best type heat

[npregion2]

I am building a 24’X 32’pole barn with 10' walls, it will be insulated like a house and I am trying to figure out what would be the best and most reasonable way to heat it in the winter?

[MikeMorgan]

Fuel Cost Calculator

Perhaps this will help you make your decision:



[URL="http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/fuel_cost_comparison_calculator/"]

[npregion2]

Thanks for the web page

[tommyt654]

I didn,t look at the above link yet but a wood-burning stove will do a great job in a building that size,just make sure you vent it well and have a few ceiling fans to circulate the heat and should be good to go.

[npregion2]

Thanks, I will look into a wood burner. I am also considering the Dayton G73 electric garage heater it gets great reviews. However, I am skeptical on the cost of operating the unit; Ohio winters are anything but warm. The Building will be about 100’ from my main home and really do not want to run a gas line.

[L. D. Jeffries]

I have a 24 x 30 shop that I heat with a blower assisted wood stove. A ceiling fan to push around the heat. Rather than stoking the stove for an all night fire I have a propane wall vented heater that I leave set on 50 deg. at night just so things like latex paint, etc don't freeze up. Although I don't think they would as I built it with 6" insulated walls and insulation in the ceiling as well. Must work pretty well since it stays nice and cool in the summer as long as the doors are kept closed, and it stays fairly warm in winter.

[npregion2]

I will definitely look into a wood stove, and thank you everyone for the great advice. I know when I have a question you can always depend on the community of BT3 to give great answers.

[tommyt654]

Best thing about a wood-burning heater is you get a lot of combustible material just laying around the shop to burn and you rarely have a large scrap pile

[DrChas]

I used to have a small monitor external vent kerosene heater. I loved it. I understand the company has gone down hill in the years since I got mine, but still look into a vented kerosene (or gas, or even fuel oil) heater. They are very inexpensive to run, and provide a lot of heat for a small amount of floor space. And don't insulate it like a house, insulate it properly. Houses in this country are very poorly insulated.

Also, if your shop is in a sunny location consider putting in solar heaters. I built some for my house, and on sunny winter days they kick out 120 degree air. They cost me less than 500 dollars to build, and I am sure they paid for themselves within a year. If you are interested I can outline their design.

[SteveR]

I used to have a small monitor external vent kerosene heater. I loved it.

Also, if your shop is in a sunny location consider putting in solar heaters. I built some for my house, and on sunny winter days they kick out 120 degree air. They cost me less than 500 dollars to build, and I am sure they paid for themselves within a year. If you are interested I can outline their design.

Yes, please explain what you did with the solar heaters, sounds interesting.

To the OP. I have a two car garage for a shop (all insulated). I live in a cold winter area as well. The tools, nor myself, operate well in the cold shop and it can get brutal cold out there. I "experimented" (read: wasted money) on what I thought were economical solutions. First was one of those tall, round kerosene heaters. Took some time to warm up the shop to half reasonable working conditions, but kinda of defeated itself at the same time needing to open garage door for ventilation....even with that the fumes eventually got to me. Add to that, over the last few years, the cost of a 5 gallon pail of kero got to be pretty pricey, it almost doubled the last time I checked. Then I added two of those infared type of lamps/heaters Lowes sells. If you are working directly under one, works good, but take a step or two outside of under the heating area, you might as well be walking outside. I then tried one of the ventless propane wall heaters....even with the garage door cracked for fresh air, the O2 safety sensor knocked it off...used one time and out the door it went.

With all that money I spent on the above and the many, many pails of 5 gallons of kero I purchased I could have easily bought one of these. http://www.modine.com/v2portal/page/...ontent_014.htm I think the beauty to these units are they are low profile ceiling mount, can be converted to NG or propane (in your case you could get a big propane tank), and certain models have closed combustion chamber, so no worries about sawdust.

After a few years searching on craigslist, I finally found a good used one that was just the right size, with little use. Had an HVAC buddy check it out and was good to go. Gets things nice and warm really quick and no fumes AND I can work in the shop in the winter!!!!

Steve

[DrChas]

Yes, please explain what you did with the solar heaters, sounds interesting.
Steve

In the pictures below the white stuff in the first picture is caulk. You can see the snap thermostat cover in the middle of the panel, and the top whole is in the middle with a baffle because the panel is taller than the ceiling inside.

1) I have two panel each heating one room. Each panel is based on a 2X8 sheet of half inch plywood.

