What is the best type of heat for a shop?

Question

Going back and forth between in floor heat and radiant heat. What’s everybody got? Any experience with either?

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In floor heat, keep your floor warm and dry, heat ours with electric heat, because propane was high the years we worked it out and decided, I think either way would be good, with in floor heat you do not need to worry about the days you are not using it, leave it on but if many days of none use, go ahead and and turn it down, warm feet are a real bonus, old shop had radiant tube heat and had cold spots etc, floor never really felt warm, I would even go so far as adding geo thermal for in floor and then summer cooling.

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We have radiant heat in our 40x90x16 shop. I have read an article in one of the farm magazines and they talked about the best heat for shops and radiant had the best heat recovery. But at the same time I wish we had floor heat for working under equipment.

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I worked several years in a shop with only radiant tube heaters.  The managers of the place turned the heat down at night and back up in the morning.  All the steel, concrete, walls and everything else got cold over night.  It took several hours to bring all that mass back up to 60 deg.  Somewhere in that time frame someone had to crawl up on top of a truck and try and work.  It had to be near 100 degrees up there so he had someone turn the heat off, meanwhile the guy crawling around on the floor under the truck still had his winter coat on.  Its really hard to force heat down, and even harder to get cold air to rise in the summer.  In contrast the first shop I worked in had in-floor heat, even in the dead of winter you never even thought about the building being heated as it was just comfortable wherever you were working, kind-a like it just happened.  It did cool off some if we cycled overhead door several times in a short time span.  I'm a huge fan of in floor heat, but well insulated floor, footings will make or break any heat system.

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I like the heated floor. Had it for 10 years in a 70 by 70 shop with a 40 ft door

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Our shop is 45 years old. Wish we had installed in floor heat but not sure was available then. Measures 70' x 100' x14. Have walls & ceiling insulated with the spray on foam. Able to keep warm with a waste oil furnace which solves two problems. Not hard to find extra oil it you don't have enough.

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I spray foamed a building that didn’t have floor heat, so I got a forced air corn furnace, it works great and is very efficient, I put a 300bu hopper bin beside the shop with a auger going through the wall so it makes filling it a breeze, love it so much looking for one for my house also.

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I used to work as a propane service tech. Talked to guys with all kinds of systems. Also installed some tube heaters. Have a few observations. If you put in floor heat. Put in ceiling fans or your chore tractor won’t always melt off. Also there is a BIG difference in tube heaters. Most techs make the mistake of oversizeing the install on tube heaters. I preferred Detroit Radiant tube heaters. They seemed more efficient over time talking to the propane salesman. Other brands seem to soot up inside and lose efficiency. Clean the shields occasionally. I talked to people that occasionally lost a zone in floor heat . Seemed like tube heaters used less gas than floor heat.

Answer

I have one shop with floor heat and two with the old hanging propane fired heaters.   The way to get the efficiency out of an old propane heater is to wall off the water supply in your shop in a small room and heat only that area full time.  Then put your low efficiency hanging propane heater on a timer that runs from 6 am to 4 pm.  we cut our propane use by 2/3rds when we run the heater on a 24 hour timer set to be off for 14 hours.

two disadvantages of floor heat are slow recovery when cold and you open the door and if you wash equipment daily.  floor heat buildings will start to rain if you are running a hot water pressure washer daily.    or do both  floor heat and have a hanging propane to turn on for 30 minutes to re warm the air when you open the door in the winter but shut it off once the shop is warm again.

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An airtight building is the key to efficiency.  We have spray foam in the walls and cellulose in the ceiling.  The insulation blocks air infiltration.  We have floor heat and the air temperature near the floor is about three degrees warmer than the 18-foot ceiling.  Our building is 54 x 75 and we use a water heater to heat the building.  We are using 1200 feet of 3/4 inch sdr11 pipe.  We have more pipe but we actually only ever hooked up about 1/3rd of the pipe.  The water goes out at 80 degrees and returns at 70 degrees.  Pex was expensive when we built the building 24 years ago.  35,000 BTU of heat will keep the building about 65 degrees on a cold day in January.  It cost about $2000 to install ourselves.  I would put in less pipe now.  A half-foot of pipe per square foot of floor space would be plenty.

