Any Shop HVAC Opinions?

Howdy all,

Well, the wife talked me into moving to town (still have the property though) but she had to "allow" me to build a new garage/shop. The garage is 28x28 with an upstairs 12x28 room (pool, TV and cool refreshing beverages) a bathroom and the interior will be completely finished.

Any HVAC guys out there?

I�m going to plumb it for nat gas, 200A service so my options are wide open. I was thinking about radiant floor heating, but I would also have to run duct work for the air conditioning so radiant was out. Overhead gas heating was considered, but if I�m running air I might as well look into a regular home unit.

Lots of electrical, cat5, plumbing etc in the walls so I was thinking about ceiling mounted registers and fans to move it around. Also thought about exposed, hung 8� dia ducting with vents. I also have room in the upstairs eves to install the heat/ac unit (noise?) or I can put it outside on a slab. It very rarely snows here and the outside temps average 30 winter and 100+ summer. I�m going to keep it about 50 in the winter and about 80 in the summer. I�d like a system that will be able to heat it up quickly when I want to work, but is economical to run year round.

I invited the local heating contractor over and he told me it would cost around 5 grand. Didn�t give me any specifics, didn�t mention tonnage, types of ducting or anything else, just said 5,000 bucks. Needless to say I�m a little leery.

Any ideas? ANY and ALL opinions are greatly appreciated!

Scott

We just finished a 30x40 woodshop, 10 Foot ceiling, 6" FG insul in walls, 18" in ceiling. Heat it all with 50 gal HW heater, NG fired. Granted, it's not been super cold yet (highs in 50's, lows to upper 20's), but the water heater runs maybe a total of 90 mins per day...told Tom we should have stuck with 40 gal. I did the BTU calc's and 40 was easily sufficient here in Iowa. 50 gal was CHEAPEr (?) so that's what he bought.

You could just as easily route a zone or two to the ceiling/2nd floor and heat it, too. Can't wait to build my own shop.

Total cost (including 2" HD foam insulation under slab) was less than $2K. All materials available at local Menards or on line. Now, you'd still need AC, and that I can't help much with...

Since you installing natural gas then that would be your cheapest heating efficency cost.

You don't say where your at but 400sqft/ton would be common in a area with high humidity or high dry heat, and in any event not more than 500sqft/ton for refrigeration is a good rule of thumb.

Even HVAC for homes now is a art and takes a considerable amount of time to make the correct calculations for a building. When a HVAC contractor senses that the homeowner is shopping price and not over all job requirement preformance, then most will walk away as experience has taught them there's always someone who will install a unit that won't work well and for a cheaper install cost and the homeowner looses in the end.

T_Bone