My work bench for diy stuff is under the north facing window (1800 x
950) my garage which is a single brick 2 car size with a flat felted
roof.

Some of the window timbers needs repair which gives mea an opportunity
to replace the galss with double glazed panels. Although I am hoping
to retain the glass intact, I am wondering whether replacing the 2
panes with double glazed panels might add to comfort in the winter and
thus be a better idea.

If I am working at the bench when it is cold I usually have a fan
heater blowing hot air in my direction - to warm me not the garage
you'll understand. It is better than nothing. No doubt quite a good
dollop of the heat is going straight through the glass at the moment
(not to mention the flat roof and walls).

Q: would double glazing improve comfort level?

TIA for any opinions or indeed, experience of anything similar.

jim wrote:
My work bench for diy stuff is under the north facing window (1800 x
950) my garage which is a single brick 2 car size with a flat felted
roof.

Some of the window timbers needs repair which gives mea an opportunity
to replace the galss with double glazed panels. Although I am hoping
to retain the glass intact, I am wondering whether replacing the 2
panes with double glazed panels might add to comfort in the winter and
thus be a better idea.

If I am working at the bench when it is cold I usually have a fan
heater blowing hot air in my direction - to warm me not the garage
you'll understand. It is better than nothing. No doubt quite a good
dollop of the heat is going straight through the glass at the moment
(not to mention the flat roof and walls).

Q: would double glazing improve comfort level?

TIA for any opinions or indeed, experience of anything similar.

Greatest heat loss from a garage is likely to be draughts so unless you
have sealed these then double glazinng will make no difference.

Even then wall and ceiling insulation is likely to make more difference
than dg.

Bob

On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 13:30:19 -0800, jim
wrote:

Q: would double glazing improve comfort level?


Not to any great extent.

But then if you are replacing the frame it's no great extra cost
either.

You might do better replacing the fan heater with a halogen infra red
heater that "shines" directly towards you, that way you get the
benefit of the heat without having to heat an intervening medium (the
air) and all the heat energy you are paying for goes into heating the
interior of the garage anyway. They are very cheap now at places such
as Makro and Maplins.

TIA for any opinions or indeed, experience of anything similar.

HTH

DG

On 9 Nov, 21:30, jim wrote:
My work bench for diy stuff is under the north facing window (1800 x
950) my garage which is a single brick 2 car size with a flat felted
roof.

Some of the window timbers needs repair which gives mea an opportunity
to replace the galss with double glazed panels. Although I am hoping
to retain the glass intact, I am wondering whether replacing the 2
panes with double glazed panels might add to comfort in the winter and
thus be a better idea.

If I am working at the bench when it is cold I usually have a fan
heater blowing hot air in my direction - to warm me not the garage
you'll understand. It is better than nothing. No doubt quite a good
dollop of the heat is going straight through the glass at the moment
(not to mention the flat roof and walls).

Q: would double glazing improve comfort level?

TIA for any opinions or indeed, experience of anything similar.

I have to agree with what the others are saying. My workshop is small
with respect to a garage but I found that insulating it and getting
rid of drafts made a huge difference to my comfort and how much heat
was required to get to a working temperature.

I also find one of these halogen heaters excellent at keeping me warm
(psychological I suspect !) until the heater has warmed up the space.

Rob

In article . com,
jim wrote:
If I am working at the bench when it is cold I usually have a fan
heater blowing hot air in my direction - to warm me not the garage
you'll understand. It is better than nothing.

For this sort of situation a radiant heater is better.

--
*I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 2007-11-09 21:30:19 +0000, jim said:

My work bench for diy stuff is under the north facing window (1800 x
950) my garage which is a single brick 2 car size with a flat felted
roof.

Some of the window timbers needs repair which gives mea an opportunity
to replace the galss with double glazed panels. Although I am hoping
to retain the glass intact, I am wondering whether replacing the 2
panes with double glazed panels might add to comfort in the winter and
thus be a better idea.

