How do you heat your shop?

What method do you use to heat your shop?

  • Electric heat source

    Votes: 19 20.9%
  • Natural Gas/Propane heat source

    Votes: 30 33.0%
  • Oil based heat source

    Votes: 3 3.3%
  • Radiant heat source

    Votes: 6 6.6%
  • Steam heat source

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Solar heat source

    Votes: 2 2.2%
  • Wood or Corn pellet stove/furnace

    Votes: 2 2.2%
  • Wood burning stove/furnace

    Votes: 9 9.9%
  • No heat source

    Votes: 20 22.0%

  • Total voters
    91

Darren Wright

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
20,087
Location
Springfield, Missouri
Just curious how others heat their shop. I grew up with a wood circulator stove in my dad's shop, worked very well with a ceiling fan mounted overhead to blow heat off the stack. I'm considering one for the new shop, but also considering a corn or pellet stove. I don't have gas ran to it and I think electric would cost too much to run for the size.
 
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A couple of more questions...

I'd be curious to know the monthly costs if you heated it for the weekend and a few nights out of the week?

How much square footage do you heat?
 
My shop in in my basement. We have forced hot air oil heat.
I cut 4 or so openings in the duct work down there and put grills on them. It is still pretty chilly down there because the thermostat is on the first floor.
Today while I was surfacing 60bf of cherry the heat came on 4 times. The duct is right over my head. Got a bit hot :rofl:
 
975 sqf Warner wood stove. I can make it 90 in there if I need to. Oh and I bought 4 cords of wood. And picked one up along the road side last year. I still have 2 left. I kept the fire going from about this time until early may. So total cost was about 348 bucks
We have a pellet stove in the other shop. About 1000 sqf the last time we ran it for the whole winter it used 3 tons of pellets. At the time pellets here where 229 a ton so it cost 687 or so for the winter. Pellets here are now at 279 a ton.
 
A couple of more questions...

I'd be curious to know the monthly costs if you heated it for the weekend and a few nights out of the week?

I can't say for sure. I have an auto-setback thermostat on it, and it's heated to 65° from 7:30 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. and then set back to 50° overnight, seven days a week. I'm guessing somewhere around $35.00 per month for that (based on gas at $6.38 MCF). Your schedule would be probably near half of that.

How much square footage do you heat?

The shop is 26 X 32, with ten foot ceiling, so 8320 ft³. It's insulated R21 in the walls, and R30+ in the ceiling. Concrete slab floor.
 
I selected electric heat source as that is what I use. I don't want to skew your numbers though so I should say that where I live I run 2 or 3 1500 watt forced air heaters. They probably run no more than 30 hours all season. Heck, I just today put one of the fans (to stay cool) away. I haven't even thought about bringing the heaters down yet.
 
I've got a 200,000 BTU 90+ furnace on natural gas with a 5 ton ac unit ducted around the shop. The heated shop area is a 36 x 70 and while we stay comfortable summer and winter we don't run the unit unless we need to whether for heat or cool. I keep the thermostat on about 55 in the winter and around 85 in the summer. AC costs are around $50-70 a month and natural gas costs are near the same. Not too bad but I am well insulated in a pole barn style building with a good bit of extra insulation in the walls. EDIT I forgot to say we operate from 7-5 Mon. thru Fri.
 
In floor radiant heat.

Main boiler is off peak electric, back up is propane I believe.

Supposedly its going to cost me ~$125/month to heat my shop. Could be all smoke and lies from the new land lord though....
 
We have a 4800w construction heater hard-wired into a thermostat. Keep it on all the time to about 10deg C. It will bring the shop (400 sq ft) up to 15C in twenty minutes, which I find warm enough if I'm moving around at all. When we renovated that part of the old barn for a heated shop we put a full 8 inches of fibreglas in the walls and ceiling. The heater doesn't run much and I figure the cost to be less than $2 a day. Our power rates are currently $.116/kwh.
Down the road, however, we'll be looking at a big shift. Maybe geo-thermal or central, high effeciency wood-fired boiler to heat house, shop, garage and pool. The thought of sweating all that firewood into the basement ten years from now makes me tired already.
 
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Darren here is a pic of my heater. The shop is 22x 17 and 9 foot walls with even higher cathedral ceiling. The heater is a radiant heat type running on natural gas supplied from the house, with a thermostat i leave at its absolute lowest which is about 44 degrees. Then when i go in there i just flip the setting up and in no time the place is toasty but not stuffy.

I hardly notice the natural gas increase but it depends on how much i am in there. I never let it get higher than around 60 in winter. I find it a nice temp to work at.

The place is very well insulated. R22 insulation all round with double layer 5/8 drywall as well. The floor is also insulated with 1.5 inch solid pink foam and 3/4 inch plywood on top of vapor barrier.

Windows are all double glaze with gas fill.

Heater cost is around $900 Canadian which is just about 1:1 to the greenback today.

Here is where it is able to be purchased and there is an article on it as well as a video on their site.

http://www.easyradiantworks.com/ezdoz.htm

The big thing about this unit is that it is sealed. So no fumes in the shop and its insurance approved as well as safe when it comes to flammable materials and solvents. No naked flame. Which is not the case with all heaters that burn gas.

BTW i also have a battery backed up smoke alarm in my shop wired to my home smoke alarm circuits. One can never be too safe.:thumb:

Were i you i would do a short and then long term solution. Short term have local heating so you can work when you want to and need to. Long term insulate the whole shop and setup a more efficient heat source. The energy bill costs over time will pay for the insulation as we all know if we do the math. But given immediate budget constraints and priorities well i would go for a LV radiant like this.

attachment.php
 
I have 2 of those LV heaters. They heat things, not air. I got them while I was in Nebraska. They did fairly well ina very cold garage.

Here in Arizona, I have one in the Turning Shack and one over my bench in the semi-enclosed carport. The one in the Turning Shack can chase me out. Its enclosed. The other one makes things bearable for a very short time.

I like them very much. Very well worth the money to get things started. When I get my new shop, I will go with solar assisted with ventless propane radiant.
 
As my shop is underground, I guess you could say I have Geo-Thermal :rofl::rofl: It never gets below about 12C/54F but that is a little cool when standing in place at the lathe, or if I'm trying to paint or finish something, so on one end I have a small electric radiant heater, much like Carol is talking about. It really works, I'm honestly surprised at how well it works. It is aimed at the area of my shop where I will stand and do any finishing finicky work. I use it like a task light in that I use it to heat up the area I'm working at. It is rated at 900 watts, for what that is worth.

900w_ir_heater3.jpg
My heater in use

I don't envy you guys in the really cold areas, I guess insulation is key, and a good cheap heat source, if such a thing exists, is needed.

We have the heated floors in our house, and if I were ever to build a workshop, free standing, that is what I'd put in, even concrete floors are not that bad to stand on if they are heated :D
 
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Heat? We don't need no stinking heat!

Other than a very small mobile heater, I don't have any heat, but I can produced some when sanding a bowl. :D The cost to insulate my garage, not to mention the time it would take to get to the walls, is prohibitive for me. I just go out there for short spurts when it gets really cold.
 
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