Knothead wrote:
Well hello from a fellow Badger!
If you haven't built yet then I recommend radiant floor heat. At least get
the tubes into the concrete and you can add on later to finish. I do the
one, two punch. Radiant floor heat and a small wood stove to burn scraps to
bring the temp up quickly. The woodstove generally only gets lit when the
Packers are playing and the homebrew is flowing. My shop doubles as a local
watering hole for several of my woodworking buds. About Thankgiving I turn
on the radiant for the winter and keep the water temp about 80 degrees which
equates to the concrete being about 50 (ie ambient room temp 55) and just
leave it like that till well past the damp days of spring. I like that
working temp and have absolutley no issues with rusting equipment. I live in
the country so I'm running propane.. last two winters have been really mild
so I have not gone through one refill on a 300 gallon tank I can't give you
much of an idea of annual cost beyond that. Shop floor footprint I'm heating
is 26x32 with 12' ceilings. I also highly recommend having it super
insulated with spray in foam. I have r30 walls and about r60 in the ceiling.
The comfort level is noticeable but if your dealing with neighbors the sound
control from that insulation is excellent.

Knothead


The replies I have seen have all been very helpful. Thanks a great
much. I like the idea of adding the radiant floor heat but will place
on top of the concrete with a floor over that (standing on concrete can
be hard on the joints and I alreay have bad knees). This is still in
the planning stage with a build date at the earliest being late summer
05. I do plan on heavily insulating the whole building. There will be
a wall separating the garage from the shop with the possibility of
putting a garage door in the middle in case I need extra space for large
projects (SWMBO isn't aware of that plan hehe). The more I think about
it, with dust problems and all, I am leaning more to a regular furnace
placed on the garage side with vents running to the shop side. That way
the dust won't clog up the filters as quickly and both sides can be
heated. As far as electricity, I plan on running min 60 amp with a 220.
I also will be running water and a connection to my home LAN so I can
look up tips and such without having to run to the house (detached
garage in case you didn't get that by now) to look things up. I will
create a dust free box to protect my laptop.

I will hire a contractor to do the slab and shell of the garage and do
the electric, gas, LAN, phone, insulating (min R38), and drywalling myself.

Thanks Again,
Rick