the day. The floor slab and latent heat in the shop normally holds the heat at 48-52 degrees F., all day.

So windy and cold it was only 42 degrees F in there yesterday morning. Last night, -20F overnight low! Heading down there this morning to turn on some extra heat, for a few hours.

[Gurp]

Normally.... my “over night only” underfloor heating system pushes in some heat overnight (our lowest, off peak, Hydro rate) and then is off during the day. The floor slab and latent heat in the shop normally holds the heat at 48-52 degrees F., all day.

So windy and cold it was only 42 degrees F in there yesterday morning. Last night, -20F overnight low! Heading down there this morning to turn on some extra heat, for a few hours.

Talk about a variance for day to night!