shop heater what are you using

Being a night owl with a detached unheated shop.
I use 2 sweatshirts and a padded vest.
 
I lost 2 down filled vests to one of those.:( Two different occasions. Call me a slow learner. Fortunately I figured out what I was smelling both times before I got "too involved." Now I use an electric heater or two and keep it warm enough I don't need the vest.

LOL! You do have to be careful where you sit them. But mine will warm my shop up enough that I don't need any type of jacket. Place a small fan behind head and it can be placed far enough away from things to avoid melting.


p.s. I got the arms of my office chair!!
 
My heat sources are a pressurized wood boiler, oil and electric backup. The wood system consists
of a pressurized boiler with one small Taco #10 pump circulating through an air conditioning radiator in
the house and one in the shop. Also in this series are water heaters in both the house and shop
with side arms to heat my domestic water. The boiler runs at 15 pounds of pressure and is
filled with plain water. It has been working well for over 20 years. The piping under ground is
3/4 inch copper which are silver soldered at each joint and well insulated inside sewer pipes. The
lines are buried 5 feet under ground. I test the oil furnace each fall but have not yet had to use
it. Interesting though, I let the shop cool off at night and in the morning it is about 60 degrees or so.
In the morning, the air warms up quickly but the iron takes a while. Right now outside temperature
is -16F and dropping. My wood collecting system consists of an 11c Hydramac Skidsteer, several
trailers an ATV, and Stihl chain saws.
 
I have a 30x40 shop with 16ft ceiling. It is reasonably well insulated. I use a 150,000 btu torpedo type propane heater, in addition I have a wood stove that is additionally fed by 250 gal tank of waste oil from my son's auto repair business. The ceiling fan helps. We can keep it at shirt sleeve temperature at about 10F. It doesn't normally get all that cold here, we have pretty mild winters.
 
I run a 4800watt 240volt box heater, it's about a 9" cube. I keep the shop at 34deg in the winter and I crank it up when I know I'm going to work out there. It's electric so it does cost $. On a cold day, outside temps in the teens, I can raise the shop about 20deg/hour. Shop is 18x28 10'-6" to ceiling, open to attic, insulated 95%, vapour barrier 90% (I'll get it done eventually).

I have a floor standing infrared that I move around if I'm just going into the shop for 1/2 hour at a time, keeps me warm enough for small lathe jobs or milling/drilling work.

I also walled off a 5'x7' room which I keep at 70deg for paints, glues, hand tools, workbench for working on the small things I don't need the full shop for.

I have been working on finishing and insulating my shop, I have started looking for a propane heater I would love infrared but the cost seems to be very prohibitive, my only choices for fuel are electric and propane don not wish to mess with wood or coal. any hints any brands that have worked well shop size 24x16x9 Gave myself a deadline of dec. 15th that did not work out too well though. finished interior framing for insulation today. OUTTA FUN MONEY for now
 
The shop is an attached garage 30X47 that has the cars in the front and shop in the back. Split the load with two 75000 BTU natural gas ceiling mounted heaters. Both on separate thermostats. They are from Modine and I think they are available for propane as well. Most of the time just need to run one to bring the shop up from 10 degrees to 20 and then shut it down.
 
I have 2 quite well-insulated out building shops. One is 12 X 30 (a re-purposed hen house) that is heated by a Jotul "cigar burner" wood stove. Mounted overhead (not directly above) is a squirrel-cage blower from a house-sized gas furnace. I mounted a simple throttle plate that swivels on the intake to vary the out flow over the stove. The mounting bracket lets me swivel it to direct heat around the shop. In the heat of summer it has a nice cooling effect.

The other shop is a part of a pole building that has a propane gas furnace. Being 16 X 26 with a pitched ceiling form 9 to 10 feet, the furnace will take the area from 0 deg. to shirt sleeve comfort in less to half of an hour. The machines, however don't get as comfortable as quickly. A mid-sized overhead fan distributes the rising heat.

On a historical note, in my youth (mid 1950's), I knew a machinist who had built an accurate 3/4 scale J.I. Case steam tractor. He ran most of his then antique equipment with flat belts and jack shafting on the ceiling. In the winter months he, would maintain a fire in the boiler (vented outside) to heat the shop, and would power the jack shafting with the tractor power takeoff. Interesting enough, he had a separate pole building with a sawmill and 3 phase power. More interesting was that he did not have a telephone.
 
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