My workshop is in the garage – an uninsulated and unheated area. Currently the workshop is too cold to work comfortably or safely (I don’t want to get wrapped up in the lathe while wearing a ski jacket).
I’ve been looking into an electric heating and cooling solution. I haven’t found anything that can cover the whole workshop area of about 1,000sft. Most portable heating and air conditioning units top out at about 400 sqft. Either I need to partition the area, or look into something that will work over the whole area – maybe a heat pump for a small house or condo. It would also be nice if I can wall mount it, so I don’t take shop floor space…Â
Got any suggestions?
For heating we used to use a radiant heater that went on top of an LP tank for our grill and on really cold days one of the jet engine style kerosene heaters. None of them made the shop warm by normal standards, but between the two it was bearable.
I was weary of using gas based heaters in the workshop because of the enclosed space and flammable items in the shop. I recently read in mother earth news about a hybrid Infrared/copper heater, but it seems to be convection only.
You can insulate your garage to reduce your heating requirements to the point that a small space heater that can be plugged into an ordinary fifteen amp outlet could handle them. One way to reduce conduction losses without adding much wall thickness is reflective foil insulation, like astrofoil:
http://www.insul.net/prod_astrofoil_all.html
To reduce air exchange losses you can fill small spaces and leaky areas like window jambs with foam insulation, like:
http://www.fomofoam.com/
Thanks Enrique, Those are great suggestions. I also discovered http://www.ajmadison.com/cgi-bin/ajmadison/KC45H.html, coupled with the improved insulation should make a nice warm (and cool) workshop.