Outbuilding Maintainer Heating

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CaptainMauw

ArboristSite Member
Joined
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Location
Northwest Indiana
This is a topic I haven't seen much at all and I am now dealing with in heating my shop. I have a small shop roughly 25x15 with a nice 'like new' secondary burn wood stove that I am currently hooking the chimney up for. I work on everything from small engines & chainsaws to rebuilding large diesel engines and the like, do most of my machining, and store most of my tools/paints/etc in this shop. Throughout last winter season I was sealing woodworking projects and the like and I am finishing running data out for internet to wrap it up. Obviously my primary heat for any significant time I will spend out there is wood via the stove, but I am wanting a maintainer system that can hold the shop around 50ish F around the clock (easier to heat from 50 and keeps stored chemicals healthy) when I am not out there.

Natural gas isn't an option out here and I have actively dialed back any and all propane usage on the farm because its just not financially responsible right now (although, definitely doable with 100lb propane tanks). A waste oil heater would be perfect as the farm has plenty of waste oil, but space is the problem, of which I have none available. I could hang the heater, but its the oil tank and pump that I don't have room for unless I put it outside and then you deal with cold oil not wanting to flow. Im looking at electric currently.

Im curious to know what others do/run as a maintainer heating for an outbuilding that doesn't see round the clock heating from wood (unless of course a wood boiler). What fuel source do you run and what system do you use? Things you recommend/don't recommend? Most searching yields threads/forums/web pages discussing said forms of heating as primary heat at 70*F, not maintainer at 50*F.
 
This is a topic I haven't seen much at all and I am now dealing with in heating my shop. I have a small shop roughly 25x15 with a nice 'like new' secondary burn wood stove that I am currently hooking the chimney up for. I work on everything from small engines & chainsaws to rebuilding large diesel engines and the like, do most of my machining, and store most of my tools/paints/etc in this shop. Throughout last winter season I was sealing woodworking projects and the like and I am finishing running data out for internet to wrap it up. Obviously my primary heat for any significant time I will spend out there is wood via the stove, but I am wanting a maintainer system that can hold the shop around 50ish F around the clock (easier to heat from 50 and keeps stored chemicals healthy) when I am not out there.

Natural gas isn't an option out here and I have actively dialed back any and all propane usage on the farm because its just not financially responsible right now (although, definitely doable with 100lb propane tanks). A waste oil heater would be perfect as the farm has plenty of waste oil, but space is the problem, of which I have none available. I could hang the heater, but its the oil tank and pump that I don't have room for unless I put it outside and then you deal with cold oil not wanting to flow. Im looking at electric currently.

Im curious to know what others do/run as a maintainer heating for an outbuilding that doesn't see round the clock heating from wood (unless of course a wood boiler). What fuel source do you run and what system do you use? Things you recommend/don't recommend? Most searching yields threads/forums/web pages discussing said forms of heating as primary heat at 70*F, not maintainer at 50*F.

I have a small shop (10x20 roughly) that I simply run a small electric ceramic heater in full time on low during the cold month's. Runs about $30 a month best we have figured. No muss. No fuss. Easy. Low teens and below I do kick in LP while working if needed. LP gets turned off when I go indoors overnight or away for hours. These little heaters are amazing. My shop is insulated in all walls, doors and overhead. 2x4 framing only.
 
I heat a 20x30' insulated section of my shed all winter. It has 12 ft walls so it's a fairly large space. Last winter I heated it with a propane Reznor for about $300. I keep it at 45° when I'm not in it. Of course it depends on how many times the overhead door is opened and how many cold vehicles I bring in. If you're dead set against propane have you considered a coal stove? I see you're in NW Indiana so you should have anthracite available fairly close. You could run it 24-7 and shake it down twice a day. When you're working in the shop you could open up the intake air and warm it up. I would do that if coal were readily available here. I hate propane as well.
 
I grew up around waste oil heating and used it in my own shop for years. You could hang the heater and the tank that is the way I had it in my other shop. I wouldn't ever leave it unattended. I used a tube propane heater for back up in that shop. I set it a 40 degrees at night. That shop was a 40x40 14 foot side wall. Didn't take a lot of propane to get threw a winter. Current shop is 30x60 16 foot side wall. Primary heat is floor heat ran with my Garn. I also have a propane 90 plus furnace with a coil in it hooked to the Garn. Back up in there is the propane furnace but I don't currently have a tank hooked to it. So the Garn keeps the floor going all the time. Electric rates are too high around here to use it as a back up.
 
If it were me I use one of those plug in 'delonge' electric radiators.
I actually have one of these and really like it. It keeps the mudroom of my old farm house (furthest from the wood stove) at a constant temp thru the winter for us. With the shop would be worried about square footage though overall especially with a bare concrete floor. It would struggle and likely stay on high a lot just to maintain.

I have a small shop (10x20 roughly) that I simply run a small electric ceramic heater in full time on low during the cold month's. Runs about $30 a month best we have figured. No muss. No fuss. Easy. Low teens and below I do kick in LP while working if needed. LP gets turned off when I go indoors overnight or away for hours. These little heaters are amazing. My shop is insulated in all walls, doors and overhead. 2x4 framing only.
This was my initial idea here. I started digging though and at 15x25 with a concrete floor, I would need to size to a proper unit around 5000 watts and crunching the numbers has led me to some likely high electric bills which would run more than gas. I thought about infrared which is still an option I suppose, but it would be a job to get it in and orient it proper. My shop is actually an old chicken coop that I converted and has a sloped roof. 8' ceiling on the west end, and 12' Ceiling on the east end with a 12' barn door. Trying to figure the placement given that infrared is directional is finicky.

I heat a 20x30' insulated section of my shed all winter. It has 12 ft walls so it's a fairly large space. Last winter I heated it with a propane Reznor for about $300. I keep it at 45° when I'm not in it. Of course it depends on how many times the overhead door is opened and how many cold vehicles I bring in. If you're dead set against propane have you considered a coal stove? I see you're in NW Indiana so you should have anthracite available fairly close. You could run it 24-7 and shake it down twice a day. When you're working in the shop you could open up the intake air and warm it up. I would do that if coal were readily available here. I hate propane as well.
In conducting further research, I landed on some propane heaters that may fit the bill. I have always hated propane because of cost, but I have also been heating drafty old farmhouses with older units. My shop, though an old building, I took to studs and then rebuilt. All 2x6 walls with R-19 and R-19 in the roof. New energy efficient door, doubled up the single pane barn windows for added efficiency, and sealed and insulated the big barn door. It would be no problem for a decent sized unit to heat the space easily and maintain it with minimal gas use I would think.

The Modine Hot Dawg 30,000 BTU is what I am currently looking at. Would be easy to mount in the corner, plumb the vent, and then pipe to a hook-up where I could run off 100lb tank units that I already have for the summer kitchen in the barn. Im not a fan or propane, but it sure as heck seems like the less expensive route to go right now when stretched out over the next 10 years.
https://northstock.com/modine-hd30as0121-propane-alum-steel-30000-btuh-free-tstat/
 
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