How are you heating your shop this winter?

H

HallHandmade

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Jun 5, 2012
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I'm currently using two double burner tank-top heaters, as I find I can scale my usage according to my needs much more easily. One goes in each corner of the shop. I can go as low as a single burner on low for 32 hours between the two tanks, or both burners on high on both tanks for 4 hours.

It gets to single digits here in the winter and I find myself using a few tanks a week for comfortable temp during midwinter.

In my area, propane and electric are similar in cost for heating, with electric having a slight edge usually. I find that propane is a pain, but much more scalable to the brute force needed on bad days or really dirty "open door" days. I'd have to run multiple high amp circuits to scale electric like that.

I suppose a lot of folks heat their shop quite a bit with their forging and HT activities, but I'm not set up for that here unfortunately.
 
Today I was thinking of the natives in "People of the Snow," Farley Mowat's classic story about living among the inland tundra people in Northern Canada.
He expected weathertight igloos, but found that they live in tents- his curiosity was satisfied when he realized that they wear their houses- exquisitely crafted parkas and snow pants.
That's how I felt today, but heck, it was practically warm: got up to almost 35. I was doing metal fab, though, not knives today.
 
Yeah, I used to work in aerospace and most of the test pads are outdoors. It could get really nasty if we were working overtime at night in midwinter, especially doing stainless piping or anything that involved handling metal, also especially if it involved me TIG welding in place, we would have to build a modern igloo out of whatever scrap we could find to shield the weld.

My shop is so much warmer comparatively, but I'm 10x more of a sissy about it. Back then I just wore carhart pants over jeans over long Johns, and sucked it up. Sometimes I would sneak some thermacare pads into my work boots.
 
I put a ceiling mounted propane heater in the garage last year. I got it from Northern Tool. It's a 50,000 BTU. I had it just hooked up to the household propane tank (this way my wife pays for half of my shop heat). The heater was about $400 on sale, and it was $1000 to have it hooked up. It works great.
 
i have a salamander that runs on K1 and i get the shop up to 50 and shut it off. its been mild round here tho
 
Overhead 40,00 btu Modine, city natural gas. one of the best additions
I've done to the shop. My thermostat goes down to about 38. Walk in
turn it to 65 and work away. Had a salamander for years.
Ken.
 
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I start each winter shop day at the forge...gets the shop good and warm, and lots of insulation
keeps the heat till the next morning....
 
MH30T_big.jpg




It throws a ton of heat.

You can blast it to warm up the room and then back it off to maintain.


It does use up the room air.
I know I've CO 'ed myself despite keeping the door cracked open


I'd love to install one of those externally vented units.



Hot water floor heat and a BIG truck filled propane tank would be the ideal dream
 
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12345678910 said:
Hot water floor heat and a BIG truck filled propane tank would be the ideal dream
Click to expand...

#1 thing I kick myself for.... not piping the floor when I built my shop. I think a hot water tank could heat my shop well enough for me if I had done this. If I can keep my feet warm I am fine.

Chris
 
installed a wood burning stove with the hope of getting temps to a level above freezing to protect the bearings in the belt grinders, and the ones in my back and knees too. realizing that i should have spent more time with the chain saw in the woods- its about -10 below right now, without the insulation it is just not enough to get comfortable. it should be ok once we get back to teens and twenties.
 
I use a forced air wood furnace together with an oil furnace. Temperatures can go down into the -30s for days even weeks at a time, it takes a good heating system to keep ahead of the heat load. I had a siding job done and the contractor added 1 inch foam board insulation to the walls making them 8 inches thick. My heating requirements have been cut by almost in half and the place stays warm long after the woodfurnace has gone out. It is much less work to heat now.
 
I have an electric parabolic reflected IR heater behind me while I'm at the grinder. This is the first year having it, before now I just bundled up. We haven't had much bad cold yet, but so far it makes a big difference. Its cool because you can run the fans to blow out the dust and still get the warmth on the back of your legs. It doesn't make the shop warm though. We make so much dust that we keep the bay door open, and its cold. We're in the city limits, so there is not going to be a wood burning stove, and we don't forge much, so there isn't that source either. There is a gas heater at the top of the bay, but the ceiling is so high I always imagined that it would cost a fortune to heat it and never had the gas turned on. Plus, with all that dust in the air, wouldn't it be a powder keg? I've never been sure whether its safe to have the open flame going up there. The pilot light is not lit.
 
Coldest December I can remember here!

Still burning wood! I would get next to no physical exercise if I didn't cut my own wood...
 
Been the coldest December in 20 years or so. Wood furnace has run steady, and I have not used the oil furnace at all this year. My wood consumption is down by a third as the house is much tighter now with the foam board insulation and new siding. We have decent snow enough for snowmobiling and skiing, in recent years we had little snow at all a this time, but this year winter has been back to normal. Using block heaters for a couple of hours before starting up truck, and the ice fishing folks have set up shacks on the lakes. Winter is in full swing here. Today it is -17 and we are expecting more snow, then turning colder.
 
Man, just reading your guys' temps gives me chills!!! :eek:

If I'm doing physical work, then just being bundled up is okay... but standing in place at the bench trying to do fine tasks with cold fingers in a real beeyotch. :thumbdn:

The "new" shop is fully insulated with finished walls, but it has enough air volume that, coupled with a monolithic slab, it gets about as cold as the outside temp... So I do like Russ Andrews and fire up the forge in the am.

I have a Dyna-Glo kerosene heater that didn't do a damn thing in the old shop (NO insulation) but it works pretty well here.
 
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