Shop Heat Ideas

[dairyguy]

Is all diesel the same?  When I have used diesel it was the pump grade winter stuff, I suspect it's the new bio diesel stuff.  I am not fluent in diesel mechanics or fuels.  And it is just a perseption from me. Lots of variables come into play with ambient temps and flow settings.  But now I know kerosene has less BTU's.

There is a winter blend and summer blend of diesel.   In my section of NY the main difference is winter diesel has about 30% kerosene added to it for cold tempature flowability.
I bet our Canadian friends get an even higher amount of kerosene cut into theirs.

[doc henderson]

I have used the off road diesel as it is off road.  wonder about breathing the burned red dye.   :    

[Al_Smith]

Speaking of which .red dye .I've heard of tax people from say Ohio go around farm sales to check for red dye in the fill spouts .Obviously they must have found some . That stuff stays forever .

[Real1shepherd]

I get more heat out of a gallon of kerosene vs diesel.  I can use either in that old gravity feed burner.  But kerosene seems hotter and cleaner.  Just what my observation are and my 2¢.

That was all explained to me once. K1 is jet fuel without the aviation additives. If diesel was better to burn in jet turbines, then they wouldn't use the more refined jet fuel. K1 burns cleaner and safer in most kerosene heaters. But.....if you have an oil furnace, it's set up for heating oil, not K1.

Kevin

[Don P]

This past weekend i was thinking this would be nice with that horizontal flue right under the main walkway in the shop. Have the firebox door under floor outside and it heats a floor slab/horizontal flue.
Ondol - Wikipedia

[woodroe]

Inherited a 40K BTU torpedo heater and been using that occasionally
in the shop when things need tinkering on.
Had a small Logwood wood stove in there and although
my stove pipe setup was safe doubted it would  pass the insurance sniff test so
quit using that after many years.
We are down to one K-1 pump at a gas station 20 mins away and at $7 gal its
about the least expensive route for me seeing it doesn't get used much.
Bought a decent carbon monoxide detector, reads PPMs down to 0.
Haven't been able to detect any carbon monoxide using it but like others have mentioned a source of fresh air is needed , windows or doors cracked to replace
depleted oxygen from the combustion process.
Would like to put in a masonry chimney for a wood stove but not sure if the insurance Co. would approve of it.

 

[Al_Smith]

In theory that under floor thing should work .Hot water in a concrete slab  works and can often be done with nothing more than a water heater and a recirc  pump .Rather slow to heat up the slab but once done doesn't take much to keep it warm .

[aigheadish]

So far I've probably got about 10-15 hours in this little electric heater and though it doesn't warm my feet I love it. I adjusted it a bit and now it's pointing down at about 40 degrees, maybe, it is hot on my upper body. I'll have to remember to ask the wife what the bill looks like. I don't think I'm close to my 2 hours per day average, so I'm guessing 15 bucks extra this month. 

[Bruno of NH]

I'm late to the party 
I'm using 2 Chinese diesel heaters
One permanent mounted unit and a new style portable unit in a pelican style box.
These things are cheap to run and work great.
Start with a remote before heading out  
Nice dry heat

[OH_Varmntr]

New farm has a 28x40 shop that I put a ceiling in, blew in R60 cellulose, insulated the 10' overhead door and had 2" foam sprayed on the walls.  

I keep it at 50f with a 7500-watt King electric heater from Menards.  I really didn't want to go electric but I've been very happy with it.  Depending upon the outdoor temps and the wind intensity/direction it's around $50 a month to heat it that way.  The overhead door doesn't seal very well regardless of the new exterior and bottom seals it has.  It needs replaced but lead times on garage doors were crazy when I was doing the work last year.

If I'm out there and want it warmer I usually run my 40k-BTU propane heater and it warms it up to 60 in no time but I'm usually wearing overalls in the winter while out there so it's comfortable enough.

