Shop heating and cooling.

[Dave Monk]

Just completed a 24x30 double car garage which will be my shop.  Do you guys have suggestions on heating and cooling?

[Charlie E]

No, but I'm jealous! I handle my 16x20 with a 3 radiant infra-red and an attic fan. 

[NC Scroller]

Mine is 22' x 30'.  Walls and ceiling are insulated.  A window A/C unit keeps it comfortable during a long NC summer and a 220v electric garbage heater mounted on the ceiling keeps it comfortable in the winter.

[Hermit]

My shop is 20x22. I installed a through wall a/c/heater. 13,000btu. I have no problems keeping it cool in the hot summers but I don't have the humidity you do. Winter's the same. To add....shop is also insulated with insulated garage door. Pic is from last summer. Notice the indoor/outdoor temps with humidity. My next recommendation would be a mini split but more expensive.

Edited November 19, 2018 by Hermit
Additional info

[Oldmansbike]

I have a 24x30 shop too. It's insulated but no ceiling. I installed an 80000 btu natural gas hanging heater. Works good so far. Keeps it nice and toasty in there. But I'm in Iowa and your in Texas so you may not need as big a one as I do.

[OCtoolguy]

Dave, my only advice would be.....there is no such thing as overkill.

 

[kmmcrafts]

This is something I'm also looking into.. Not so much for the A/C but heat might be helpful.. I'm one that doesn't mind the cold until it gets below 25F in my shop... then i have to wear gloves and turn my LP little buddy heater on... So this topic I'm finding quite interesting.. My issue for heating is going to be.. 1) I have a upstairs and heat is known to rise.. and not really interested in putting doors up etc to block off the upstairs.. My other thought was to make a shop partition with walls etc.. and heat only a small area.. but then.. I don't really want to put a wall down the center of my shop.. as it makes it pretty cramped for doing work on cars on the sides... nothing  I hate more is trying to do a brake job up against a wall... My shop is 24 x 32.. and I should have made the 32 the width instead of depth.. I always was backwards LOL...    

[JAC1961]

My shop is also 24x30, stand alone and well insulated walls and ceiling.

I have a woodstove in one corner that does the majority of the heating and a 220v electric heater in the opposite corner that I can use to raise the temp quicker on really cold mornings.  I also set the onboard thermostat at about 35 during really frigid weather to keep everything about freezing at night.  For cooling I just use a 5000 btu window a/c.  It does OK, but when it dies I'd probably upsize to a 8k or 10k.

If I were starting over from scratch, I'd still have some kind of wood heat, but would consider a mini-split for cooling and auxiliary heat.

[Woodmaster1]

My garage is 30x33 with R19 walls, R30 ceiling and insulated doors. I use a 50,000btu bigmaxx gas heater. The gas bill for the year was an extra $120, not bad considering I kept it at 68 all winter 24-7.

[NC Scroller]

There is one trick for shop heating I have learned over the years.  It is better to keep close to a constant temp.  In other words don't try to warm a 40 degree shop to 70.  Steel and cast iron retains temperature for a long time and if you attempt to warm the air quickly you create condensation which leads to rust.   

[kmmcrafts]

52 minutes ago, NC Scroller said:

There is one trick for shop heating I have learned over the years.  It is better to keep close to a constant temp.  In other words don't try to warm a 40 degree shop to 70.  Steel and cast iron retains temperature for a long time and if you attempt to warm the air quickly you create condensation which leads to rust.   

This is why I feel putting up walls and insulating the crap out of a small area is a smart idea.. because I'm not wasting $$ to heat / cool a whole building year round... It adds up quick to heat a whole shop.. and my shop could easily be condensed down to about a 12 x 20 or less area.. rather than heating a 24 x 32 lower level and a 14 x 32 upper level, LOL That's a lot of wasted energy to keep all that warm / cool.  

[CharleyL]

My 14 X 26 insulated shop is heated and cooled with a 22,000 btu window style heat pump mounted high through the North wall. I've added a high quality pleated furnace filter behind the plastic cover where the original filter had been, so the unit kind of doubles as my shop air filter. A 12 X 20 X 1" furnace filter just fits between the cover and the evaporator coil. I'm in South Central NC, so you will likely need more use of cooling than I do, but it does go above 100 here occasionally.

Charley

[tomsteve]

18 hours ago, octoolguy said:

Dave, my only advice would be.....there is no such thing as overkill.

 

absolutely! i have never heard anyone say something like:

'i shoulda built my shop smaller"

or

"i should have insulated less"

or

"i should have got a smaller heater"

or

"i should have bought less lumber"

or

.........