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We have hot water heat in the floor and love it. we heat the water with wood. it sure is nice to have a warm floor.

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For everyone with in-floor heat. 
How do you mount to the floor?

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Thanks everyone for all the responses! I think we will look into floor heat for sure! I really appreciate it guys!

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Definitely in-floor heat. We made the mistake of spacing the tubes too wide, though. Keep them closer to 12 inches and don't forget to put an insulator between the indoor concrete and outdoor. Otherwise the cold outdoor concrete and temps will draw heat away. Set your in floor at the temp you want to maintain. Then, if that isn't doing what you want, add a small Reznor or radiant tube heater to quickly recover when you open a door. Set that 2 to 3 degrees lower than the floor. In our shop, we used two Thermolec electric boilers and put solar panels up to get the power company net metering credits. That part is not necessary but saves us a lot over time!!

For insulation we did two inch foam board under the tubes and then the edge insulation should be whatever your installer recommends. Don't skip it and learn the hard way like we did!

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Small 40X60 service center used every day we are not in the field is functional maybe won't win the beauty contest we heat with a wood boiler outside we have a ready supply of used pallets and miles of fence lines that keep expanding yearly maintenance of these fence lines provides all types of hard and softwoods at minimal cost compared to gas furnace heat

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Floor heat by far the best. Don't make your runs too long. Shorter runs or loops heat better.

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In floor !
Nothing else

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You get alot of bang for your buck out of radiant and easy service. Prices are on www.directpivotparts.com

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I’ve got a shop 60x60 with 20’ walls with in floor radiant heat. Heating with only a 200,000btu boiler and a 100,000btu hanging reznor. It’s the perfect combination IMO for lasting heat and quick recovery when bringing in cold equipment. The in floor heat takes care of 90% of the heating and the Reznor only runs when the doors open.

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Hands down the floor heat is superior. We’ve had both, the air temp at the 4’ level is the same as the air temp at the 20’ level...... very efficient

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I'm putting in radiant floor heat in my shop. It's a bite up front, even doing all the work myself, but from everyone I've talked to that has it, loves it. I'm looking at about $8k for a floor heat setup for a 60x80 vs $13-16k for someone else to do it. I'm going with a heat sink in the middle and just insulating the perimeter of the floor. Depending on what boiler I decide on I might be able to cut that down another $500 or so. Obviously radiant tube heaters would be a lot cheaper. One of the guys I talked to about floor heat put it this way, "If your feet are comfortable, you're comfortable."

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I have radiant floor heat in my shop. Fast recovery after opening doors. Floors dry very quickly in the winter, usually over night. Shop is 60x80 cost was around $7000 in 2012,  Floor is warm to lay on. If you don't open the big doors it will stay above freezing for several days with the heat shut off in the dead of winter.

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We have in floor radiant that was put in in early 80s and has no insulation in the floor . But for a shop definitely that is the best . We run a corn boiler to heat the water works pretty good . Only thing I would change is insulate it better not that the corn cost us much to heat it but it would definitely hold it better with some more insulation . And could use a ceiling fan or 2 to circulate the air it’s usually 10 or so degrees warmer up by the ceiling

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I have one shop with floor heat and one with radiant heat. If you work in it every day, the floor heat is worth it. If you were going to use it just a few days per month in the winter, then the radiant heat is much more efficient on gas and cheaper to install. You can turn the heat down when you’re not working in the shop and turn it up when you get there because it will warm up quite quickly. Floor heat is a very very slow recovery.  If you put 2” of foam underneath of the floor, then the floor will be comfortable with any type of heat.

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I think it depends on frequency of use. If you are in it everyday I would go with floor heat...set it and leave it.

If you aren't I would go with radiant like we did. I can turn it down to 45 when we aren't in it to save on heating cost. It doesn't take long to heat it back up with radiant heat.

