Options to heat 2,500 square foot shop

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Mar 9, 2012
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Hello everyone. What would be some good options to heat repair shop? The building we are looking to rent has an oil furnace but it needs a lot of work. We are starting this endeavor on the cheap and would like a reasonably inexpensive way to heat the shop for the winter? The shop is roughly 1,500 square foot on one side and then office space in the center that is walled off from the shop that would be heated with a space heater and then there is the other side that's about 1,000 square foot. There is another 1,000 square foot that I think for now we will be using for storage it is closed off from the rest of the shop. So roughly 2,000-2,500 square feet needs heated. What are some good affordable options to accomplish this? Thanks everyone.
 
Access to natural gas?? Modine ceiling hung units always worked well, They move the air around for more even heating. I've worked in a few shops that used Radiant Heaters & were basically useless unless you're near or directly under them
 
Decent size pellet stove should do it. A little expensive to buy into one but the pellets are relatively cheap by the ton.
 
Fix the oil furnace or install a new one. Waste oil furnace is also a good option.

Something to consider with propane is that it might be cheaper but it takes roughly a gallon and half of propane to make the same heat as a gallon of fuel oil.
 
Access to natural gas?? Modine ceiling hung units always worked well, They move the air around for more even heating. I've worked in a few shops that used Radiant Heaters & were basically useless unless you're near or directly under them
I've liked the Modine units as well. They are available often on the websites as used for reasonable prices. Mine is a 1965 unit and just goes and goes doing a nice job.
 
I heat my center with a CleanBurn waste oil heater.
The larger units can be ducted. Or multiple units.
Up front costs are high but my oil is free.
Same unit for 23 years and still runs good.
There's a bit of maintenance required.
 
Check your local propane prices. Propane contains less BTU per gallon than just about any other heating fuel. My local utility was charging me $5.50 per gallon, plus a stupidly high delivery fee and tank rental fee. In the end, it cost over $7 per gallon, for 91,000 BTU worth of energy.

Heating oil contains 138,500 BTU per gallon. So even at $3 per gal, the cost per BTU matches propane at $2 per gal.

Natural gas and/or coal has traditionally been the cheapest.

Where are you located?


Wood pellets have become popular and can do the job of coal, with about 1/2 the energy by weight. The Southern hardwood forests are being clear-cut to produce wood pellets for Europe. Although it's good to know that BTU content varies widely depending on the wood source and when the trees were harvested.

As I fly around the South, I've been seeing a lot of these strange patterns lately. I had no idea what they were until last week. They are cutting forests and leaving the edges for looks.

wood-pellets_joby-warrick-washington-post-getty.jpg
 
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Do you have to vent them to the outside or anything like that?
If you are talking about heaters that do not exhaust the combustion air,

The actual answer is "maybe". They can be made to burn quite cleanly and not produce significant indoor pollution. Although they do pollute significantly on startup and shutdown. However, even the best of them will consume the Oxygen in enclosed spaces. The modern trend is to avoid using Kerosene heaters indoors.
 
Do you have to vent them to the outside or anything like that?
Not really. It burns cleanly yet I have a decently high ceiling but I have the top vents closed in the cold to prevent the heat from escaping yet it's never been an issue. I can have my forced air heater running all work day and I won't have any issues. Been using it since 2011. Only a few fixes. Once ran bad to where it didn't burn cleanly and smelled but i serviced it and tuned the ratio and it ran perfectly again.
 
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