Shop Updates

[b61fred]

Hi, I have been working on my pole barn tring to turn it into a shop, A few guys on this form have been to my place in the past few years and it needed some work. I recently moved ,and built a new house at the site of my barn. I have closed off a 35x56 ft end of the barn, poored a concrete slab and now am working on insulating and installing pole barn metal on the interior walls. I was wondering about installing a wood stove for heat, what are you guys using for a chiminy, Masonary or what? I have been told all different things. Also I would like here about your shop anything that you have found helpful for restoring old iron.

Morgan

I will post some pictures soon, when I get a chance..

[de37champ]

I put in a outdoor wood heater last yr, i have a inside one that i have used for a few yrs, the new one heats my shop, office, house and hot water on the same amout of wood i used just for the wood burner i had inside my shop, plus its alot cleaner inside my shop now, and most importent i don,t have to worry about no fire inside now, ( when i was a kid we lost our house, barn, and a shop to fire, not all at once thou ) i just wish i would of installed the lines in the floor for heat before i had it crement thou, but that was a money thing,

[Rob]

Hi, I have been working on my pole barn tring to turn it into a shop, A few guys on this form have been to my place in the past few years and it needed some work. I recently moved ,and built a new house at the site of my barn. I have closed off a 35x56 ft end of the barn, poored a concrete slab and now am working on insulating and installing pole barn metal on the interior walls. I was wondering about installing a wood stove for heat, what are you guys using for a chiminy, Masonary or what? I have been told all different things. Also I would like here about your shop anything that you have found helpful for restoring old iron.

Morgan

I will post some pictures soon, when I get a chance..

Awww Shucks there Morgan. This dirt floored, drafty, converted outhouse that I'm forced to endure with suits and works just fine for me, and now you go play "one upmanship". I feel like I'm suckin hind tit.

I would go with 8" single wall pipe exiting from the rear of the firebox with a "T" at the rear just before the transisition from horizontal run to vertical. This will allow a cleanout for maintenance. In the vertical run, continue with 8" pipe, but do incorporate a forced air "heat reclaimer" to extract further BTU's from the exhaust stream. Upon the transition from vertical back to horizontal and through the wall penetration, use a class "B" type coupling. At this point you can either continue vertical, or terminate with a birdscreened exhaust hood.

Given your parameters of not warming the space constantly, I would choose a heating unit that will deliver approximately 175,000 BTU, (input capacity). My calculations given a properly insulated structure require approximately 100,000 BTU to properly heat the space but you will want a rapid warmup, hence the uprating. Circulator fans mounted close to the ceiling with downrods will help to conserve on fuel consumption.

It is hard to convey which type of fuel you should use to heat with. Wood has it's own drawbacks with the cutting, stockpiling, stacking, and the like. Coal is much the same, as is corn pellets. Propane, or natural gas is the least intrusive as once it is installed, it requires virtually no maintenance.

Now I must go think of what I need to do to draw even with you. At least I've still got the indoor restroom, (trap door in the floor) and plumbing, (creek under the floor).

Rob

[theakerstwo]

I have a used oil heater and i used 8" wood stove piping to the outside and a T and straight up as hi as i could see. The pipe would rust out about ever year or two from the aicd in the used oil smoke or fumes so two winters ago my son put up a better pipe that will not rush out as fast. We found it in a pipe yard that they sell to oil field engines for exhaust pipe.We made a clean out at the bottom to clean out dead birds. We did use screen wire on the first one but it will rust out fast and this time i said why bother with the wire so we lift a lid and let the dead birds out when needed. The heater will burn about 1.5 gals oil per hr and keeps a shop warm size of 35x40. I have a freind that made a oil heater that is simple. He got a oil hearter gun from a place called lanair in WI. and used a propane bottle about 8 ft long and 4 ft a cross and put the burner in one end of the tank and that end will open up with hinges. The other end he stacked fire brick up so the flame will have somthing to heat against. The piping goes up from the top and he has two wood burning heat exchanger/blowers onit. The tank has 2' flat steel runners welded long ways on the out side to carry the heat off of the tank faster like fines. He heats his shop day and night and it is bigger than mine and it will not burn any more oil than mine. He dont care how much it burns becuse he is ib to used oil recovery.He burns mosty ATF and bad diesel.I burn only oil but it is cheaper than gas. His heater does not rust the exhaust pipe because it is warm all of the time. When i had some trash trucks to work on here we had plenty of oil of all kinds. These heaters will not burn trans or rear end oil because of the sufur build up inside.