 

although an ex girlfriend once said,"do you need all that lumber?"

which contributed to the 'ex' part.

Edited November 20, 2018 by tomsteve

[Woodrush]

I use the mr heater mh80. It heats 1900 sq feet. Is very quiet and you can get almost 20 hours from a bbq propane cylinder.ive had 2 of them and they work great

[JAC1961]

Something I thought that I'd add that seems related.  I never, ever open my windows or leave doors open and I run a dehumidifier in warmer weather.  Since I started doing this a number of years ago I've had no rusty tools, no waxing or spraying of cast iron tops and electric motors to have repaired.  Kinda stinks on nice spring days, but worth it in the long run.

[CharleyL]

My main reason for going with the heat pump is that there is no open flame or high temperature surface in or on it to start a fire. Propane, city gas, wood, and electric resistance heating all have the chance of starting a fire, if adequate space is not maintained between it and the wood or wood dust. To me, they are just not safe in a wood shop environment. A heat pump doesn't get hot enough to cause a fire, and is also a good air conditioner in the Summer so two units, one for heating, and the other for cooling aren't necessary either. I'm retired now, but have been a volunteer fireman and rescue squad member since the age of 18, an EMT II, an arson investigator, and the fire marshal of a 3.8 million sq ft manufacturing facility. I know how fires start and the damage to lives and property that they can cause.  Keep your shops as safe from fire as you can, especially if it's attached to or under your home.

A wood shop is no place for high temperature heating equipment, It's just too easy for wood and saw dust to come into contact and in a small shop this is nearly impossible to avoid. In Northern climates this is not always possible either, but extra precautions, like putting the furnace in a separate fire safe room with air filtering and ducting  of the air to and from it into the shop, or better yet using a boiler type furnace and plumbing to carry heated water to radiators in the shop, is the safer way to go for a complete separation of the high temperature heating appliance and the wood shop.

Charley

[kmmcrafts]

34 minutes ago, CharleyL said:

My main reason for going with the heat pump is that there is no open flame or high temperature surface in or on it to start a fire. Propane, city gas, wood, and electric resistance heating all have the chance of starting a fire, if adequate space is not maintained between it and the wood or wood dust. To me, they are just not safe in a wood shop environment. A heat pump doesn't get hot enough to cause a fire, and is also a good air conditioner in the Summer so two units, one for heating, and the other for cooling aren't necessary either. I'm retired now, but have been a volunteer fireman and rescue squad member since the age of 18, an EMT II, an arson investigator, and the fire marshal of a 3.8 million sq ft manufacturing facility. I know how fires start and the damage to lives and property that they can cause.  Keep your shops as safe from fire as you can, especially if it's attached to or under your home.

A wood shop is no place for high temperature heating equipment, It's just too easy for wood and saw dust to come into contact and in a small shop this is nearly impossible to avoid. In Northern climates this is not always possible either, but extra precautions, like putting the furnace in a separate fire safe room with air filtering and ducting  of the air to and from it into the shop, or better yet using a boiler type furnace and plumbing to carry heated water to radiators in the shop, is the safer way to go for a complete separation of the high temperature heating appliance and the wood shop.

Charley

This has been my thinking too... Not sure how it is these days.. but back in the day when my brother was looking to heat a garage where he was going to be doing automotive repairs.. the insurance companies refused to insure any type of wood heat source... he was quite bummed because he had already purchased the woodburner etc..

Wondering what you think about a pellet stove rather than a wood burner? I have one I heat my house with.. I like wood heat.. but don't like the mess that comes with it.. The pellet stove I have is fully sealed and the only part that gets hot enough to maybe burn you is the glass window and door assembly.. not so hot you can't touch it.. but hot enough you don't want you hand on it for very long though.. Has safety devices that if it gets too hot will shut down the auger motor.. I been contemplating buying a new one for my house and putting the one we been using for the last 20 years in the shop.. Not something I'd be running while not working... also contemplated if I block off a small section of the shop to work in the heated area.. a small electric shop heater.. 

Anyone have thoughts on either of those heaters.. No need for A/C for me and up here in the North the heat pumps aren't all that effective.. 

 

My son is a volunteer firefighter.. started at the age of 14 as a cadet for out local department..