The shop had a masonry chimney that leaked badly when we moved here.  Torn it out and sold the woodburner.  Probably going to put in a thru-wall stainless chimney and bring the spare glass-front burner from the house out there for the longer shop days/nights.

Speaking of which .red dye .I've heard of tax people from say Ohio go around farm sales to check for red dye in the fill spouts .Obviously they must have found some . That stuff stays forever .

They dip tanks at farm shows too.  Rumor is running the off-road fuel through a filter of kitty litter strips the dye...

[PoginyHill]

Guess I lost track of this topic. I have a 36 X 38 garage/shop. When I installed my OWB, I put in a dedicated circuit for it. I have pex that runs along the ceiling/wall corner on 3 of the four sides. The building is insulated. For outdoor temps above 0-10 (depends on wind), inside will stay above freezing and I don't run that circuit. For colder temps, I plug in the circulator and the radiant heat from the PEX keeps the inside above 40F. If I want to work in there, I turn on one or more of 3 Modine heaters that have the PEX plumbed to them. Easily heats the space to 50F or above quickly.

If I had it to do over again, I'd have radiant heat in the floors to keep the temp around 40F and duplicate the Modine heaters for when I want to do work because they heat the space up so quickly.

But even the radiant PEX sucks up a lot of heat. Very noticeable with wood usage when I heat the garage. Good thing I like to do firewood!

[aigheadish]

R60?! @OH_Varmntr I'm surprised you have room under you to do any work! I don't think I've heard of R60.

[Al_Smith]

There comes a point where super high efficency both heat source and insulation is not a money savings deal long term .For example my recently installed high efficiency propane furnace is 95 percent .To go to 96 percent would have been another $1600 . I've got 12 inches of insulation in the attic .Another 6 inches might be a pay back in 25 years but that would put my age at 100 . So I don't use much propane but I do use a fair amount of firewood .They say cut back to 65 in the house but I'll be damned if I'm going to freeze in my own home .

[donbj]

There comes a point where super high efficency both heat source and insulation is not a money savings deal long term .For example my recently installed high efficiency propane furnace is 95 percent .To go to 96 percent would have been another $1600 . I've got 12 inches of insulation in the attic .Another 6 inches might be a pay back in 25 years but that would put my age at 100 . So I don't use much propane but I do use a fair amount of firewood .They say cut back to 65 in the house but I'll be damned if I'm going to freeze in my own home .

I'd like to pay a visit to "they" that say such things. I'd bet a lot of money their houses aren't at 65

[Al_Smith]

 :D I'd bet not either .Then on the other hand ,the mother of my children ,my first wife would prefer 60 I think .Little firey red head that must have been an Eskimo .

[OH_Varmntr]

R60?! @OH_Varmntr I'm surprised you have room under you to do any work! I don't think I've heard of R60.

Yessir, attics around here are rec'd R49-R60.  Not that uncommon.

They were supposed to blow in fiberglass but they loaded the truck wrong and had some high-dollar cellulose in it instead and did it for the same price and said something about they don't like unloading material back out of their trucks.  Guy said it ended up being 20-24" deep.   

[Al_Smith]

When I bought his house in 1997 it had radiant ceiling heat which was popular in the 80's .Problem was it only had 4" of  fiberglass in the ceiling .Over that depending on which portion of the house I used 2 6" batts or had fiberglass blown in 12" deep . The floor has 6" and the walls obviously only 4"as it was framed with 2 by 4's .
As I understand it fiberglass has an R factor of 2.2 to 2.7 ..So in theory the attic being a total of 16" would be around R 35-38 .
It's a brick house with Andersen or Geld-Wen windows with plastic vapor barrier on the outside walls .It's tight .I did an energy  audit of heat lose which is about 30,000 BTU per hour .Which considering the  amount of large windows really isn't that bad ..
I've got three sources of heat ,the ceiling radiant,propane forced air or the wood burning insert .The later has carried the load this winter .Very seldom has the propane came on the line .It's set a 72 degrees the radiant at 65 . The insert usually carries about 75 .