Heating Garage
- Thread starter Illiquid
- Start date
I'm no HVAC expert but that goes against everything I've heard and read about it when used as a principle building heat source (hydronic).
https://www.google.com/search?q=is+...ODM3NGowajE1qAIJsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Cousin has a geothermal system running on all floors of his house.
But he’s a plumber so it makes sense.
My house has the same, also built by a plumber who sold it to me. However, the furnace (now NG after converting from propane) is the backup and runs all winter. We originally used the geothermal for cooling in the house but it could not keep up and added traditional air conditioning. So for me the geothermal doesn't cut it for heat or cooling but it was already there, so at least I did not have to pay for the installation. The maintenance is a bear, the pump unit alone is $20k if it goes out.
That’s interesting the only downside I’ve heard of was the upfront costs. It may depend on area. It’s big where they live but he owns the only plumbing company for miles so it’s beneficial for him to install them for everyone.
Homes are so different one to the next that it is not easy to generalize such a thing. Likely geothermal radiant heat works great for most. My home was built in 2008 and is well insulated but still the floor heat can't cut it alone. Maybe I am saving versus just running the furnace but I've never tried to isolate the cost to see. I do know the maintenance can be expensive as the pump did need replacement last year, so lasting just 15 years.
A box shaped shop should be easier to analyze for such a thing. The contractor who built my shop had me convinced the radiant heat was the way to go using a program for the calcs. However, I know from my utility bills that the the mini split is far and away cheaper to operate in my shop and for sure would have been way cheaper to install up front.
I had a co-worker install a hot water grid for his driveway when he was building his house. He used it for the first month and said his utility bill was so high that he shut the system down. I'm not sure what he was using, but the look on his face told me everything I needed to know lol.
My Shop is setup with 3 sources of heat depending on what's going on. The primary source is in-floor hydronic radiant which I use if I'm into a daily project like when I re-framed the TJ a few years ago, otherwise just to comfort the space for short term I have a ceiling hung HW unit heater that runs off the radiant in bypass mode and a wood fired barrel stove for a day in the shop since I'm flush with firewood.
I've seen it in greenhouses and homes. Nobody i know actually use them for long
The owner of the company I just left is on his way to being a billionaire, and he used to own a vacation home down the street from Oprah in Mountain Village, the small village up on the ski hills of Telluride. I was invited a few times because he and his two sons wanted to learn to snowmobile, and I had come to work for him after my stint at Polaris in the snow engineering division. Driving up the hill with my wife, I noticed that all the mansions had heated driveways, and they were not typical driveways - they were huge.
I said to my wife, "honey, these people spend more to heat their driveways in the winter than our entire household budget!"
The owner of the company I just left is on his way to being a billionaire, and he used to own a vacation home down the street from Oprah in Mountain Village, the small village up on the ski hills of Telluride. I was invited a few times because he and his two sons wanted to learn to snowmobile, and I had come to work for him after my stint at Polaris in the snow engineering division. Driving up the hill with my wife, I noticed that all the mansions had heated driveways, and they were not typical driveways - they were huge.
True , I worked for a building inspection company years ago , there was a huge home in Castle Pines with a heated driveway paved with bricks set in sand.
It was 500' x 60' , the boiler was in it's own building next to the garage. I wanted to get the BTU rating of the boiler but the building was locked.
It had to be huge , there was a 3" gas line to the boiler ! The driveway was really heated with C-notes !
Father in law poured his slab and ran copper tubing through it. He worked for an air conditioner factory and got the copper cheap. Real cheap. Free. He then had a large wood burner with a water jacket that cycled the glycol through the floor. Put the wood burner in the garage. That thing heated the house so hot you had to open the windows in the winter.
Every time I go out to my 24 x 30 fully insulated, hydronic heated garage during the northern Illannoy winters, I thank the previous owner who built it. He was from Alaska and went for overkill. Even the attached two car, aka, her garage, has a ceiling mounted NG burner.
I don't go as warm as t-shirt, but I will roll up the sweat shirt sleeves.
I soured on the propane burners after my neighbor at the old place burned his house down. And almost himself in the process. I have one but it has been relegated to a rarely used patio heater.
My parents had an outdoor wood furnace that heated water then circulated it through the furnace and house water heater. One of those would easily do a driveway too. We had a lot of trees to burn.
That was common up in Roseau county when I was at Polaris. In fact, Central Boiler was up there in Greenbush, and the owners got rich quick!
Ah , the good old days when people used food for heating . Harman used to make a corn stove along with pellet stoves.
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