I was wonderingabout heating options on a new built garage. Does anyone know about the radiant floor heat?? I was wondering if that is an option. any ideas would be appreciated. thanks, jeff
I guess you can leave your bandsaw or other machine unattended so when it jams, it starts to burn up.... (see post about lawsuit) Just kidding. I am no help. Would there be any problems with low lying fumes, and the heat source being in/ from the floor? I think I've seen somewhere they run heated water through pipes in the floor?
in floor heat is awesome. alot more expensive in the beginning but I think its worth it. toasty feet. Gary
We just stay in the house around here till Winter comes and goes, which is usually the last two weeks of January.... Just another shitty day in Paradise... it was about 80º today... it's almost 9 and still in the mid 60's.
The winter is the best time to do building. I have to have the building done spring so I can get out there and burn up the road!! I was wondering how expensive that in floor heat is??? Maybe if I can include it in my build costs. I will be building a little shop soon ,( I wont be able to use it for a while, gotta rebuild the house first!). I was just wondering what my options were. jeff
I'm putting together a 38x40 shop at the moment, in fact the roofing's finally going up this weekend. When I did the slab I put down 3/4" pex for radiant floor heat. I spent about a grand on the tubbing. I did 5 runs of 300' or less running to a pair of 6 port manifolds I made out of 3/4 galv. piping and pex fittings. Once I get power to the building I plan on using an LP hot water heater rated for space heat service and a single ciculator to run the system. This will be a closed circut system with no domestic water service and no incoming water to the system. So as I understand it, until I drill a well and get water to the shop I'll need to check the water levels in the heater every few months and top it off by hand as needed. I ran the pex on 12" centers and kept the bends mellow. I used zip ties to fasten it to the rebar and of course there was 2" hard foam insulation under the slab. The LP water heaters seem to run about $450 in my area. The elec water heaters are pretty cheap, but running them here is not cheap.
how big is the space you could install a wall mounted heatpump if its not that big of a grage and have ac in the summer too.
My garage is 26 X 28 and I heat it with a wood stove made out a semi truck fuel tank, its cheap, wood is free, the only downside is you have to warm up the garage before you can work in it ( 20 minutes or so) and you cant leave paint and stuff in there in the winter cause it will freeze if you let the fire go out. but it has been -40 outside and i've been in the garage working in a t-shirt, best part though, its free heat!!
Heat in the floor. Fantastic. Nice to be able to lay on the floor to work in the middle of winter. Floor retains the heat long after the heater has turned off. Thermosted of course. I have a very small propane hot water wall mounted heater that heats the whole house. Good luck with whatever you come up with. Fourdy
Heat the water with one of those wood heater buildings....it's a seperate little building about the size of a small shed that you stoke up with wood...that makes for pretty cheap heat...and there's a Hamber that installs this shit...not trying to spam, just trying to help out....Louver Dude is a licensed plumber..pm him if you're looking for more info...
Hrm. It's about 8degrees here right now, and I was planning on spending the morning in the garage tearing out the inner fenders on the truck... oh, and I don't have heat yet. Wow... you Socal folks don't know what you're missing! Ben
I'll chime in on the floor heat recommendation. I don't have it in my garage, but we use it a lot in the Zoo where I work. They are amazingly trouble free and extremely efficient. If I built a garage from scratch, there is no question I would do it. Any of our systems subject to freezing use a propylene glycol mix as the medium. They can be fitted with pressure tanks so there is virtually no fluid loss. The ones we have that are straight water are plumbed into our well water system for easy replenishment, but we don't have to do it very often. I don't know what codes will allow on a city water system.
You can get a waste oil (motor oil) heater for less than $2,000 that will run you out of your shop. Friend has two larger units at his rod shop. They provide great heat and he expects them to pay for themselves in about three years.
I have a large area in my shop un heated. for the end where I am working, 16 x40 I close the area off with a curtain, and use a small propane heater, and the sun ,shop faces south. works pretty good ,but we don't have a extended cold period.
The floor heat does sound very appealing. What kind of pluming do you use in the floor?? Is there a special heater and what about a circulation pump?? What do you use for a therastat??
If you are just out there now and then you can get radiant heaters that heat the objects they shine on without heating the area. Put them on a timer like the tennis court lights so you don't forget them and you will use very little power.
