Experience with pole barn heating

[wedge40]

I'm a huge fan of radiant heat, but if you're only going to heat it once in a while, I wouldn't even consider that idea. If the slab is cold or worse frozen you're looking at a day or more to bring the temp up. Are you going to section it off any? That would help in heater placement as well.

By the way I have the exact type building 40'x56'x12' with attic trusses and I'm planning on radiant heat at some point so I'm putting the pex in now and not sure when I'll put the reasf of the system in. I'm not sure just how much of the attic I'll finish or use yet either, but figure I'll use radiant up there as well.
Good luck.
Oh ya.. We like photos around here. LOL

Wedge

 

[Redneck in training]

We just added on to our shop in central ny and there is nothing like insulation as our older building as well as the new is with 6" walls and fully insulated there as well as 16" in the ceiling. Doors closed the it only gets to about 72 on hot days and if the furnaces go out it takes over 48 hours to go to 40 degree's My preference is spray-on although the costs are higher the benifit of every crack filled is high! You made mention of the heated floors, also my preference but if you let it cool down, in about three days in central NY the lines might be freezing and then you have PROBLEMS!

Floor heating is filled with glycol/water mix. It will not freeze until about -40F.

 

[KennyG]

It is a passive solar building with a full earth berm on the north side that wraps around one-half of the west end. ....
No matter what building it would be used in, the G73 heater would not use more than 5 kw per hour. So, that part holds true for you, but your heat loss may be greater and that would reduce the interior temperature. The G73's 17,000/hour is not a lot of btu's. My guess is that it would be good for heating an area while you are working, but won't do much total building wise for a pole barn.

Dave, it sounds like you did a really good job on that building. My guess is that a conventional insulated pole barn should have at least30,000 btu per 1000 square feet just to get over 50 degrees and probably twice that if you want to be able to get to "room temperature" in cold weather.

 

[dave1949]

Dave, it sounds like you did a really good job on that building. My guess is that a conventional insulated pole barn should have at least30,000 btu per 1000 square feet just to get over 50 degrees and probably twice that if you want to be able to get to "room temperature" in cold weather.

It's one of those pay me now or pay me later deals. Passive buildings are a lot more expensive to build than a pole barn. Also, making them more than about 28' deep north to south at my 44 degree latitude will put the sunshine input to concrete floor ratio out of balance.

It doesn't matter how long they are east to west as long as there is plenty of south-facing glass. But, that forces the building into a long rectangle shape which, if taken too far, gets expensive due to the ratio of perimeter wall to square feet of floor space. My building is 28 x 48 with a 10' ceiling. Sadly, it is full.

Maybe an ideal northern setup would be a passive style workshop building connected on the south-east corner of a larger pole barn that is used for equipment storage. The pole barn would buffer the workshop from prevailing westerly winter winds and the summer heat gain typical on the west end of a building.

 

[Rustyiron]

I love my radiat slab, no cold floors with all the heat up against the ceiling, and no "recovery" time after opening a garage door! But deffinetly not for intermittant use. Insulation is job #1 for any heated space. Blow the budget on your insulation pkg. and it will pay you back with what ever heating sys. you use!

 

[Redneck in training]

We completed construction of my new shop this spring. I was contemplating floor heating (we have in the house) but at the end I decided against it due to large temperature time constant. I figured that I would have to heat it at higher temperature resulting in higher energy cost. I would also like to have air conditioned in the summer. Geothermal system would add about 30K to the cost while air/air heat pump will cost at least twice as much to operate. Therefore I decided to use larger split unit heat pump at cost about 10K that I can instal by myself and use the remaining 20K to purchase extra about 10 kW solar panels also DIY. If I would want to use in example geo I would have to pay cash for the extra expense. If I want to add solar system I can finace it at very reasonable interest and get substantial tax write off. Right now I am trying to secure a loan for proposed 23 kW solar system and hoping to have installed before coming winter. I might also add passive solar heating to the shop sometime next year.

 

[Smokepole62]

Whether you run radiant heat or not, take the time to properly insulate the footer and floor. Go extra thick on the insulation as you may want to heat full time later.
Don't know how far north you are located, but a coal stove may be a cheap option if your close to PA. It may be cheaper to semi heat full time and then turn up
when you need it as others have stated. Personally, I'de rather stay above 50 Deg. so my tools don't sweat when the temps increase. A coal stove might only burn
a couple of ton a year and be cost effective using a thermostat to run all winter. Good luck.

 

[Rustyiron]

proposed 23 kW solar system .

Thats a lot of juice! Will you be selling back to the grid? Or is a "solar" KW not the same as a power Co. KW?

 

[Redneck in training]

Thats a lot of juice! Will you be selling back to the grid? Or is a "solar" KW not the same as a power Co. KW?

We live in 100% electric house so 23 kW system in our location will cover about 75-80% of total consumption. According to calculation using PVwatt http://www.nrel.gov/rredc/pvwatts/grid.html it will produce about 31000 kWh/year. Right now we burn little less than 40000 kWh/year. About 65% of the consumption is heating/cooling. Since we added shop this year it might go up another 10000 kWh/year. The required size of the system shocked me too. I wish I could afford bigger one to cover the whole consumption. I decided to use Enphase inverters so adding more panels later on is relatively straightforward process.
Since Iowa doesn't require installation by licensed professional (only inspection is required) to qualify for the tax rebate I can do it by myself. At current prices of the panels and associated hardware I estimated payback at about 11-12 years after the tax rebate. I figured that to add power generating capacity is cheaper than installation of geothermal heating/cooling for the shop. I wish it was the case when we built our house in 2004.

 

[Rustyiron]

Thanks 'neck, so it sounds like solar is rated in yearly production. I was kinda thinking in "generator" terms as to output.