It is 50 degrees in my basement workshop today which means too cold to do
any gluing and probably too cold to cut miters in red oak trim due to later
expansion. I'm sure others of you have unheated basements. My house has
hydroair so it wouldn't be cheap to add heat to the basement for cold spells
like this. It is also a large basement with my shop in an unwalled section.

What do you do?

Dick Snyder

"Dick Snyder" wrote in message
...
It is 50 degrees in my basement workshop today which means too cold to do
any gluing and probably too cold to cut miters in red oak trim due to
later expansion. I'm sure others of you have unheated basements. My house
has hydroair so it wouldn't be cheap to add heat to the basement for cold
spells like this. It is also a large basement with my shop in an unwalled
section.

What do you do?

Dick Snyder

If I could get my shop up to 50 I'd be out there instead of playing on the
computer.

First step is to use a low temp glue such as Titebond III that is good down
to 47 degrees.

I have no idea what hydroair heat is. You can add all sorts of supplemental
heat such as electric, propane, or kerosene fired heaters. Natural gas is
usually best if you have the service.

Is the burning of propane or any flammable substance safe in an enclosed
space?

By the way, hydroair is just a set of pipes hooked up to a boiler. The hot
water passes thru a heat exchanger on the first and on the second floor that
allows you to create warm air. These systems are used in post and beam
houses where there are not a lot of walls for the running of hot air ducts.

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
news

"Dick Snyder" wrote in message
...
It is 50 degrees in my basement workshop today which means too cold to do
any gluing and probably too cold to cut miters in red oak trim due to
later expansion. I'm sure others of you have unheated basements. My house
has hydroair so it wouldn't be cheap to add heat to the basement for cold
spells like this. It is also a large basement with my shop in an unwalled
section.

What do you do?

Dick Snyder

If I could get my shop up to 50 I'd be out there instead of playing on the
computer.

First step is to use a low temp glue such as Titebond III that is good
down to 47 degrees.

I have no idea what hydroair heat is. You can add all sorts of
supplemental heat such as electric, propane, or kerosene fired heaters.
Natural gas is usually best if you have the service.

I put in a wood stove, works great.

Dick- I'm not sure what you mean by expensive(I realize everone has
different amounts of tool/wood budget), but I just put heat into my
shop(formerly a 2 car attached garage) I have ho****er baseboard in the
rest of the house and just added another zone for the shop. I used a
heater unit from grainger(basically a hot water coil and a fan)
I did the plumbing myself and it cost about $500.
ITS THE BEST THING I EVER DID!!!!!!
i would trade my cabinet saw for a bench top before i gave up the
heat!!(most of my wood time is in the winter)
i'm in CT and it was -1f this morning, the shop was 68f.
i use oil and so far my consumption does not seem too much more than
prior to the shop heat.(im in a raised ranch though so some of the heat
loss goes into the house) Also I took out one rollup door and installed
a 36" people door.

If you have a boiler I would think you could do the same. Labor might
get you though if you could not do the work. Keith

I would enclose the workshop and add electric heat. If you only have
occasional cold snaps, then the cost of the electric would be minimal. If
you enclose your workspace, then it reduces the amount of heat you need.
It shouldn't cost much at all to put up a wall or two. Besides, you should
be able to come up with 2 or 3 new tools to buy for the job. grin

Through the golden door our children can walk into tomorrow with the
knowledge that no one can be denied the promise that is America.
~Ronald W. Reagan
"Dick Snyder" wrote in message
...
It is 50 degrees in my basement workshop today which means too cold to do
any gluing and probably too cold to cut miters in red oak trim due to
later
expansion. I'm sure others of you have unheated basements. My house has
hydroair so it wouldn't be cheap to add heat to the basement for cold
spells
like this. It is also a large basement with my shop in an unwalled
section.

What do you do?

Dick Snyder

I guess I will talk to the guys that put in the hydroair (this is a new
house only 3 years old) and see if I can buy the heat exchanger and plumb it
myself. I am in MA and it is cold as heck here just as in CT.


wrote in message
oups.com...
Dick- I'm not sure what you mean by expensive(I realize everone has
different amounts of tool/wood budget), but I just put heat into my
shop(formerly a 2 car attached garage) I have ho****er baseboard in the
rest of the house and just added another zone for the shop. I used a
heater unit from grainger(basically a hot water coil and a fan)
I did the plumbing myself and it cost about $500.
ITS THE BEST THING I EVER DID!!!!!!
i would trade my cabinet saw for a bench top before i gave up the
heat!!(most of my wood time is in the winter)
i'm in CT and it was -1f this morning, the shop was 68f.
i use oil and so far my consumption does not seem too much more than
prior to the shop heat.(im in a raised ranch though so some of the heat
loss goes into the house) Also I took out one rollup door and installed
a 36" people door.