If I am working at the bench when it is cold I usually have a fan
heater blowing hot air in my direction - to warm me not the garage
you'll understand. It is better than nothing. No doubt quite a good
dollop of the heat is going straight through the glass at the moment
(not to mention the flat roof and walls).

Q: would double glazing improve comfort level?

TIA for any opinions or indeed, experience of anything similar.

Pointless, I'm afraid.

I did heatloss calculations for mine a few years ago and then looked at
the results to see whether they were close in practical terms to what
was required for heating. It was surprisingly close.

I was using 3x 3kW fan heaters in the winter to get anywhere close to
an acceptably usable temperature, and this was becoming somewhat
expensive.

In order, the significant factors we

- draughts around the doors. I found some special weather strip and
sealed those as well as possible. This made a difference when it was
windy, but in the winter months not a lot otherwise

- insulated the inside of the doors with 50mm Celotex. This is very
light in weight so doesn't influence the door operation. WIth timber
and ply doors as I had, this made an enormous difference. On their
own, these, or metal ones have by far the largest heat loss of the
building - over 30% in my case.

- the next surfaces, in order, were the walls, followed by the roof.
The roof itself had a higher loss per unit area than the walls, but the
area of the walls was greater. The construction is a pitched, tiled
roof with felt, while the walls ar single brick with piers. I
insulated the roof and walls with Celotex as well - walls with studs
and then clad with 18mm ply so that things can be fitted easily to the
walls.

- the floor would have been next on the list, but at this stage the
heat loss involved is a few hundred watts. It probably hadn't been
insulated during the construction, but I didn't want to break it up and
relay it and didn't want to lose height or having the need for a ramp.
I have machinery weighing over a tonne so it would have necessary to
have a substantial construction for that.

- there is a pedestrian door, like a typical back door with panel and
single glass. For this, I created a frame that is attached to the
inside of the door which is filled with Celotex in the lower part and
has a glass panel in the upper part, forming secondary glazing. This
is effective both for heat and sound insulation.

- Finally there is a window. It may be worth switching that to DG at
some point, but it's at the bottom of the list, heat loss wise.

The efforts to that point reduced the heating requirement to about 3kW
max to maintain the temperature at 18 degrees when it is -3 outside.
I've verified that and it's in line with the calculations.

Even so, over a period of time, the cost of heating by virtue of using
electricity would be quite high. I want to maintain a temperature of
min. 8-10 degrees even when I am not there. To that end, I installed
radiators that are run on a separate secondary circuit from the house
CH using a heat exchanger.

Subsequently, the garage doors have been replaced by a single large one
with insulation incorporated and draught seals built into the
construction. That makes a further difference.

Needless to say, the whole exercise wasn't cheap. However, if one
wanted to achieve some real benefits but less expensively, the draught
proofing and insulating of the doors followed by walls and ceiling are
the places to look first, perhaps using cheaper insulation for all but
the door.

Bob Minchin wrote:
jim wrote:
My work bench for diy stuff is under the north facing window (1800 x
950) my garage which is a single brick 2 car size with a flat felted
roof.

Some of the window timbers needs repair which gives mea an opportunity
to replace the galss with double glazed panels. Although I am hoping
to retain the glass intact, I am wondering whether replacing the 2
panes with double glazed panels might add to comfort in the winter and
thus be a better idea.

If I am working at the bench when it is cold I usually have a fan
heater blowing hot air in my direction - to warm me not the garage
you'll understand. It is better than nothing. No doubt quite a good
dollop of the heat is going straight through the glass at the moment
(not to mention the flat roof and walls).

Q: would double glazing improve comfort level?

TIA for any opinions or indeed, experience of anything similar.

Greatest heat loss from a garage is likely to be draughts so unless you
have sealed these then double glazinng will make no difference.

Even then wall and ceiling insulation is likely to make more difference
than dg.

Bob

Indeed. According to my calculations on a typical type outside
shed/garage the worst heatloss will be d
raughts,
then roof,
then the walls
then the doors,
then the floor..

Did you mention windows?

I didn't.