The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest How do you keep your shop warm?

During spring, summer, and fall I am busy mowing and working on my honey-do list. Seems like wintertime is the only time I am allotted to work on my bolt...but its so cold in the shop. By the time my wood stove gets warmed up, I am ready for bed. Any suggestions? What do you all do? Jim

I use a space heater, Carhartt coveralls, hot coffee and strong whisky. ...I can't wait to get into a new shop space. lol.

Start the stove earlier in the day? Insulate some?

A buddy of mine uses a kero heater that looks like this one. Heats up the area we're working in pretty good, in a shop large enough to hold six cars and a roof high enough to use a lift.

http://www.northerntool.com/images/buyersguides/122.jpg

86 other responses.
https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=705701#Post705701

I have a 1954 Delco oil furnace..... It was a freebie. Not the most effiecent furnace, but heavy duty built. I added a heat exchanger in the exhaust piping to help catch some of the lost heat going out the chimney. I keep the thermostat set at around 50 degrees, warm enough for working (not painting)on stuff and keeps things dry from any condensation. Rated for 86,000 btu.

John

Ohhh, Okay I see the problem, your married.... LOL

John

Coal in a #20 Army Canon potbelly.
Spring and fall I use wood. Before I retired I would start the fire before I went into the house and after supper the shop was warm. When It gets below freezing I switched to coal and ran the fire 24/7. First thing In the morning I would open the air and damper to raise the fire, on the way to work I would dump in a hod full of pea coal and closed the damper and adjust the air. When I got home it would still be burning and I would stoke it again on the way in. Tend it just before bed and have full time heat.

I use inferred lamps similar to a paint shop, they direct the heat to your work space and can help the cure time on any paint or fillers used. And the heat is almost instant.
John

Pump up your tires with a hand pump. You'll get warm.

strong whiskie? I like RUM Winter is the time to get things done on my short its cold so the wife leaves me alone in the shop. NO honey do's

In the winter I go out in the garage and turn the thermostat from 45 degrees to 70 degrees, and when I'm done I turn it back down to 45 degrees.

I stumbled into a fellow who was in charge of a sizable apartment complex that was renovating 50 units. He gave me an heat/ac unit as the contractors were pulling them out and selling the coils for scrap.

Whitelightning

Coal cost here in the Boston area is high, about $325 a ton picked up. They tack on a high fuel charge.

Takes about 1-1/2 tons for a cold winter.

For comparison,

The shop is 1000 sq.ft., 16ft to the joists, 3-1/2" insulation walls, 2" rigid insulation between the rafters under the roof. Insulated doors. 50F minimum (45 if below 0 out), 65 or better when working. (too old to enjoy the cold)

Yeah, 55.. that damnable thermostat! My experience has been that when it becomes important enough to really do something about, you will find the funds to do it. It might take years, but when the wife has finally had enough of you milling around the house.. when she learns that its in her best interest to get you out to your man cave.. things will go in your favor. I spent the first 20 years of this hobby stoking the old wood stove and hauling around the old kerosene heaters, but you too will get there grasshopper!

I moved my shop from Michigan to Virgina. Raised the temperature by 50 degrees in the winter.

[quote=Jim Sears]Whitelightning

Coal cost here in the Boston area is high, about $325 a ton picked up. They tack on a high fuel charge.


Ouch, that's expensive coal..... John

Hey Carl can you teach me how to do that! Better yet can you teach my wife..... oh I better delete that....

Enerjoy IR heaters. These panels are amazing! Look like drywall with acoustical spray on them and extruded metal edges. Super effecient, very little power draw. Designed by a (I think a) MIT Prof for homes that run on solar power or windmills so draw had to be low. They do not glow, no flame. IR heats objects (people, tools, parts) by vibrating molecules so you do not heat the air, the warmed objects can eventually heat the air. Electric powered, heat in about 5 min, so fast. The company has a "Woodshop Series" - cosmetic damage. When I got mine some had really minor defects, other little bigger, some I could find nothing wrong. Result is something like 40% off for the defects makes them the woodshop series. http://www.sshcinc.com/woodshopseries.htm Several different sizes, wattage, dimensions, voltage. Send your info they will design for free and give a parts list. Good old article about them from Fine Woodworking Magazine: http://www.sshcinc.com/FineWoodworking.pdf I have separate thermostats in my metal/autoshop, woodshop and "paint room". Paint room is like a clean room, 8' x 8' and in there I'll set thermo to 90° to cure fast and small space so not much cost for electricity.

