Technical Winter shop heat

Holy christ that takes the cake..

 

Don't worry too much about locating the tubes to drill lift anchors.
I am installing a lift in a "new to me" radiant floor heated shop and was concerned about drilling into a tube.
I called the local spray foam contractor and he scurried right over with a Fleur (?) infrared camera attachment on his IPhone.

The camera gave a perfect image of the heated pex tubes in the floor.

I marked the area for the lift with spray painted lines over the tubes. He'll come back and double check before I drill the anchor holes.

Cost me nothing (although I am a customer from a job last year).

 

I have overhead radiant heat. The long round steel tube style. works best with a high (15 foot) ceiling but they have garage units that can fit in the corner between wall and ceiling. some have intake and exhaust in a dual wall pipe so you can vent out through one hole and it doesn't have to go through the roof, it can go out the side wall. My shop has two rooms a 15x 40 I heat with a 60,000 BTU unit and a 40x40 room I heat with a 150,000 BTU unit. Very efficient and radiant heats things not air so in a matter of an hour or so I can go from 38 degrees to 60 degrees and the floor is warm enough to sleep on!! When I had a standard overhead forced air furnace, I'd have to wear winter boots in the shop and my feet would still get cold, not with the radiant!!

 

We built our stock cars in a garage that used this type of heater, Hard Hat. It burned kero, diesel, home heating oil. Had to keep it clean or it was a sooty mess when it fired up. But took a 30 degree garage to 70 in an hour.

 

That was what I was going to do but I kept getting different opinions. The working area of my shop is 28 x 24 with a 10'o ceiling. I will have to angle my radiant heater at 45 degrees. I have an approx. 10' and a 20' units. I thought that either I would hang the 20' the length of the shop or the 10' the width of the shop. I understand that the area closest to the heater will be the warmest but which idea would you recommend? I could always hang both one length wise and one width wise and use one or the other as need dictates. My biggest concern is. How close to vehicles, tool boxes, store materials is too close? Got both brand new and free but I don't want free to be the death of me. How is your ceiling.