[vanscottbuilders]

Morgan,

I've been watching this post and thinking about it.

In my opinion putting any sort of open flame heater in a shop

where you will be painting and working with flammable solvents

and fuels is not a real good choice, period.

Putting a heating unit outside, or in a separate room sealed from

the workshop makes more sense.

Keeping the explosive fumes from being returned to the furnace or

stove makes even more sense. You've heard from one poster here about

losing a house and a shop to fire. It does happen.

I have a very good friend in Pennsylvania who lost his automobile

dealership to a disastrous fire on night some years ago when he was

cleaning up the shop floor with a solvent and the fumes got into the

outside mounted coal boiler and exploded. He's very lucky to be alive.

It really does happen.

Use your head, rather than just trying to be cheap. It pays in the long run.

As for fuel, it probably doesn't make much difference; it's all about

what is available to you at the most reasonable cost.

Heating any building on a part time basis is far less than efficient.

Keeping a building at 50 or 55 degrees is a much lower cost proposition.

You might consider a high efficiency heat pump as a low cost way

to keep the building at a moderate temperature. The heat pump probably won't

do all of your heating, however.

Use a fuel-burning heat source for raising the temperature that last ten degrees or so,

when you are working in there.

Heat pumps can be had that use water from ground wells, or a little less

efficient air to air units are pretty cheap. Heat pumps are also super clean,

so no painting issues arise from oily exhaust fumes or dusty environments.

And there are no flames involved in the operation of a heat pump.

Putting the tubes in the concrete for radiant in-floor heat is the most efficient

way to go. Fin-tube radiators are also really good, especially if the concrete is in place,

and you want to use hot water heat. The old stand-by, forced air, is also probably the simplest,

but least efficient way to warm a space.

Once you get all that concrete mass, and all that good old Mack steel mass warmed up,

it radiates a lot of heat. Keeping the building at a temperate heat level costs very little

once everything is warmed up. Raising the temperature another five or ten degrees

using the more expensive heat source is not too bad.

As the property owner, you have control of the situation, so think about the heat pump.

In the case of our new shop area, we lease the space, so our options were a little more limited.

We had a new pretty efficient natural gas fired high mount heater installed.

The space is very well insulated. I don't expect that it will be very costly to keep

the space heated to about 55 degrees, and 60 or so, when we are working.

It is an open flame furnace however, and, although we have a large sealed paint booth

available to us, I am still concerned about the flammable liquids we use, and fumes we create

in the shop. We stay constantly aware of venting the space to, hopefully, avoid any problems.

Wood stoves, coal stoves and the like are all OK, but making them safe is difficult.

Sometimes the smartest money you can spend isn't always the cheapest thing to do.

Nice to hear you are going forward with shop improvements. You sure do have a great

location for working on the old trucks.

Paul Van Scott

[b61fred]

