How do you heat your shop?

[Ed McEowen]

I heat my 1000 sq ft shop with an inside freestanding woodstove. I have a sawmill, so firewood from slabs is always available. I guess my concrete floor acts as a heat sink because overnight inside temps have never gotten below freezing even though it gets below zero here in Missouri. I start a fire in the morning and maintain it until around 5PM, wearing coveralls 'til it gets warm enough for shirtsleeves. Maybe not the ultimate in comfort, but it's very affordable. I heat my house with wood too.

[Garth Almgren]

I don't, at least not with a permanent heat source. My shop is a walled-in pole barn with no insulation and open eaves, so it gets a little chilly in the winter.

For those times when I do need to work out there in winter I have a small 1500w space heater with a fan (like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Patton-PUH680.../dp/B0000BYC61) that warms the 4 square feet in front of itself pretty well, and so it follows me around the shop. I just need to make sure it's not on the same circuit as my DC or my table saw when they're running.

[Jim Andrew]

Installing my wood furnace inside the shop would have been a lot easier and more efficient, considered an all steel lean-to to the side of the building, but just did not want to risk sparks flying out of the firebox at an inopportune moment, or some unforseen thing happening to cause a fire. The inside of the furnace building gets very hot, and also the loss of heat from the ducts make me think I lose a lot of efficiency moving the fire away from the building. But it actually works pretty well.

[Mark Paavola]

I have a 2-ton split system heat pump. ducted like a house. the shop is 840 sq ft. Slab floor with R-13 in the walls and R-36 in the ceiling.

[Jim Laumann]

I've got a 75K btu Reznor ceiling mount furnace - runs on LP - it keeps the shop temp @ 44F (1200 sq ft w/ 12 ft ceiling). If I want it warmer, I light off the wood burner. 14" of blown glass in ceiling, 1.5" of high density foam board and 6" of glass batts in the walls (pole frame construction).

Last year it used about 40 gallons of gas. This year it will be more, but we are in and out of the shop more this winter - including the o/h door.

[David Zaret]

in-floor hydronic radiant, foam under the slab and R50 closed cell in the walls and ceilings. 125,000 BTU wall-hung condensing boiler for shop and garage heat (buildings are connected, multiple zones), domestic hot water, and snow melt for walkway to the house.

Tekmar control system for heating and snow melt.

if you're building from scratch, and going to pour concrete, might as well put in radiant! hard to retrofit!

[Drew Pavlak]

30' x 60' Pole barn, insulated with r-30+ ceiling, r-19 walls and vapor barrier. we have the building split into 2 sections and use 2 50,000 BTU radiant Tube SpaceRay heaters... Works awesome even in really cold temps. Heating bill only increased about $120 - $140 for the months that we heat it.. (Nov - March/April).
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[Kevin McCluney]

My shop is heated by me being in it...

[Robert Willing]

I have the same thing hanging in my shop even down to -20 I am still warm at 63 degrees with propane gas. I live in the UP of Michigan. 63 is just right year round especially if you wear a shop coat. My shop is a 26' sq and is insulated and dry-walled, also the two garage doors are foam insulated, the service door is also insulated.

[Nathan Ginder]

Hey Guys,

Thought I'd share my heating methods on this blustery (but sunny ) 20 degree day.... My 1000 sq./ft. shop is heated with solar and/or propane hanging furnace. Today was a nice sunny day and the solor hot air system I built has the shop at a balmy 69 degrees. Not to bad heating 1000 sq./ft. with the running expense of a 180 watt 750 cfm circulation fan. The "backup" heating is handled by a propane 60,000 btu Modine Effinity 93. This is oversized I think, but it was the smallest unit I could get. I do like the fact that I can set the heat back to 55/60 when I'm not in the shop and go out to work in the evening and it'll quickly heat up to 65/70.

The shop is almost complete (just need to install siding) as you can see. If I had to do anything differently (and had more money) - I would have put radiant heating in the slab instead of the hot air furnace. The entire perimeter of the foundation is insulated with 2" foam but I think the floor still feels cold. I knew radiant heating was the way to go - just wasn't able swing the expense.IMG_2024.jpgIMG_2030.jpgIMG_2026.jpg