I built my shop with apartment above out of Styrofoam ICF filled with concrete. Heat the apartment above and garage "when" needed with a small oil filled radiator heater set on low. The concrete holds the heat real well.

Takes a lot of diesel to get it up here from coal country. If they could just make the trucks burn coal ......

Um, they did..
http://www.railroadheritage.org/ImageStorage/Img--00004467.jpg

Very 1st diesel engine was coal dust injected.

Brian, I had not met my little orange woman yet. Now I am trapped in Virginia.

My shop will be moving from Albany, NY to Raleigh NC is a few years. That will only get me about 15 degrees warmer, but I will appreciate it.

And in the summer you'll be plenty warm as well Tim. We used to go stay with my grandmother in Raleigh for a week or two in the summer, too warm for me.

Be glad to have you almost "in the neighborhood" though.

Grigg

Radiant heat in the floor is what I eventually want to use for heat. When building my shop I put 1000 feet of Pex tubing in the concrete floor with 4 zones. I just haven't hooked it up yet.

My original thoughts were to keep the shop at 45 degrees with the floor heat and utilize a radiant overhead unit for quick warming when I'm actually in the shop.

But, right now it's real hard to justify the cost of heating my shop 24/7 when I don't have enough free time to spend out there.

Although, someday it will happen.

John

I hate heated floors in a shop, very tiring to have hot feet for hours on end

Bill

I always thought in floor heating would be the best solution.

John

My "shop" is my garage. The first house I built I used a high efficiency water heater for the home and ran a fan coil unit with the hot water for the garage. Worked fine but you had to preheat the night before. The house I am in now I was lucky enough to have natural gas. I bought a garage heater from Granger (hangs from the ceiling) and turn up the heat when I want to work out there. This setup works great and is safe.

Radiant floor.

[IMG]http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/burl100/floorheatsystem.jpg[/IMG]

My only problem with radiant floor heat in concrete is what happens when you lose power during an ice storm and it lasts a few weeks? (yes this actually happens in modern America). Is there any chance the circulating water in the pipes could freeze and break the pipes? If that ever happened, being screwed could take on a whole new meaning. Maybe an anti-freeze solution for the fluid?

specific heating system antifreeze is commonly used in hydronic or boiler systems, in some areas the tube-in-concrete systems are used for de-icing sidewalks and driveways .... but note that the antifreeze lowers the heating efficiency

Bill

My folks have radiant floor heat in their house and it is quite nice. Not tiring and no hot feet.

If you're getting hot feet I wonder if the system is setup right? Or is it running so hard trying to make up for poor insulation?

Grigg

"hot" being a relative thing, there's lots of difference between a residence and a shop, and between loafing around watching TV or such and standing on warm concrete for hours on end

Bill

The in concrete systems use cross linked polymer tubing. It can expand several times its dia without bursting. It has now become the standard in plumbing new homes. Other than fittings which are not placed in the concrete highly unlikely to fail even if it freezes. Seems expensive to run if your not out there all the time?

True, the house isn't a shop, but there's still occasion to stand up for hours on hours. Last week we were up until quite late in the night in the kitchen making about 10 gallons of hot sauce, do it every year.
No one ever complains of hot or even warm feet. It's quite comfortable.
I still would consider radiant floor heat for a shop, wish mine had it.

I currently heat my shop with an 80,000 btu propane ceiling hung heater. It is a little under sized for the space but it takes the chill out and can still make the shop comfortable on pretty cold days. Plus, it was a freeby!
I put the radiant tubes in the floor before it was poured but have not gotten around to finishing the system. I know that this type of heating takes time to warm up and once there it works better if kept on, obviously not ideal unless you are in your shop consistently or often. From everything I have read, you don't have to set the t-stat real warm to make the shop comfortable since everything from the floor up is essentially the same temp. In my shop at work, there is a condensate return tank for the boiler located in another part of the building. There are several return lines in the floor in the shop that run to this tank. Now that's a hot floor. Too hot to work on for very long.
My first time experiencing radiant heat, I was visiting a friend in Cape Cod. The night I got there it was 11 degrees out. He said grab a beer and we will go sit out on the sun porch. I'm thinking its got to be freezing out there. It had 3 sides glass but it was unbelievable how comfortable it was out there.
I am looking forward to hooking mine up one of these days.