Heating a shop.. How big of a pellet stove

[4570Man]

Pellets are on par with burning dollar bills for heat IMO. I heat my house with wood, but its impractical for shop use for me. I’d be half done most of the time before a fire started to warm it up not to mention the time spent building a fire. I’ve got like an 80k Btu gas furnace in my 30x40 shop. It’s warm before you could find the matches.

 

[woodlandfarms]

I am going to have to check my hood for a source of coal. We used to burn it in our house in Wyoming. sooty but not terrible.

Yeah, my proposed shop will be 26ft at the peak, it is single slop (modern) We intend to turn one bay into a two story space, that will be enclosed and heated and cooled on its own.

R-19 is all the way around. When we enclose the office side, it will get additional insulation. Propane is crazy expensive in our hood. Not sold it is the best method for me. Nor electric without having solar. The shop will only be used on a case by case basis (not in use full time as I travel for months on end for work).

BTW everyone thank you for all your insight. I love the charts. Have to say the one showing the cost of cash and what it costs to burn it for heat was a great addition.

 

[ededic]

Changed my shop pellet stove to propane furnace. Have never looked back after convenience and cleanliness.

Wife not having to load pellets daily was a plus.

 

[buickanddeere]

In floor heat is the solution. Then you can warm the shop with gas, oil, wood, coal, solar or electricity.

 

[ovrszd]

I'm installing hydro radiant heat in the floor of a new shop build. I'll report my findings next Spring.

I'm in my shop every day. Current shop temp has never been below 65F degrees.

A huge drawback for someone not wanting to heat every day and trying to use floor heat.

 

[AVIVIII]

I heat the house primarily with pellets and an oil-fired FHW system for backup. I use about 5 tons a year to heat the 2500sqft colonial. The house is super tight (Spray foam insulation, new windows, etc.) and it keeps the downstairs very comfortable. We also get lots of afternoon sun on the SW side with lots of windows. Sometimes it gets a little cool in the bedrooms upstairs so I allow the boiler to circulate some heat.

I bought a Harman P68 new 8 years ago and it was cheaper than buying a wood stove and installing a chimney. The exhaust from the pellet stove is direct vent, straight out the back wall, so there was minimal cost in that. Also, I have the pellet stove on a programmable thermostat, so as long as the hopper is full, it just turns on and starts making heat. The same tstat allows me to start the fire from my phone when I know I'm going to be in the house off-schedule. Try doing that (or getting the wife to do that) with a wood stove!

The pellet stove provides very little radiant heat. It heats the air and moves it. We've become pros at placing fans around the house to create some convective flow to move the heat where we want it. I would worry about its effectiveness in a large open space. They do make pellet fired boilers and furnaces that might work for you. A pellet boiler and a couple modines might work well.

All that being said, propane is cheap in NH and I have a 100k BTU propane unit heater that I'm going to hang in mine.

 

[Deere Dude]

I would consider a ceiling hung gas heater or heaters and just use the thermostat to regulate the temp. Fairly inexpensive, very easy to use, quiet and no labor.

 

[buickanddeere]

Nothing quit like a warm floor .

 

[PhysAssist]

There are several options for heating,
Before deciding on one a person needs to look at many things;
Including there personal preferences,
Many people like pellets, I don't.
I like coal, many don't.
Attached is a spread sheet to calculate the true cost of heating that will be as good as the numbers you enter.
there used to be several but many of my old links no longer work.

Fuel Comparison Calculator for Home Heating | Coalpail.com

We're getting too old and beat up to keep using wood heat, so when our current log pile is gone, we're also converting to coal- friends of mine fill their stove once a week, and it keeps their 3200 sq foot 1920's era farmhouse toasty warm, despite their still original single pane windows [they do also have single pane storms].

The newer stoves are ultra-efficient, coal doesn't rot, or get waterlogged, and my research showed that the prices have been amazingly stable compared with gas, electric, wood, and especially pellets.

I'm looking forward to being able to just bring a couple of bucketsful/week, instead of needing the tractor and forks to deliver a pallet-load of wood to the porch.

To tie-in to the thread topic- we also use a Kerosene/Diesel Salamander to heat our local work area in our barn, instead of trying to heat the whole space- but we're only talking 1400 sq ft, with 16' uninsulated walls, although we did put 1" fiberglass bonded to a vapor barrier insulation on the underside of the roof, it's just there to prevent condensation on warm days when there is still snow on the roof.

 

[newbury]

Pellets are on par with burning dollar bills for heat IMO. I heat my house with wood, but its impractical for shop use for me. I壇 be half done most of the time before a fire started to warm it up not to mention the time spent building a fire. I致e got like an 80k Btu gas furnace in my 30x40 shop. It痴 warm before you could find the matches.

Your just a bit north of me - I'm surprised firing off an 80K gas furnace for a 30x40 shop works so quickly. Is that coming up from "winter" ambient, say 32° ?

<snip> The shop will only be used on a case by case basis (not in use full time as I travel for months on end for work).

<snip>

That would tend to rule out heating a big concrete slab.
Since gas is ruled out and you probably wouldn't like the smell of diesel/kerosene that does narrow it down.