It's better to leave it at a target temp. the radiant heat will not recover as fast as a furnace or other devices. Like when you open the garage door for any lenght of time. The tubing is cheap. So, I would use 5/8 pex on 12" centers make your runs no longer than 200'. If you are going to use the door a lot you can get a little fan coil unit to keep the chill off which you set about 5 degrees lower than your floor thermostat. In the apartment since you already have a boiler for the floor you can use radiant fin tube baseboard or a coil furnace or just more radiant floor. With a wet system (boiler) your posibilities are endless you can even put in a towel warmer for your shop rags. Good luck
It's better to leave it at a target temp. the radiant heat will not recover as fast as a furnace or other devices. Like when you open the garage door for any lenght of time. The tubing is cheap. So, I would use 5/8 pex on 12" centers make your runs no longer than 200'. If you are going to use the door a lot you can get a little fan coil unit to keep the chill off which you set about 5 degrees lower than your floor thermostat. In the apartment since you already have a boiler for the floor you can use radiant fin tube baseboard or a coil furnace or just more radiant floor. With a wet system (boiler) your posibilities are endless you can even put in a towel warmer for your shop rags. Good luck
Hiboy, The shop we've got on our acreage was built (but unfinished) by the previous owner. It's got in floor heat and is awesome. 3 zones on the main level and 3 zones (currently turned off) on the upper level. It runs a main boiler (about 2'x2'x1-1/2' and heats the entire buiding. Each zone has a separate in line pump as well as two booster pumps for the complete system(I think). If you're interested, I can send you a couple of photos of the set-up on the week-end along with the brand names. It's installed in the utility room in the shop (about 6'x6' and contains the boiler system and pumps (pumps are mounted on the wall), a hot water tank for the potable water system, and a toilet. You can actually not use a boiler and run a conventional hot water tank to heat the glycol. The hot water tank we've got is rated for potable water or for use in a floor heating system... would save you some money going this way. I leave the thermostat in the working area at about 12C and it consistantly stays about 65F in the shop (when it's -20C outside......... and it's coming unfortunately). It also has a sensor that mounts outside that kills the boiler in the summer when the temperature reaches a certain point (must work off of interior-exterior temperature difference) to save some additional money. Kind of long winded, but it's a great system. Again, if you need more info, let me know. Here's the shop it's heating. Fairly big shop (52'x32'), and the heating system takes up very little space.
I did a do-it-yourself slab heat system in 2001. It's a closed system that runs a glycol water mix and has only needed topping up once since turning it on. The top up was about 2 months after turning it on. The pipe I used was Kitec, it's just an alternative to PEX. The heater is a gas fired water heater. I leave it on "vacation" setting, that keeps the fluid at about 30 to 35 C (85-95 F) the electric circulation pump is activated by thermostat. I usually set the thermostat at 10C (50F) making the garage plenty comfortable. An air temp of 50 when the floor is warm is a great environment to work in. Even at -30 recovery is quick after moving cars in and out. That "hot rock" doesn't flow out the open door like hot air does. I also set the heater 2 feet off the floor to allow for heavier than air fumes on the floor (solvent spills and the like) It's nice to buy time to react early.
If you can do it, floor heat is the way to go. My shop is heated by a gas forced air unit near the ceiling. If the room is 65 degrees, the floor is still super cold. After a day of crawling under cars I'm cold to the bone and have to sit next to the fireplace for an hour to warm up. It sucks. My buddy has floor heat and the dust doesnt blow around so the shop stays clean, and his feet are never cold. He keeps his shop at 50 and I'd swear its warmer than mine. If its done right theres no explosion hazard with floor heat either...And its cheaper to operate. Go for the radiant floor heat. Cword- that looks like a great system for little dollars... Nice job!
I guess when you pour the floor you need to pump? It seems like using wheelbarrows would damage the pipe?
The tubings pretty tough. I wouldn't think the rubber tire of a wheel barrow would damage it but you could check with the supplier. It would likely be a good idea to pressure test the lines before you pour the slab though.
I used 3/4" pex brand tubing from home depot and std 3/4" galv. fitting to make the manifold. The water heater and the rest of the parts are all std. off the shelf plumbing parts.
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