If you have a boiler I would think you could do the same. Labor might
get you though if you could not do the work. Keith

It was 65 today in Austin Tx, gonna freeze tonight and again tomorrow night.
Next week lows will be in the 40's.

"Dick Snyder" wrote in message
...
Is the burning of propane or any flammable substance safe in an enclosed
space?

By the way, hydroair is just a set of pipes hooked up to a boiler. The hot
water passes thru a heat exchanger on the first and on the second floor
that allows you to create warm air. These systems are used in post and
beam houses where there are not a lot of walls for the running of hot air
ducts.

If the boiler has capacity, you can plumb in baseboard heaters and run it
off the same setup you have now. It can be put in a separate zone with its
own circulator.

As for propane, there are heaters rated for indoor unvented use. It would
not take much to kick up the temperature another 10 degrees or so. Electric
will work, but it is expensive to operate, especially in MA.

If your basement is not already insulated, do that first. You may not need
any additional heat. Insulation is the cheapest form or adding heat to any
area.

Heat exchanger on the first and second floors? Normally the exchanger
is in the basement. Course I'm not up on new construction.

Anyway, don't use propane without venting it. CO2/CO will do you in.
You also might want to check on propane furnaces. Wood or corn is
another option.

I've got a 2 x 6 stud wall filled with insulation and covered in a
plastic wrap, drywall on top of this.

Luckily I use a gas furnace as it gets to around -20F here.

For the area around the computer I use an oil filled electric radiator
that is also my finishing area. It needs its own circuit as the draw is
around 1800 watts. Very expensive to operate, but the heating coil is
not exposed to the air and sawdust.

patg
www.patsporch.com


What do you do?

Dick Snyder

"patg" wrote in message
...
Heat exchanger on the first and second floors? Normally the exchanger is
in the basement. Course I'm not up on new construction.


Nothing new, the technology goes back well over 75 years that I'm aware of.
You get the water hot in a central boiler, pipe it to the point of use, then
run it through a heat exchanger. It can be convection, it can be a coil
with a fan. Steam is used in larger buildings as it is more efficient to
move the envegy with smaller pipes at higher pressures. Homes being smaller
don't often use that. No, more that 75 years. Radiators are heat
exchangers in the true sense of the word, so it goes back to the original
use of hydronic central heat.



Anyway, don't use propane without venting it. CO2/CO will do you in.

There are many propane heaters and gas logs that do not require veniting.
http://www.reddyheat.com/products/gn30.html
http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/Heati...heatertech.htm

Edwin you think one of those ventless propane heaters would work in a garage
in minnesota? SWMBO says they stink (really bad smell).

Been thinking about putting in a gas but didn't want to run the gas lines.

I'm still wondering why a new home would not have a heated basement.

Have never had a boiler, just gas.

patg
"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
. com...

"patg" wrote in message
...
Heat exchanger on the first and second floors? Normally the exchanger
is
in the basement. Course I'm not up on new construction.


Nothing new, the technology goes back well over 75 years that I'm aware
of.
You get the water hot in a central boiler, pipe it to the point of use,
then
run it through a heat exchanger. It can be convection, it can be a coil
with a fan. Steam is used in larger buildings as it is more efficient to
move the envegy with smaller pipes at higher pressures. Homes being
smaller
don't often use that. No, more that 75 years. Radiators are heat
exchangers in the true sense of the word, so it goes back to the original
use of hydronic central heat.



Anyway, don't use propane without venting it. CO2/CO will do you in.

There are many propane heaters and gas logs that do not require veniting.
http://www.reddyheat.com/products/gn30.html

http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/Heati...heatertech.htm

"patg" wrote in message
...
Edwin you think one of those ventless propane heaters would work in a
garage
in minnesota? SWMBO says they stink (really bad smell).

Been thinking about putting in a gas but didn't want to run the gas lines.

I'm still wondering why a new home would not have a heated basement.

Have never had a boiler, just gas.

I use a 30,000 BTU heater in my detached garage. No stink. Unlike some of
the older heaters, they are very efficient and burn 99.something % of the
fuel. I can get about a 40 degree temperature rise. My garage is partially
insulated. I paid $99 for mine. If I was going to buy another one, I'd
consider the 30-80k Btu model. I don't work out there when it get down to
single digits. Propane does have moisture in it but that does not seem to be
much of a problem.

You do have to be careful about finishing though. Last week I put a few
coats of polyurethane on my bench. The fumes from the curing poly go
through the heater and they do stink it up a bit. In the winter I generally
take my finishing work in the house so it is done in a more stable
environment.

