What I'm doing to my Garage...anyone else done this?

[WILLNIK]

I have one in my 30 X 54 X 12 shop. No problems. Heats well even in the upstate NY winters!

Terry

[hobby67stepside]

I've got a Reznor infra-red heater in my shop. I really like it. I've got 16' sidewalls in a 40' X 50' foot building. I hung mine (installed it myself - it's not difficult) in a "U" configuration. The last couple days here have been -10 to -15 F. I turn it down to about 55 at night and about 60 when I'm working and its very comfortable. Propane fired and quit efficient. Here's a pic of the far end that exits thru the wall.

[Kid]

I've had radiant floor heat for 3.5 years now. The cement floor supplys the heat. It is the cheapest to run, and when you close the doors after being open for a while, heats back up real quick (the floor acts like a heat sink). In my opinion, by far the best way to go. Just ask anybody who has there shop set up this way. The next best would be the radiant (overhead) heat.

[Russell]

So here is a question -- when we built my shop, we put infloor heating pipes into the pad. At the moment, I've got it all hooked up to a wood burning boiler, the wood provides heat for the shop, and heats the gylcol we have in the infloor heating system, unfortunately, the infloor heating really doesn't do too much... On top of that, I want to coat my frame and stuff in there (explosive material!) and I neither want to be burning stuff / want it freezing cold while I am trying to do this. Is there any sort of setup I can put onto the infloor heating setup to get it to run well enough to heat my shop up to comfortable temps without using the wood burning stove while doing explosive stuff?

[Brainchild]

How about this Russell?Looks like it could be adapted to your floor heating system,burns wood and all the fire is outside.You can mount the heat exchange inside without problems as well.
http://www.heatandmore.com/products.htm

[draino76]

Radiant heat is a good choice for larger shops, but will also work in smaller buildings. In a garage I would go with a unit heater. If you don't keep the heat up all the time and bring in a vehicle from the cold to work under it, it will be very cold under the vehicle with the radiant heat, because it heats objects in "line of sight" of the tube and shield, where as the unit heater will warm the air and circulate it throughout the building. The radiant tube heaters however, if properly installed, are more efficient. I work on all heating cooling and refrigeration systems for a living, just some info to help you out.

[Kid]

Russell, when you instld. your floor tubing did you install the proper footage? (approx. 900' to 1100' per 1000 sf. of floor) Using the correct circulating pump? With a boiler, you should have plenty of heat. I heat my shop (30' x 36') with a 40 gallon hot water tank, set with water temp. at 85 to 90 degrees. Works great. I can turn off the water tank for a couple of days with out losing much (less than 10 degrees) heat. The concrete floor acts like a heat sink. Turning off heat source for a day to paint is not a problem. It is currently 11 degrees outside right now, and 60 in my shop.

[Sooner1970_K10]

I assume if you had some type of radiant floor system that used piped water that you could find a way to cool the water as well? Thus keeping the shop cool (60-70) in 110 degree summers? Anyone do this or have any ideas?

[4x4Bowhunter]

Just installed 3 50,000 BTU spaceray infrared tube heaters in my garage. i have 1500 sq ft and these are 10' lengths. i installed two over my workbench area and 1 over my "working" area. i am in Denver if you'd like to come take a look...PM me.

[ChevyDude]

I would love to come see the set you've got. I'm just north of Denver.

[draino76]

Originally Posted by Sooner1970_K10

I assume if you had some type of radiant floor system that used piped water that you could find a way to cool the water as well? Thus keeping the shop cool (60-70) in 110 degree summers? Anyone do this or have any ideas?

It might keep your feet cool, but if you want to cool the shop you need to install a real A/C system.

[patrick66]

My shop is 38' x 65' and uses the foundation from my old house that got demolished in an F-4 tornado in 2003. It is an insulated metal building with two 12' x 10' overhead doors and one 12' x 12' overhead; two facing south and one facing north. For you guys that have the overhead radiant heat systems, what did it cost to buy and install yours??? I have plenty of electricity available, but also have a natural gas line running to the shop, as well.

I found out about this forum through www.stovebolt.com .

I have a restified '72 C-10 and my 13-year-old son had a '46 3100 he's doing up.

[ChevyDude]

The rough quote for a 20' Detriot Radiant installed was $2100.00. I want to check out Space-Ray Infared before I make my final decision. These infared heater need Nat. Gas or LP and electricity for the motor.

[Brainchild]

Wecome to the forums Patrick.

[ljbear]

Originally Posted by ChevyDude

I have done the research! The Detroit Radiant and it's competitor CO-RAY-VAC are the best for heating a shop

I have to agree with ChevyDude, I'm doing a 3000 square foot shop with slab and the Radiant is the way to go. I have 1500 square feet now with the Reznor heaters and they work fine. The temp seems to go from too warm when it's running to almost too cool when it's cycled off, and the noise from it gets old. I looked into a full hydronic system with boiler, but the recovery time and initial start up are too slow for this kind of application. Here's a link that explains the system better, http://www.reverberray.com/theory.html

[ChevyDude]

I think Space-Ray needs a mention as well....looks like it's also a nice Infared system.

[oldschooloutlaw]

I worked in a truck dump body manufacturing plant and we had about 20 of the infared heaters,they would run you out of the shop. We had a 20' to 50' ceiling and they hung about 20' from the floor. But they run the gas meter alot

[pritch]

I am going to use unit heaters supplied with heated glycol from a regular old propane-fired water heater. I thought about radiant floor heat, but couldn't go the extra thousand $ when I poured my slab. At my work we do alot of re-models and demo stuff and I have saved 3 unit heaters (I plan on using 2 of them) and 2 40 gallon propane-fired water heaters. All I need is some pipe and a circ. pump and some odds and ends and my shop will be heated. I'm gonna wait until next winter to do this, since I ain't got all my insulation in yet.