Shop/garage heating & cooling: what'd you go with?

[Schonyenko2]

We went with tube/radiant system. I'm very happy with it. No dust blowing around, very even from floor to celling, and you loose very little heat even if you open the overhead door. I think the in floor, hot water is probably the best, but this was what I could afford. Belair's right. Put in outside air draws. Takes the worry out of fumes.

[Charley Lillard]

My car barn is 50'x100'. I started out just wanting heat to keep moisture away in the winter. The cost of radiant heat was too high so I decided to do a gas furnace. Alot of the cost is in the ducting etc so for a little bit more I just went with a combo heat/ac unit. I put in a 5 ton unit. In the summer it would run the ac all day and still not cool it so I added a second 5 ton unit. I have the building sealed up pretty tight with a outside air intake that filters the outside air. The fan is always on low and pulling just enough outside air in to pressurize the building to keep the dirt out.

[Chevy454]

Clill: ours is almost the same size, 60x100...is your ac/heat unit overhead, or standard fare house furnace? I see your ducting overhead, which is basically what *I* have in mind...but when we've asked some local "contractors", some say waste oil, some say propane overhead, yada yada...I'm doing a ground source system just across the field for our new house, and I was originally gonna tie the 2 places together and share part of the lines since we have to have so many hundred feet of them anyway, but noone here seemed to have a clue if it was possible or not...?

[Charley Lillard]

Mine are standard ground units with Propane for the heat.

[RS69]

For a 60x100 you'll need 12 tons. thats 500 sq.ft. a ton. if your doing ground source in the house, while the contractors there drilling the wells go ahead and have him drill wells for the garage. one well for each ton. when installing the ductwork, if you supply up high, the return should be low, and visversa. be carefull if you bring in oa to the system, so as you don't bring in to much. to much will cause humidity problems if the equipment is not sized to over come it. (i'm a mechanical eng. and design hvac systems by day and work on cars by night.) hope this helps

[CanadianPoncho]

I run a Schwank 20ft radiant in my 20X32 garage. It is spray foam insulated as well. Very, very air tight! I have to crack my garage door open a touch when I turn my ventilation fan on. Overall I'm happy with it. It gets very warm very fast!
Todd

[Chevy454]

We ended up going with a heat pump...so far, so good!

[J_D]

Rob........we just built a new home and a new shop. Went Geo-Thermal in both. We have vertical wells for the house (5 of them) and then the dug a big pit inbetween the shop and the house for the shop and put 1600' of tubing in the pit and covered it up for the shop. In the shop we have radiant in-floor heat and forced air central air conditioning. Both Geo-Thermal. The shop is 36' wide by 44' long. We insulated the shop to the max and then sheetrocked every bit of it. We just moved into the house the middle of March but so far my highest electric bill for heating/cooling the house and shop together was $158.00. The house is a 2100 sq ft ranch style house with a full basement under it.

Good luck ! ! !