I'm a weekender so this works for me. If I was to spend a lot of time every
day, I'd have a big propane tank, delivery, larger heater, etc. That gets
costly for my use.
--
Ed
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 15:22:34 -0500, "Dick Snyder"
wrote:

It is 50 degrees in my basement workshop today which means too cold to do
any gluing and probably too cold to cut miters in red oak trim due to later
expansion. I'm sure others of you have unheated basements. My house has
hydroair so it wouldn't be cheap to add heat to the basement for cold spells
like this. It is also a large basement with my shop in an unwalled section.

What do you do?

It stays about 60 degrees in the basement in my new place- basically
ok for woodworking, but my computer is down here in my shop as well.
So to cut the chill a bit when I'm not moving around, I got one of
those little ceramic heaters that are on sale all over the place this
time of year. I figured it might suck, but I'd give it a try anyhow,
and I discovered that it is actually very impressive. Heats up almost
immediately, and setting it in the area where I am working is like
adding a forced air vent. I only mention this because I know I had
thought that all the small electric heaters were all but useless, but
this ceramic one is really slick, and it heats things up quickly
enough to leave it off whenever I'm not working- so I don't imagine
it's sucking up too much energy. I'd imagine it'd work great for
heating the area immediately around a glued-up project. Might not
work so well for preventing expansion unless you left one on all the
time, but it sure makes things a little more pleasant in the shop.

Dick Snyder


Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

My new home did not have a heated basement because it would then have been
considered living space, my assessment would be higher, and I would pay more
real estate taxes every year for as long as I own the home. Our taxes are
already very high in Massachusetts so I chose to leave it unheated.

As for the two heat exchangers, if you have one and you have a two story
house you need to run ducts up to the second floor to get heat there. Ducts
and post and beam houses aren't very compatible so you run a pair of
flexible pipes to the second floor which need much smaller chases and then
you have a second heat exchanger on the second floor.

All of this still leaves me with a cool basement heated only by throwoff
heat from the boiler!

Dick Snyder


"patg" wrote in message
...
Edwin you think one of those ventless propane heaters would work in a
garage
in minnesota? SWMBO says they stink (really bad smell).

Been thinking about putting in a gas but didn't want to run the gas lines.

I'm still wondering why a new home would not have a heated basement.

Have never had a boiler, just gas.

patg
"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
. com...

"patg" wrote in message
...
Heat exchanger on the first and second floors? Normally the exchanger
is
in the basement. Course I'm not up on new construction.


Nothing new, the technology goes back well over 75 years that I'm aware
of.
You get the water hot in a central boiler, pipe it to the point of use,
then
run it through a heat exchanger. It can be convection, it can be a coil
with a fan. Steam is used in larger buildings as it is more efficient to
move the envegy with smaller pipes at higher pressures. Homes being
smaller
don't often use that. No, more that 75 years. Radiators are heat
exchangers in the true sense of the word, so it goes back to the original
use of hydronic central heat.



Anyway, don't use propane without venting it. CO2/CO will do you in.

There are many propane heaters and gas logs that do not require veniting.
http://www.reddyheat.com/products/gn30.html

http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/Heati...heatertech.htm

patg wrote:

Edwin you think one of those ventless propane heaters would work in a
garage
in minnesota? SWMBO says they stink (really bad smell).

I can smell them, and it's mildly obnoxious, but nothing like a kerosene
heater. Kero heaters are downright evil.

I have one for my shop, but some valve shutoff auto flummy is misbehaving,
so I'm not using it. I also have one for my den, which kind of gets the
short end of the stick on the regular house heat. I can tell if I've left
the pilot on by the smell and overall atmosphere in the room, and this
effect is much more pronounced if I've turned it up to heat mode, but it's
pretty tolerable. I have a CO detector near the heater, and it has never
registered above 0.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

I tried to post my reply to patg's question about why no heated basement but
it didn't "take" so here is a second attempt:

My new home did not have a heated basement because it would then have been
considered living space, my assessment would be higher, and I would pay more
real estate taxes every year for as long as I own the home. Our taxes are
already very high in Massachusetts so I chose to leave it unheated.

Dick Snyder


"patg" wrote in message
...
Edwin you think one of those ventless propane heaters would work in a
garage
in minnesota? SWMBO says they stink (really bad smell).

Been thinking about putting in a gas but didn't want to run the gas lines.

I'm still wondering why a new home would not have a heated basement.

Have never had a boiler, just gas.

patg
"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
. com...

"patg" wrote in message
...
Heat exchanger on the first and second floors? Normally the exchanger
is
in the basement. Course I'm not up on new construction.


Nothing new, the technology goes back well over 75 years that I'm aware
of.
You get the water hot in a central boiler, pipe it to the point of use,
then
run it through a heat exchanger. It can be convection, it can be a coil
with a fan. Steam is used in larger buildings as it is more efficient to
move the envegy with smaller pipes at higher pressures. Homes being
smaller
don't often use that. No, more that 75 years. Radiators are heat
exchangers in the true sense of the word, so it goes back to the original
use of hydronic central heat.



