Need advice. What type of heating system to use in a woodworking shop and how to reduce the risk of fire and explosion ?
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Replies
Depends where you are, shop, and your experience with heating. My friend down the street with a lot of experience with wood stoves will burn scrap and sawdust. I opted for a mobile home propane furnace. My shop is 26 x 30 with R-19 insulation, don't need that much heat. I am in upstate NY. No one answer.
I leave in Montreal area in Quebec Canada. Pretty cold during winter. We use to heat with electric baseboard but I'm afraid of the sawdust in the baseboard, etc.
Thanks
Mini split A/C units are heat pumps and many can also supply heat. Best of both worlds in a single install.
I installed a mini split winter of 2023 replacing a wall hung propane heater. Now to have A/C awesome.
I installed a propane heater that draws fresh air from outside of the shop and exhaust outside the shop as well. It is a Modene 30,000 BTU unit and works well. A mini split would work but you will have to clean the filter very often.
I put a mini-split in my garage and I get both heat in winter and cool air in summer. Very happy with it and adds minimal risk. Where I live it’s cooling I really needed but find it nice to be able to warm shop when it gets on the cool side.
I installed one of those Mr Heat infrared over the head propane heaters only to discover that a byproduct of propane is water and the humidity in my shop went way high. I switched to an electric version. Venting to the outside, it seems to me that you would then be taking conditioned air and dumping it . In some countrys in Europe things like dryers that vent to the outside have been banned just for that reason.
You could relocate your shop to Santa Barbara!
I've had a propane heater as a way to heat up the shop quickly. Along with a electric radiant tube heater. The propane gets turned down or off and the tube heater does most of the work. I replaced my large window AC unit over the summer. This unit also has 10k BTU of heat. I'll be curious to see if this and the tube heater will be enough with the winters getting warmer every year.
Also throwing a blanket over your cast iron before you call it a night keeps the moisture from condensing on the iron. No rust. Years ago I was complaining about rust and an old timer said "use a blanket" too simple. I was amazed.
I would think the original poster's shop was near Montreal so AC is not that essential. In my shop with the wall and ceiling insulation I do not need AC in the x summer because we don't get many days above 35C and the interior is 13C cooler. I have insulated windows and doors, no overhead door. I can't vent the shop in the summer because warm outside air will hit the cooler saw surface, condense, and form rust. Good luck.
If you need both heat and ac, I believe mini-split is the way to go. Initial cost is a bit high, but operating cost and maintenance are very low.
Do you plan to heat and cool the space full time? My understanding is mini-splits and heat pumps in general can have problems recovering from very cold conditions. My shop is unheated unless I am in it and a propane heater (with a CO detector) works well for a quickly heating up a cold shop. Also Boeshield T9 for preventing rust when cold equipment meets warm humid air.
It depends.
If your space is well insulated, or relatively small then a heat pump/mini-split is the safest, most efficient way to heat, especially if you are not in an especially cold area They work really well down to about -5c and tolerably down to -20c - they will work below that but efficiency falls off. You only need to consider the temperature range where you might actually want to use the shop of course. They need filters cleaning regularly to work best and are dirt cheap to run - the best option by far if you have the initial price to buy one.
If your space is well-insulated and not overly large, in a cold area or cash is short then a simple electric fan heater or two may be best.
If your space is poorly insulated or large, then radiant resistive heaters can be advantageous - expensive to run, but they heat the work area very well and a cold shop feels warm almost immediately. I use two 2KW units in my pole barn shop. Temps are rarely below +5c. Usually powered by solar.
There is significant risk using wood burning stoves. These do need to be kept away from ignition sources and that means there needs to be a decent space away from any sawdust. Seems obvious, but space is at a premium in most woodshops so people are prone to taking shortcuts.
Late on this one, but here's what's upcoming very soon in my shop here in WI.
- Mr. Heater 50K BTU garage heater for a fully insulated 2-1/2 garage. Sold on this after 3 years with a "yellow" propane heater that I restarted every 90 minutes to get the area to a reasonable 60 degrees. Tired of that; can do better. Younger brother 15 minutes away has had the 80K BTU heater in his 3-car garage for 3 years now and loves it.
- Menards had a sale recently, brought the 50K BTU unit down to less than $300 after a $92 discount and the 11% rebate. Not a shabby deal. Two young (late 30's) solid tough bucks that I go to church with, plumber and HVAC pros, to do the work for me.
- Good dust collection with my machines, and two overhead box fans with good air filters mitigate risks.
- Looking forward to more comfortable working conditions this winter.
/VR/
Tom Schwendtner
Hartford WI
I'm in far northern WI. I have an overhead, radiant tube, propane fired heater. The radiant heat heats the concrete floor directly, and the floor stays warm right to the edges. Cold concrete sucks more and more the older your legs get. The heater draws in outside air for combustion and exhausts directly, so there is no exchange of shop air.
We put a ground source (geothermal) heat pump in the house, and this gadget is amazing. If I'd had the $ when I built the shop, I'd have considered this.
I've found some of those foam rubber interlocking mats they sell at the home center help a lot on older legs when strategically placed.
take a look at a sealed combustion chamber/forced air furnace. air is taking in from outdoors and exhausted through a double chambered pipe through the roof vent. high efficiency 90%. no chance of fire or explosion due to dust.
I have an overhead radiant natural gas tube heater.
The reason I got it is because it does not have a fan that blows dust everywhere.
That was my main consideration when looking for a shop heater.
I bought an LG mini-split from an online vendor named eComfort. Called them with the key info (my location, shop size, insulation, etc) and they recommended a unit for me that both heats and cools. These units are extremely energy efficient and use little juice. I keep mine on year round and could not be happier.
I tried wood stoves and a wood burning furnace, then settled on overhead propane radiant tube heating, in upstate NY. Works quite well, and will heat my shop (34'x36' plus upstairs) from around 32*F to 65*F in about 30 minutes. No insulation in the walls, 6" of rigid foam in the roof. Neither of the wood burning alternatives could heat the space and the furnace, which was forced hot air, blew around dust more than anything else. Now I flip a switch, take off my jacket after 10 minutes, and get to work as the shop warms up further. I usually turn it off completely when I'm not in the shop but will leave the thermostat set to 50* overnight if I know I'll be back in the morning.
Hope this helps.