2) The basic panel is a box constructed with the 2X8 plywood framed with 1 X 1 1/4 inch pine. On top of the pine frame (the sides of the box) is a sheet of 2 foot wide aluminum flashing that I painted flat black. (I also drilled a line of 1/2 inch holes at the top and the bottom flashing to let air circulate.) On top of this, a strip of 1/4 inch thick pine, and then finally a layer of the corrugated plastic glazing that is used on green houses. This whole sandwich is screwed together, and then framed with 1 X 2 inch aluminum angle.

3) The basic box is screwed to a south facing wall of my house. (I didn’t bother with insulation since I figured that the house wall was insulation enough). I mounted the open box with a few big screws, The flashing, glazing and frame were installed later.

4) The connection to the house is through two 4 inch aluminum drier vent pipes that were cut through the building wall. One is at the top, one is at the bottom. The top one is capped with a drier vent louver that prevents “thermal siphoning”, that is cold air from back cycling into the house at night. The lower vent is capped with a muffin fan to blow air through the heater when it is warm enough.

5) Once the plywood panel is installed, and the vents and the wiring (below) is installed the flashing, glazing and frame can be installed.

5) The electricals: In the middle of the panel (protected from the flashing by a small plywood cover) is a “snap thermostat”. I chose a “close on rise” snap disk thermostat that closes (completes the circuit) when the temperature rises above 90 degrees, and opens (turns off) when the temperature drops below 70. If I had it to do over again I would have gone for 100/80 or something like that. The muffin fan is a 12 volt fan. The nice thing about these is that you can control the speed of the fan by changing the voltage, so I bought a radioshack transformer that had a switch on it for voltages between 3 and 12 volts. The truth is I have never used anything but the highest setting. The snap thermostats were kind of hard to find when I made these, but in the last few years they have started to show up on solar DIY sites.

6) I built a box that mounts the fan over the lower hole and has a switch and a plugin for the transformer. I also added slot to hold a piece of furnace filter to keep the air clean. The circuit runs from the transformer to the switch to the snap thermostat to the fan and back to the transformer. If you want you can also wire in a low voltage room thermostat since things are 12 volts. I did, but have realized that in the winter nobody is going to complain that your room is too hot, so I just crank those to 90 degrees. My advice: don’t bother!

7) The way this works is that during heating season you switch the fan on. The fan will go on whenever the snap thermostat is closed, which means that the panel has heated up to at least 90 degrees. The fan runs forcing cool air at the bottom of the room into the panel, and forces hot air out the top. At night when the panel cools down the snap thermostat opens and turns off the fan. The louvers on the top vent close, and the panel shuts down.

8) For the summer I installed four bolts sticking out of the outer aluminum frame. I use those bolts to hold a 1/4 inch plywood cover over the glazing. Not really necessary, but I figure it effectively shuts down the system during the hottest part of the year.

I don’t vouch for this web site, I got it in a quick web search, but they give a schematic for something very similar to what I built, and they do sell the snap thermostats. My problem with theirs: It is way to expensive, and frankly vertically mounting it on a south-facing wall is a dead easy way to go. It works fine, and most of the insulation issues go away. Also snow coverage is never a problem. Also, I went with 12 volt wiring to avoid the issue of having line voltage running all over the place.

http://www.solar-catalog.com/heat-http://www.solar-catalog.com/heat-solar_air.html

Here is a reasonable article on building a solar collector

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/2006-12-01/Build-a-Simple-Solar-Heater.aspx

[SteveR]

Very cool, Thank you.

Our house came with something similiar on it, but does not work very well. A fan forces air thru a pipe that begins in the basement, up thru a first floor panel and then a second floor panel. BUT then it goes up thru attic and then down to interior spaces. The cold attic air cools off the warmed air too fast. I was thinking of how to break them up and have the warmed air go directy into the space....I think what you did will make them operate a lot better.

Thanks for taking the time to write that up!
Steve

[dbhost]

Just FWIW, with all the "Free firewood" postings I see all the time on craigslist and the local paper, i would be REAL prone, if I was building a new, stand alone shop, to put in a wood stove, with some sort of fan system, and appropriate fresh air intake...

[ironhat]

+1 on the solar heat. I've been using a simplified form of those collectors which I pulled from TMEN. They called for the collector box to placed at an angle. But, I stood it up as you did but did so in the only window in the shop . That would make it terribly undersized but the point is that a little 'free' heat is appreciated when the bill comes due for the Hot Dawg screwed to my ceiling. It sure does bring the temp up in a hurry.

[Pappy]

All the solutions offered so far are either messy, expensive, or time consuming to build.

Put it up in my back yard and heat won't be a problem! Cooling may be another story......