Anyway, don't use propane without venting it. CO2/CO will do you in.

There are many propane heaters and gas logs that do not require veniting.
http://www.reddyheat.com/products/gn30.html

http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/Heati...heatertech.htm

Silvan wrote:

I can smell them, and it's mildly obnoxious, but nothing like a kerosene
heater. Kero heaters are downright evil.

They are much nicer to use if only clear, undyed fuel is used and the
heater is burned dry on a regular basis.

I don't know why the dye makes a difference, but the smell and lack of
smell are very noticeable to my oversensitive wife.

Barry

Dick Snyder wrote:
It is 50 degrees in my basement workshop today which means too cold to do
any gluing and probably too cold to cut miters in red oak trim due to later
expansion. I'm sure others of you have unheated basements. My house has
hydroair so it wouldn't be cheap to add heat to the basement for cold spells
like this. It is also a large basement with my shop in an unwalled section.

What do you do?

Dick Snyder



How about a radiant heater mounted in the ceiling and aimed at the
workbench (for glue ups)

Radiant heaters just warm up the things they are shining on and are
ideal for open areas such as you describe. Plus they have no thermal
lag, so you feel warm very quickly when you are under one. If you are
only down in the shop occasionally this could save you $$$.

I recall seeing them for sale in a Lee Valley catalog (IIRC) and they
were surprisingly inexpensive. (and probably available elsewhere for
less see below, $60)

I once lived in an apartment with radiant ceiling heat and it was
fantastic. No problem with lack of humidity either. You can even open
the windows in the winter to get fresh air, which might be important
when you are using solvents and solvent finishes.

http://www.heatershop.com/7060_overh...ce_heater.html

Titlebond3 is good to 47F -- you got a couple more degrees before you
wimp out ;-)

BTW, I just bought a KeroSun Double Clean 90 kerosene heater ($120)
and have run a couple of gallons of clear kerosene through it. Except
for a couple minutes when I turn it off, there is no smell at all.

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:26:26 -0500, Rob Mitchell
wrote:

Dick Snyder wrote:
It is 50 degrees in my basement workshop today which means too cold to do
any gluing and probably too cold to cut miters in red oak trim due to later
expansion. I'm sure others of you have unheated basements. My house has
hydroair so it wouldn't be cheap to add heat to the basement for cold spells
like this. It is also a large basement with my shop in an unwalled section.

Dick Snyder wrote:
Hmmmm. That is worth exploring. I am going to look at inside use
propane
heaters and I will look at this too.

Some words of caution: there is a concern of explosion of both fumes
from glues (depending on the glue used) & vehicle fuels (if you garage
a car in the adjacent space). If you engage in your hobby of wood
working then air borne concentrations of saw dust can also cause an
explosion in the presence of an exposed flame or high-heat source.
Consequently you need a source of heat that does not come in direct
contact with fumes or dust. These usually take the form of sealed
combustion &/or direct vented heaters. All other heating sources, be
they radiant or otherwise inexpensive, are potentially dangerous.
http://allheaters.tripod.com has a selection of both sealed combustion
& direct vented heaters operating with different fuels that would
probably match a fuel that is available to you, like propane.
Bob

In many areas, the taxable living space is determined by the areas that have
permanent heat. If your basement was heated, its square footage may have
been used in your houses tax calculations and most don't want that.

--
If at first you don't succeed, you're not cut out for skydiving


"patg" wrote in message
...
Edwin you think one of those ventless propane heaters would work in a
garage
in minnesota? SWMBO says they stink (really bad smell).

Been thinking about putting in a gas but didn't want to run the gas lines.

I'm still wondering why a new home would not have a heated basement.

Have never had a boiler, just gas.

patg
"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
. com...

"patg" wrote in message
...
Heat exchanger on the first and second floors? Normally the exchanger
is
in the basement. Course I'm not up on new construction.


Nothing new, the technology goes back well over 75 years that I'm aware
of.
You get the water hot in a central boiler, pipe it to the point of use,
then
run it through a heat exchanger. It can be convection, it can be a coil
with a fan. Steam is used in larger buildings as it is more efficient
to
move the envegy with smaller pipes at higher pressures. Homes being
smaller
don't often use that. No, more that 75 years. Radiators are heat
exchangers in the true sense of the word, so it goes back to the
original
use of hydronic central heat.



Anyway, don't use propane without venting it. CO2/CO will do you in.

There are many propane heaters and gas logs that do not require
veniting.
http://www.reddyheat.com/products/gn30.html


http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/Heati...heatertech.htm