I’m planning a 24×34 shop with a slab on grade floor. I intend to put 2×6 sleepers over the slab with a plywood floor. I’ve been planning an overhead sealed gas unit for heat but worry about the noise and the draft.
Is there a way to use radiant heating in the floor. If it’s in the slab, it seems to me that the wood floor over it makes for inefficiency. I want to be able to open up the wood floor to install DC, electric lines, etc.
What to do?
Replies
You might want to look at an overhead gas radiant heaters.
Detroit Radiant is one brand.
I work in a school warehouse heated with overhead gas radiant heaters and they're great. A couple of guys from the company that installed them were in the building today and I explained my question to them. They immediately suggested the radiant heaters, but there's a problem. Wisconsin codes would require a 12' ceiling, I don't remember all the facets of it but it includes a 2' space above the heaters so I don't think that's a solution. (The maker of the system requires only 8')
The guys suggested a hot water radiant baseboard system so I think I'll explore that.
Thanks for the reply.
I take it that you have eliminated the wood style radiant style, but I'm not sure as to why. (By "wood style" I mean the type of radiant that attaches the tubes to the underside of the subfloor, and backes them with reflective metal panels.)
I have always felt that this would be a great heat source for a shop.....no combustion/dust issues, and no ducts and the accompaning windstorm. Base board radiators in my shop would end up being useless, as theres always lumber or ply leaning against the wall!
The downside is the relatively slow response time. I imagine that turning it down every night would result in a cold shop for hours the next morning as you wait for it to heat up. I think that this is the reason many radiant applications include some form of auxilary heater to get things "up to speed" so to speak.
JMHO!Jake Gulick
[email protected]
CarriageHouse Design
Black Rock, CT
>> The downside is the relatively slow response time.
And even that can be addressed by a programmable thermostat.
Thanks for the reply. I'm not considering "wood style radiant" because I see myself pulling up the floor (plywood) to add pipes, DC, air, & electric lines.
Donshop,
I have a York, forced air, gas furnace. It is 80,000 BTUs, 90% efficient, upright model. Furnace sits in corner of my shop (24 X 36), and has a 3ft vertical plenum attached to top of furnace. Plenum has cut outs on 3 sides where I installed shutter-style heating grates. Furnace has a sealed combustion chamber ; whereas it draws combustion air from outside of shop via pvc pipe. Because unit is 90% effiecient, it also utilizes another piece of 3 inch dia PVC pipe as its chimney...a conventional type chimney is not needed. These pipes vent directly out the side wall. A hole was cut in side of furnace for "return" air. A large box filter ( similar to those used on filtered "air movers" sold by Jet) was installed over this opening. One filter will last 2 to 3 heating seasons if blown out regularly with compressed air.
90% furnaces give off a bit of condensate ( water) that flows to a small electric pump and is ultimately pumped to a nearby drain. Because I did not install plumbing in my workshop, I simply attached condensate tubing to a large plastic garbage can, and once a week pour the water outside in my yard. When heated at 70 degrees, the furnace will expell about 14 gallons of condensate in a weeks time. If left heated to only 60 degrees most of the time, about 10 gallons.
I really only needed a 60,000 BTU model, but the 80 was all that was available in the sealed combustion mode that I was seeking at that time. The furnace is on a simple thermostat. It heats very nicely. Can heat from 50 degrees to 70 degrees in a matter of less than 5 minutes. Normally I leave thermostat around 55 degrees and then "up" the heat when I am working...turn back down when I finish for the day.
As for noise, not much at all. Furnace does not have to run very much. Stays warm a long time ( I do have good insulation in walls and ceiling.) Cost for entire sysytem was under $1200. If you do a lot of finish work, you would want to set up a room to keep dust from blowing on finished work....this is only down side of a forced air unit that I am aware of....otherwise, a great source of fast, steady, cheap heat.
LOL.
Davo
Edited 2/13/2003 1:47:07 AM ET by Davo
My workshop has frequent flammables / high VOCs, that's another downside of forced air unless the unit is outside of shop. This is especially true for folks finishing with solvent-based materials. Waterbourne sucks.
remodeler
Thanks for the reply. I haven't gotten into high tech finishing, just using wipe on poly, but I hope to when I've got the space to do it and not in the basement of the house. Don
Thanks for the reply. I'm glad I got into Breaktime and Knots. I'm getting lots of good advice. Don