Heating question

[tim]

Yesterday my workshop was a pleasant 71 - today its 54! I'm after some specific advice and I have had a search through the archives but not found anything very relevant to my question.

I have a well insulated workshop with a hotspot woodburner. This works fine for continuously cold weather and I can stoke it up overnight to keep it going til morning. However, I don't always want to have the buner lit (may be only in there for a couple of hours etc) and am wondering about back up (instant) heat. Lots of previous mentions of oil filled rads etc in past threads but had anyone got experiences of ceramic plate IR heaters like this:

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/OPOU3000.html

I know that the red light ones are fine but I don't want the glow and this looks like a good solution. Seems a bit pricey but I don't want a rubbish one. I've seen one in Machinemart:

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/product.asp?p=010410340&g=118&r=2138

but I've never been sure how good their own label stuff is (not meant to be contentious just curious). Also whatever I use needs to be wall mounted (and highish c2.5 -3m up)

Any help (or alternative suggestions) welcome.

Cheers

Tim

 

[OLD]

IR heats you not the air so if you move about your not heated.

 

[tim]

IR heats you not the air so if you move about your not heated.

Fair point but in general, i only need the heating on if I'm not moving about much.

T

 

[Anonymous]

Tim

I used a wall mounted ceramic IR heater to heat just me in my workshop which was impossible to heat as a whole space. It worked quite well.

Old makes a fair point. They are very directional. You can get a hot head and cold feet within the effective heating area for example. I developed a theory that several small ones would work better than one large one.

The one you have shown has two elements I see. I think that would work better than one element of a greater KW value.

Regards

Roy

 

[PowerTool]

And as for MM own stuff,I have bought several workshop items from there,and the only problem I have ever had (poor threads on a lathe 4-jaw chuck) was resolved by instant no-quibble replacement.
Was in MM tonight,picking up a Honeywell "frostwatcher" wall-mounted convector heater,planning for the colder weather.. :shock:

 

[tim]

I agree Roy but i haven't found one yet.

Its only supposed to be a backup until I get the burner heating up the workshop enough or for a short period.

That said I lit the burner today for the first time since the winter. Had to have the door open about 30 mins later!

Powertool - thanks for the feedback.

Cheers

Tim

 

[OLD]

I use one i got from focus it has a remote! and swings around a central pivot (optional feature ) and has three heat settings if you have space to position it its ok for a quick warm up.

 

[tim]

Thanks OLD. Can you tell if it could be wall mounted please?

Cheers

Tim

 

[Barry Burgess]

At the end of last winter I bought a propane space heater usually £99 for £49 from B&Q online.
I only tried it once in my single 1.5 length garage and it worked very well in warming the space up vey quickly and did not use too much propane.
My problem has been the concrete floor and finding boots/shoes that keep my feet warm and that I can work in for 5 to 6 hours and not come out with sore feet/knees etc

 

[OLD]

It has to stand on a flat surface it has a plinth and a oblong part with the tubes above it. About £20 .I was put of gas heaters due to fire/explosion risk in dust laden air.

 

[Les Mahon]

Barry

Somewhere in the depths of my memory I have a little voice warning that propane heaters produce alot of water vapour - Though I may be way off the mark!

As to the feet thing, you could try those anti-fatigue mats?

Les

 

[Bean]

Barry for workshop footware I use clogs, not the fancy one sported by another forum member, but cheap swedish ones(yes there are cheap things in sweden). They may not suit everybody but they work well for me.

Bean

 

[DaveL]

Barry for workshop footware I use clogs,

I have got to second that, gets your feet up off the floor, stood on a couple of nice bits of wood.

not the fancy one sported by another forum member, but cheap swedish ones(yes there are cheap things in sweden).

Fancy [-( I don't think so, good english clogs is what I wear. I need them to have backs in, I would fall out of the swedish ones, but I will admit they are not cheap.
Take a look herebut you will not find my avatar there, they are a one off. (er pair off?) \/

 

[RogerS]

Tim

Don't know the size of your workshop compared to mine but in winter I use a 2kW convector as background. When I first go into the workshop I fire up a 2kW fan heater on a thermostat to get thge place up to tempoerature quickly.

From a cost monitoring perspective Maplin do a 13Amp kW hour meter..distinctly useful to know just how much leccie I'm using to heat the place.


Because of the height of the eaves, I've been toying with the idea of vertically mounting a soil stack pipe inside with a fan inside to suck the hot air back down from the roof and vent it at floor level.

I was thinking of using a normal bathroom type fan..does anyone know if it's designed to pull or push? Ie ..would I stick it at the top or the bottom of the pipe (sorry to borrow your thread, Tim :wink: )

Roger

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Out of curiosity, does anyone in the UK use in floor radiant heat? Here in the northwoods of Minnesota that is getting to be the big thing. It's a bit more costly to put in but it is fairly cheap to run and the temp stays stable because you are heating the big concrete slab. It also allows you to keep the shop a bit cooler because your feet stay warm. It's also weird because the heat isn't all up next to the ceiling.

 

[DaveL]

Because of the height of the eaves, I've been toying with the idea of vertically mounting a soil stack pipe inside with a fan inside to suck the hot air back down from the roof and vent it at floor level.

Well I have found that my cyclone does a similar thing.
It vents into the roof space and if I run it with a pickup pipe at floor level it equalises the temperature gradient.

Before I built the cyclone I was looking at doing what you suggest, but don't need to now. 8)