Workshop Heating (Water)

[Jixer]

Hi,
is anyone heating their workshop with gas or oil.?
When casting my floating floor I put in a coil of underfloor heating piping.
The idea was to use an immersion type heater in a tank to heat the water, but it really gobbelled the juice.
I am looking at a gas or oil heater for a boat/caravan, one of these tankless units.
Any suggestions .?
The idea is just to keep the slab luke warm, frost protection really.

thks

 

[CompoSimmonite]

Have a look at the diesel powered water heaters fitted so some diesel cars such as Rover 75, VW Sharan, Discovery etc. They are made by Webasto.
One example - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/324831846228?epid=1985160237&hash=item4ba17c9f54:g:P2IAAOSwJ7Rg8q5T

 

[waddycall]

Don’t use a water heater as they’re often not designed for that use. Better off with a small boiler.

 

[tom2207]

could you not just use an old central heating boiler and run the coil as if it was the radiator , bung it on a timer and just feed it oil as needed.

 

[8ob]

I have got rads off the heating system in the bit with the machines and blow heaters elsewhere.

 

[tom2207]

im about to pour a slab for a new garage base and cant decide if I should add in a coil for heat or not ,, I probably will , at least then theres always the option to use it , or not. Then its do I add thermal insulation under the slab too ,,, ah it just never gets any easier ,,, or cheaper.

 

[gaz1]

im about to pour a slab for a new garage base and cant decide if I should add in a coil for heat or not ,, I probably will , at least then theres always the option to use it , or not. Then its do I add thermal insulation under the slab too ,,, ah it just never gets any easier ,,, or cheaper.

best to fit insulation bad enough warming the concrete but you dont want to heating the subsoil

as goes for boiler options its gas electric or wood so your choice on heating options

 

[brightspark]

could you not just use an old central heating boiler and run the coil as if it was the radiator , bung it on a timer and just feed it oil as needed.

best to fit insulation bad enough warming the concrete but you dont want to heating the subsoil

as goes for boiler options its gas electric or wood so your choice on heating options

wot about oil its still cheap

 

[badabec]

When I had my extension built, after the floor slab was laid (on polystyrene insulation) I had electric underfloor heating fitted. Thin screen, then the filament laid, another thin screed then tiles.
I'm not sure if it would stand up to a big lathe or milling machine (SWMBO won't let me).

 

[minimutly]

I’ve had an oil boiler in the workshop connected up to our domestic oil tank for many years.
It has a long cast flue, boxed in on 3 sides, with a rover 214 radiator on one side. At the top there is a car radiator cooling fan, sucking air in, past the flue, out through the rad. Warms the workshop in 20 mins. I did add one other thing, a domestic ceiling fan, half way along the ceiling, to push the warm air down, otherwise I found it travelled along inside the apex, and dropped by the door at the end. Now it drops down next to my fritz Werner.

 

[julianf]

The whole wet ufh idea is that you run the coolant under the distillate temp of water on a condensing boiler. If you're heating the water with electric, it would be much more efficient to just run a fan heater.

Aside from that, if you need heat, coal is the cheapest, then mains gas, then oil, and bottled gas and electric are the most expensive.

I will be installing an oil boiler in my workshop. It's all being insulated so I doubt the heat input needed will be that great.

 

[Jixer]

Thanks for the input, I was looking at a domestic oil boiler but they are too big.
I will continue looking for a small boiler.

 

[rtcosic]

Is there a specific design for wet UFH in workshops?

Our new house has wet UFH. Preformed EPS (?) insulation sits on the concrete subfloor and is finished with a fairly thin layer of screed.
The screed needs to be fairly thin to enable reasonable warm-up times, but if you jump up and down - as one does - you can feel the whole floor move very slightly. Like the spring of a good suspended wooden floor.

This design wouldn't take the point loads of heavy machinery, jacks, axle stands etc. If you laid a thick enough concrete 'screed' over the insulation and pipes then it would take forever to heat up that mass of concrete. True, given that large thermal mass it would take a long time to cool down, but I would be concerned about how much heat would go into the sub-base and ground in that time.

 

[minimutly]

It’s a daft idea imho - you put a 2 ton machine on that, how long before the insulation sinks?

 

[Wildefalcon]

If you've used mesh in the concrete, used the correct insulation, and deep enough slab, then the insulation will not move.

I use cheap electric oil heaters in the workshop, they've a fan heater built in.

They're on a frost stat, and I turn them up to max when I'm working. Simple, cheap, dry. Works for me.

But I spent as much on the insulation as I did on the rest of the workshop.

 

[chrisg3103]

I was going to go down the route of oil fired boiler and radiators for my future workshop, until I started working at a hospital and discovered radiant heat panels. They are not brilliant but they are simple, they live in the roof and project heat down into the room, all the pipes can be kept out the way in the loft and no radiators taking up valuable wall space.
They don't seem very common so can't find a picture of one, but I was up fixing one this week so have a sort of picture from the roof side

Heat panel is on the left running the length of the room, it's just a 15mm copper pipe coiled onto a metal panel and covered with a nice blanket so you don't heat the roof space. Flow and return at the far end with a remote control trv, look pretty easy to make.
Realise underfloor is already in, just putting it out there

 

[blackolive (Ste)]

Have a look at the diesel powered water heaters fitted so some diesel cars such as Rover 75, VW Sharan, Discovery etc. They are made by Webasto.
One example - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/324831846228?epid=1985160237&hash=item4ba17c9f54:g:P2IAAOSwJ7Rg8q5T

The only problem with the automotive variant is that they only run for 30 minutes. I don’t know how or if this can be disabled. Presumably it can as they are used in boats

 

[winchman]

You can get log burners with a water jacket, Winchboys old workshop heater would burn any old rubbish and had a big jacket for water, previous owner told us it was out of a Tomato Green house and he used to run radiators from it

 

[minimutly]

You can get log burners with a water jacket, Winchboys old workshop heater would burn any old rubbish and had a big jacket for water, previous owner told us it was out of a Tomato Green house and he used to run radiators from it

The good thing about log burners is they keep you warm twice....

 

[daleyd]

Ford Fiesta versus 3000kg chinesium axle stand

Do they have 'China' on them somewhere? Everything Blue-Point I have bought recently has and the quality is not what Blue-Point used to be like. I would put the newer stuff I have on par with Halfords and aimed primarily at the home user. Probably I didn't look to hard , most Snapon stuff is...

www.mig-welding.co.uk

Someone here has an underfloor heated barn(?!) - maybe he could give you some ideas how his works.