shop heat question

wjytexas

Well-known Member
I know many if not most of you live in regions where you get a real winter but do much of your restoration/repair work during the winter. Iv'e seen wood stoves in some posts and I assume your smaller shops are heated with propane or natural gas or possibly electricity. How do you heat when you are painting a tractor or large implement? Here in Central Texas a lot of the time we have highs in the day of 60 - 70 or as last Monday, 82 but also will go a week in the 40's and 50's, too cold to paint. Humidity can also be a problem. Thanks, John
 
I am over here in south east Texas. It has been one day of sunshine. Then six days of clouds and rain. How to you adjust for the temp changes.
 
I heat with kerosene and air tight wood stove . Wood stove doesn't hurt as long as your not doing a full repaint. Not enough fumes to cause a fire.
 
I'm in SW Washington- Winter daytime temps usually about 45, seldom below freezing. We also have the cheapest electricity in the country, at about 5 cents a KW. I'm building a well insulated shop that I want to be able to use in winter. Wood is free, but by the time it heats up the space, I'm ready to go in for a nap. Neighbor has propane, and it pencils out better than electric. Check out Modine Hot Dawg heaters at qcsupply dot com. Of course, if you have access to natural gas, it seems to be the cheapest for heating.
 
Years ago my dad installed a couple of year old oil heater from a house. The unit is just a little oversize being from a house but that shop was up to 60 or 70 degrees in no time. Was air heat so you need to angle the output with a couple of ducts. Really works! Nice thing with this kind of heater is if you are doing a several day project just turn the heat down to 55. Next day you kick her back up and you are toasty in very little time. One thing about a shop, change the air filters regularly! They get full of crud from you projects.
 
I repurposed the electric heat part of the AC system from the house when I replaced it a few years ago.

It easily heats the garage. The elements never get glowing hot, so it would have minimal fire hazard. The only concern would be the blower, it's a bit overkill, would tend to stir dust.
 

I am in NH. My shop is 40x50x17 and is fully insulated. I have an inner room that is 16x22x10 which is also insulated. The inner room has a catalytic non-vented propane heater, and the heat that comes out of that room will normally keep the main part above 37 degrees. I keep the inner room at 50 degrees then turn it up to 60 when I go in. It runs me about $450 a year and propane here is $2.80/ gal. When I am going to paint in cold weather I heat the main part up with a propane salamander. Propane will give off moisture but that is rarely a problem because the dry air sucks it out pretty quickly. I don't have to spend half my shop time getting a fire going and getting it heated up.
 
I heat with fuel oil furnace from a mobile home in one shop and a hanging propane heater in another. I have painted when really cold out by having the parts in the warm area then moving to an unheated enclosed area to spray because I did not want all that overspray in my main shop. It was below freezing I can't remember exactly but that paint went on beautifully. After spraying I moved it back into the heated area.
 
54x75 is heated portion two infared tube heaters love them. office is heated by electric forced air. but I have a lot of air exchange when I need it and heat gets right back real quick. I used to paint and I isolated area in shop and moved warm air in an across to keep fumes out so electronic pilot was not issue. best thing to do thou is a paint booth made for it, neighbor has that in his shop. I know longer do paint jobs.
 
The area of my shop that I heat is 22x36. I have an ancient propane house furnace, going back to probably the 1960's. It has cast iron burners, and when you get that cast iron heated up, that old gal will throw out some heat.

Now, for painting. When I paint, I run the exhaust fan to pull the fumes out of the shop, and I can't run the exhaust fan and furnace at the same time 'cause the fan reverses the air flow up the vent from the furnace. So what I do when I'm painting in extreme cold weather is warm the shop up along with what I'm painting, shut the furnace off, and paint before the shop gets cold. Then when I'm done painting and the fumes are pulled out of the shop, kick the furnace back on to dry the paint.

Depending on what and how I'm painting, I may warm the shop back up between coats.

Make sense? Works for me.
 
Billy I think I may have ask before but how far are you from Canton Texas, We normally stay in Sulfur Springs then go on down to Canton for the first Monday trade days 3 or 4 times a year.
 
Please let me add to your post. The next door neighbor has a beautiful two car / workshop garage. He has one of those Hot Dog heaters on propane. He flips it on and his garage gets up to 60 in a nice amount of time. He is going to switch it to natural this spring. The pipes are in from changing his house heat but just didn't get to it. Now here is why I said something. Those heaters can fail. Will be heating just fine and then the blower just shuts off. Go over and give it a slap on the left side. If the fan comes back on you have a control board going bad. Little circuit board about 3x4 inches. The relay goes bad. Do yourself a favor, write down all of the information and either look it up on the net or go to a HVAC store. Not very expensive if you keep it as a spare. His died after about six years. Running fine now. Good thing to keep in stock.:)
 
I am 108 miles from Canton. 165 from Sulfur Springs. About a two hour drive. Depending on how bad the HWY departmen.Has screwed up the highway.
 
I have a Mr Heater Big Maxx, hangs from the ceiling, doesn't take up any floor space. Burns Natural gas, vents out the wall, 50,000 btu, works very well for me.
 
When I poured the floor of my shop I put insulation under the slab and ran PEX lines so I could add radiant floor heat at a later time. I haven't yet done that because I haven't finished insulating it. I expect to finish that job in a couple of weeks, then maybe this summer I'll get gas ran out to the shop and plumb up the floor heat.

Regardless of heat source, I think insulation is the key. Not just in the ceiling (or roof) and walls but also in the floor. That way the slab serves as a huge thermal mass that keeps the shop temperature fairly constant throughout the day.

I have a ceiling in my shop, but if you don't, consider putting a small ceiling fan under the peak of the roof to circulate the warm air when you have the heat on. It doesn't need to be very big to make a big difference.

While I'm waiting to get my floor heat hooked up, I use a torpedo heater to warm up the shop, then switch to a radiant kerosene heater. Although they get the shop warm enough to work comfortably, they add a lot of humidity, which leads to rusty tools, etc. So I definitely recommend using a vented heater of some sort.
 
(quoted from post at 09:34:43 02/21/20) I heat with kerosene and air tight wood stove . Wood stove doesn't hurt as long as your not doing a full repaint. Not enough fumes to cause a fire.


Jackson65, how do you determine that? Do you use a meter? My training has taught me that you could paint all day in proximity to a source of ignition or get blown up in ten seconds. It depends on the LEL. I hope no one believes you.
 
I have a 42 x 32 shop heated with one overhead infared tube. Warms up the shop fast. What I like about it is you don't have a draft when it's working, it warms objects instead of just blowing air and it seems like you never feel a temp change when it kicks on or off. The floor also gets warmed up. I do a fair amount of painting. Once a year I clean the reflectors. If I had to do it over,I would do it the same way.
 
Not sure if they're considered the same thing, but I love my radiant tube heaters and they are very efficient. The one in the little barn is probably too low, but its been keeping the barn at 45 in SE MI (turned up to 60 when occupied) in the winter for 18 years for less than $300 a year with no problems. It only takes about 30 minutes to go from 45 to 60 in the insulated (small) barn. It will raise the large uninsulated barn from 20 to 55 in a couple of hours (faster if it is sunny out).
cvphoto5947.jpg


cvphoto5949.jpg
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top