Cove radiant electric heating for my tool room

I was looking for a electric heater for the room I'm building to house my lathe and mill inside my garage. Since I heat the house with propane, it was pointed out to me that electric when considering the cost of a gas furnace is the way to go.

I was looking at floor mounted heaters when I came across ceiling cove radiant heaters. That sounds interesting. Anyone have experience with them? Heat is heat but since I plant to keep the room at idle when I'm not in there, having directed heat at me where I stand between lathe and mill (located opposite) sounds like a good plan.

Northern michigan, R30 ceiling R22 to R26 depending on which wall.

Comments welcomed.

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Reply to
Wes
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lathe and mill

out to me that

This seems like a good time to ask the old question again. Does anyone know of a small gas forge that doubles as a room heater?

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Can I put a setback thermostat on that? :)

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Reply to
Wes

Sounds like a good plan to me, too. I will add this: comfort in a room is a matter of radiated heat. Using a furnace or radiators to heat the air is only the first step of comfort. It's only when the heated air has heated the walls, furnishings, etc that comfort is achieved. It's the heat radiated from the walls, etc that does the most to warm you. So, doing it directly with radiant heaters makes a lot of sense.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

A nightlight bulb on a timer, under the thermostat.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

You dont want to have your iron chill down so it takes a half a day to bring it up to a reasonable temp. I would try to seal up all the air leaks and then set the thermostat to hold 45 deg. while you are not there. Think of those machines as big ice cubes if they get cold. A hot air propane heater will make your machines sweat and rust if it vents into the room. The high efficiency gas furnaces that put out water are real nice if you can get one cheap.

Electric is the cheapest in the short run and for the size of the room there won't be much difference in the difference.

Build yourself a wind generator and tie it to a radiant heater. 500 watts should be enough running continiously.

John

Reply to
John

I'm building the room very tight and I'm using electric heat to keep any moisture issues from happening. Since there is nearly two tons of metal in the room, I'm not going to be able to cycle too low.

I've been playing with a couple calculators on the net and it looks like I could keep it at 70F for 240 bucks a year if I plugged the right numbers in.

Wes

Reply to
Wes

Putting a small fan in the ceiling to blow the hot air to the floor will reduce the heat losses in the ceiling.

John

Reply to
John

And increase heat loss at the floor which probably has less net effective insulation than the R30 ceiling. Then again I hate cold floors, insulating mats help a lot.

CarlBoyd

Reply to
CarlBoyd

Perhaps even more than a small fan. A ceiling fan made a huge difference in my garage/shop which I keep above 60 year round in MN. Figure your ratio of wall area to ceiling/roof area: I'll bet you'll find that the roof has significantly more area so you don't want hot air up there.

Reply to
Don Foreman

The floor interfaces with ground, probably doesn't drop below 45F even in dead of winter. The roof in Northern Michigan will get a lot colder than that.

Reply to
Don Foreman

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