To Heat or Not to Heat the Shop?

[GBS]

And whatever is in the shop would likely be cold too. Paint/oil, engines, boats. It's one thing to grab a cold, low conductive thing (like a wood hammer handle) and another to work on a big heat sucking piece of metal, like a boat motor....And those would stay cold far longer after getting the air temp back up....

Originally Posted by vetleap

It's a 13 x 26 shop heated with a 5kw electric heater on off peak rates of .054 per kw. Maybe that makes it a no brainer.

Thanks for the replies.

I'd set it on a timer to turn on only during off-peak when you're not working out there.

I heat my 32 x 40 with an elec furnace set to 45 but also fire up a forced air wood furnace when I work out there. My off-peak is 9.5 cents; if my elec was as cheap as yours I'd give my wood stove away and not mess with it. I have my furnace set to run only during off peak.

If you want a suggestion for a cheap furnace timer....don't laugh.

I have my trouble light with a 40 W bulb plugged into a regular clock timer. I hang the light next to the thermostat and its timed to turn on in the morning (peak), the heat from the light warms up the thermostat and shuts off the furnace. About 6 p.m. the light turns off and the thermostat cools down and turns the furnace on.

I'd use a regular programmable thermostat but I can't find one that goes down low enough in temp. I use an old mercury thermostat that's mounted off center so 45 degrees is about 65 on the thermostat. I'm sure there are better ways but I had all of these parts on hand and its worked for nearly 20 years.

[97roughneck]

I keep my 45x80' shop at 50F. Natural gas with 3" spray foam. Right now it's at 60 because I'm working on my grandson's Christmas presents. But either way, it never goes lower than 50F. I'm in SD.

[Miltona]

I keep my 30x40 at 55. Natural gas fired water heating in floor heat.

[kzoofisher]

Hard to beat the efficiency of a condensing boiler and in floor heat. With good exposure you can use passive solar and maintain 55-60 pretty easily so the boiler hardly runs at all. Assuming you get any sun in winter. Downside is loss of wall space and you need quality window treatments or you still get passive solar in the summer.

[reddog]

I built a 40 x60 x 16 high pole shed 2 years ago that we are living in now with in floor hydronic heat and a natural gas wall Navien boiler/ on demand hot water heater. There are two zones 1950 sq ft shop and 450 living quarters. We keep both at 70 degrees. We're building a new 45 x69 shop up at the new acreage and am also putting the same system in. Once you get the mass warm the recovery period is very, very short for the boiler to catch up from opening a overhead door. If you use your shop often, keep the heat up where it's comfortable.. I'm also in SD.

[AllenW]

Shut mine down years back for a week or so, ended up spending better part of a weekend removing all the rust from my table saw and end mill.
I now leave it at about 45 when not in and 65 when using.

By keeping it at 45 it takes much less time to heat back up also.

Al

[muskyed]

Have a 26' x 40" woodworking shop that I built about 6 years back when we moved. Previous one at our old house had a ceiling mounted space heater, This one I splurged and put in, in floor heat. Also poured the slab 5 1/2" thick. Keep the temp at 61 deg, and it's really comfortable. Boiler kicks on about twice a day in the winter, and when I am out in the shop with the ceiling lights on, the temp will increase about 3 deg, so the heater doesn't run at all. Cost me a little over $4000 for everything for the infloor heat. I installed everything myself, except I paid to have an extra propane line run, and connected up, from our existing tank. Also if doing it again, would probably pay the cement contractor to lay the floor piping before pouring the concrete. That way they would have been responsible in case they damaged a line when pouring the concrete. I was on pin and needles, watching them walk all over the piping during the concrete pour. Thankfully everything pressure tested.

[Yellow Fever]

I to keep mine about 50 degrees in the winter but hadn't turned it on yet, went out the other day and found my "Coke Fridge " wasn't working, checked the temp in the garage and because i hadn't turned on the heat it wasn't working. So i turned on the heat and within 15 minutes the compressor on the fridge kicked in. Lesson learned.