[RabidAlien]

I work out of half of our garage at home, my "heating/cooling" consists of keeping the garage door closed when its cold and running a stand-up space heater in the winter (not really adequate for heating the whole garage, but I just have it aimed at me and I don't move around a lot) and a box-fan with the garage door up in the summer.  I've also got a small Honeywell desk fan that I have elevated and pointed at my scroll saw to help with dust removal...makes for chilly hands in the winter, but doubles as cooling in the summer.

[OCtoolguy]

On 11/21/2018 at 7:43 AM, kmmcrafts said:

This has been my thinking too... Not sure how it is these days.. but back in the day when my brother was looking to heat a garage where he was going to be doing automotive repairs.. the insurance companies refused to insure any type of wood heat source... he was quite bummed because he had already purchased the woodburner etc..

Wondering what you think about a pellet stove rather than a wood burner? I have one I heat my house with.. I like wood heat.. but don't like the mess that comes with it.. The pellet stove I have is fully sealed and the only part that gets hot enough to maybe burn you is the glass window and door assembly.. not so hot you can't touch it.. but hot enough you don't want you hand on it for very long though.. Has safety devices that if it gets too hot will shut down the auger motor.. I been contemplating buying a new one for my house and putting the one we been using for the last 20 years in the shop.. Not something I'd be running while not working... also contemplated if I block off a small section of the shop to work in the heated area.. a small electric shop heater.. 

Anyone have thoughts on either of those heaters.. No need for A/C for me and up here in the North the heat pumps aren't all that effective.. 

 

My son is a volunteer firefighter.. started at the age of 14 as a cadet for out local department..

Kevin, I know that with my small shop this may not mean anything to you but the other day, I was out in my shop. I wear shorts and tee shirts most of the time and it was a mildly chilly day so I used my little Honeywell electric heater to keep the shop warm. I had on a long-sleeved flannel shirt and within a half hour, I had to turn the heater off and take off my shirt. And my shop has no insulation and has many air leaks. I guess what I'm saying is, a small electric heater does just fine if it isn't too cold outdoors and you can keep the heat inside. If you decide to partition your shop into a smaller area, you should be able to do what I am doing but maybe a bigger unit than the tiny one I have. I might add that in our MILD climate, I very seldom have to operate my heater. I am in much greater need of an A/C unit during the summers. Not because of the heat but because of the humidity. That is not going to happen though.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2018 by octoolguy

[CharleyL]

Again, in my opinion a wood shop is no place for any kind of heat source that can ignite saw dust or wood. That's why I suggested that in Northern climates that the heating system be placed in a separate fire safe room  with filtered warm air going into the wood shop from there, or a hot water system that circulates the heated water to radiators in the wood shop. Keeping the high temperature heating appliance away from the wood and saw dust. 

Space heaters like kerosene stoves, wood stoves, electric resistance heaters, etc. all get way too hot and can easily ignite wood and saw dust if used in a wood shop environment. When I lived in the Northeast, my shop had a warm air oil fired furnace, but it was in a separate room where no wood or saw dust existed. The duct work carried the heated air into the shop and the return air to the furnace went through several layers of filtration as it passed through the wall into the room with the furnace. A friend heated his shop with a natural gas furnace in a similar way, but his furnace was a hot water system, again in a separate room, with water pipes running from it to radiators in his shop. In both systems, the fire and high temperature surfaces were separated from the saw dust and wood in the shop by a wall.  Nothing in the shop was ever directly exposed to the high temperature of the furnace. Only the warmed air or water went into the shop environment.

I have only seen one pellet stove/furnace in my lifetime, because pellet availability isn't very good in the areas on the East Coast where I have lived. I liked the design and automatic features of the pellet stove, but again, I don't like the idea of having any heating appliance  in the shop that gets hot enough to ignite wood or saw dust. A pellet furnace that's located in a separate fire safe room with a way to move heated air or water to and from it into the shop is the safe way to heat a wood shop, just as is an oil or gas furnace.  Pellet stoves/furnaces, oil furnaces, gas furnaces, and electric resistance furnaces should all be located outside the shop, not in the shop, where wood and saw dust can come into contact with them. The only electric space heater that I think is safe be used in a wood shop is the oil filled radiator type electric space heater, because none of it's outside surface ever gets more than about 130 deg F.. Any other form of space heater that I know of has surfaces that can reach temperatures far above the temperature needed to ignite saw dust and wood, so they do not belong in a wood shop.  I own welding and metal working equipment, and none of this ever gets near my wood shop either. It's all in my son's metal pole barn across town from where I live. When I do any metal working I just go there to do that portion of the project, out of the Weather, but with no heating or cooling, other than a few big fans. 

Charley