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Have a 60x80ft shop 18’ height, with 33’ hyd. Door.  System: 4ton geothermal heat pump that heats methanol in hoses in the floor.  Dad did the calculations on it a couple years ago and it was 350ish dollars a year to heat and cool the shop.  Household dehumidifier running to keep floor dry in summer.

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In floor radiant heat, there’s no comparison. Heat constantly rise’s, you can put an iced up piece of equipment in there overnight and will be completely thawed out and dried off by morning, very quick recovery after a door has been opened, floors are always dry or dry quickly.

Answer

I have undersized geothermal  for a 40 x80 shop using floor heat. This harvest we brought the combine in many days full of snow. 35 foot door with the thermostat stuck on 54degrees the entire shop and combine were always dry in the morning. The temp is within a couple of degrees weather under the combine or on top of it with in 10 minutes .  Costs under 500 to heat for entire winter. And if you leave the door open for an hour the floor is Still warm

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Find a good radiant designer. Spacing, tube size, run length are all important   As well as insulation in floor.

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As long as you don't open the doors too much, you will like floor heat.....but it is not an instant heat, turn it on in fall and leave it on all winter

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We have the radiant tube heaters. 50’x125’ shop. 2 heaters and they only cover the front 75 percent of shop. We keep it at 45 at night and 50 during the day. Works well for us.

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In floor heat is great. Spend the money on the system and insulate it to the max. You will love it.

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Go with in floor and you won't regret it.

-Feet are never cold,  Its great to be able to crawl on the floor under a piece of equipment when it's -40 outside and not freeze.  
-More consistent temperature.
-Faster temperature recovery time (thermal mass for the win!!)
-You can have zonal control if you have a nice manifold put in to control flow in different rooms or sections.  
-Way more efficient to have your heat coming from the floor and rising to the roof, rather than being heated from above. 
-0% chance of accidentally cooking the paint on machinery because its parked too close to the heater.
-If the boiler ever goes down: you'll have a couple of days worth of stored heat in the concrete as long as you aren't constantly opening doors vs a few hours if the radiant heater goes down

We have in-floor glycol systems for our two shops, I have radiant in my garage.... I have a 20+ degree difference from the heater side to the door side (24 ft) so it is chilly by the door but can be sweaty at the work bench under the tube.

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We put up a shop in 2012 with floor heat. It’s amazing. The heat recovery in the winter after having the doors open is very quick. The difference between the floor and working on top of a combine is about 2 degrees. The shop is 81x105 and we keep it at 64. No seconds thoughts about using floor heat.

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We insulated our shop and installed a waste oil heater save all our motor oil and the extra fuel from when we change filters over the year in a 250 gal tote then have a couple of our neighbors do the same instead of paying to get rid of the oil we heat our shop for free all winter

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We have a ground source heat pump in floor for our 70x92. We're in it everyday all day 80% of the year. We leave it set at 63 all the time. It usually warms up to 65-66 during the day after it shuts off. During the coldest month it gets to a little over $4 a day. We put 2 in styrofoam under the concrete, 3-4 spray foam in the walls and 18in blow in in the ceiling.  Pricey up front, but we thought we'd do it right the first time

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80’x100’ shop with overhead doors, largest being 35’. You just can’t beat the recovery time of floor heat. We put this bubble wrap coated with this aluminum foil looking stuff below the tubes and 2” foam around the inside of the footing to insulate them, 7” thick slab.  Try not to open the doors when it’s super cold but sometimes it just can’t be helped. If the largest door is open for 30-60 seconds the shop will be back to temperature in 5-10 minutes. It’s all about the heated mass. All that concrete is whatever temperature you set the thermostat at, along with anything else in there, equipment, tools, everything. The cold air that rushes in just warms back up in a hurry. It’ll thaw combine sieves out fast too if you happen to find yourself in that predicament 😬  Another reason we like it is we don’t have to worry about parking equipment too close to a hanging radiant heater and melting the roof. (Heard if that happening)

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What is the best type of heat for a shop?

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