hi,

Thanks for all of your great ideas on heating my shop, I have been hard at work insulating. I started with the pole barn side walls, installed 2x4 perlins on a 16" center. Rolled out the fiberglass insulation horizontaly and stapled it to the perlins. We then added some elctrical outlets about every 8 foot, and then covered the wall with some pole barn metal. I had a new roof installed on the whole barn this winter when a tornado removed a portion of the roof, so the barn tin is the old tin from the roof, I guess I am recyling. The perlins came from the pile of "scrap" lumber from when my house was built, lots of nails to pull out but I used it instead of it going to the land fill. I waited for menards to have a sale on insulation, and got a mail in rebate to boot. Sence the outllets are so close I used a lot of short pieces of romex for the wiring. I will have some before and after pictures soon I hope, It is already warmer in the shop, and I think the steel covering will help with fire protection. The ceiling is more barn tin suspended from the rafters and I will use blown in insulation up there, I used r15 on the walls and R 25 on the celing. I have at almost new wood furnace gave to me, 250,000 btu, It has a wood furnace on one part and a oil furnace on the other, If the wood fire was to go out or cant keep up the oil furnace will start up and keep the room temp consitant, also it is a furnace and will be installed in the shed portion of the barn away from the actual working space. What are you using for lighting, alot of shops have sodium lights, I have always had floresent t-12 cold start fixures, with the white walls the light is reflecting nicely with my tempory lights. Any thoughts? I have remotly mounted the air compressor in the shed and have pipes run in to the shop, I like this alot, much quieter and all the water that condensates in the lines is drained before it gets to the shop area. I wish I would have had the money to install hot water radant heat in the floor, I think that is the way to go now. Thanks for all of your ideas and thoughts, and please feel free to add in here or post a picture of your place, and Rob... I have been to your "outhouse", Thats the nicest out house I have ever seen!

Thanks

Fred..a.k.a. Morgan

[vanscottbuilders]

Morgan,

I like the T-12 cold start flourescents myself.

We have eight metal halide bulbs up high on the ceiling,

and a continuous row of flourescents at about 12' off the floor

all the way around the shop.

The sodium and metal halide lights are more expensive to buy,

and way more expensive to run. But they do provide good wide area

light coverage. You might use one or two in the center area of your ceiling.

Truth is, we rarely turn on the big lights. And they take a while to start.

I have used the flourescent lights in my airplane hanger, which is unheated;

and used them in the last truck shop, as well as the construction shop.

Never had an issue, and never had a surprise on the electric bill.

Typically, I will have a few lights on each switch, and use a few switches,

so I'm only lighting what I need.

The furnace sounds perfect. Can you duct some of the heat to the far reaches

of the shop? Might be better for painting in the winter if the whole area was a

reasonably constant temperature. And, if possible, bring your make-up air in from

outside rather than cycling shop fumes in to the burn chamber. Return air, which runs

through the ducts, is fine being returned from the shop and through a filter to be reheated.

The return air does not come in contact with the flames. The make-up air does.

The metal inside is a good idea too.

Might have to come back to Indiana to check this all out!

Paul VS

[Rob]

Morgan,

I like the T-12 cold start flourescents myself.

We have eight metal halide bulbs up high on the ceiling,

and a continuous row of flourescents at about 12' off the floor

all the way around the shop.

The sodium and metal halide lights are more expensive to buy,

and way more expensive to run. But they do provide good wide area

light coverage. You might use one or two in the center area of your ceiling.

Truth is, we rarely turn on the big lights. And they take a while to start.

I have used the flourescent lights in my airplane hanger, which is unheated;

and used them in the last truck shop, as well as the construction shop.

Never had an issue, and never had a surprise on the electric bill.

Typically, I will have a few lights on each switch, and use a few switches,

so I'm only lighting what I need.

The furnace sounds perfect. Can you duct some of the heat to the far reaches

of the shop? Might be better for painting in the winter if the whole area was a

reasonably constant temperature. And, if possible, bring your make-up air in from

outside rather than cycling shop fumes in to the burn chamber. Return air, which runs

through the ducts, is fine being returned from the shop and through a filter to be reheated.

The return air does not come in contact with the flames. The make-up air does.

The metal inside is a good idea too.

Might have to come back to Indiana to check this all out!

Paul VS

Maybe that's what I need, a little "make up air". Whenever the trap door in the floor is used, it usually smells like somebody done died in the shop. Make up air sounds like a good thing.

Rob

[theakerstwo]

Rob dont you guys have out houses up there?

[Rob]

Rob dont you guys have out houses up there?

I built my building over the top of an existing one!! I think a farmer from the past had the runs constantly cause there was three of em on the two acres!

Rob

[vanscottbuilders]

I built my building over the top of an existing one!! I think a farmer from the past had the runs constantly cause there was three of em on the two acres!

Rob

Mother, Father & Son. Don't you get it?

Cut down on the wait time for the bathroom!