(bright jazz music)
- Well today I wanna talk
a little bit about heating solutions.
Now, you probably know
that I haven't needed heat for a long time.
I lived in Arizona, and before that Southern California.
So when I got to Colorado, I had my work cut out for me.
I really had to do a lot of research
to find out what the current options are
and which option is best for me
in this particular situation.
But I learned a lot in the process,
and I thought it might be fun
to share some of that information with you,
because there's a lot of options.
First up is forced air heaters that run on gas,
either natural gas, propane, kerosene, or diesel.
These are pretty efficient, but do require a gas supply,
an exhaust, and preferably a clean air intake
and a sealed combustion chamber
to prevent any major issues from the presence of wood dust
or finishing fumes in the air.
Next up is forced air electric heaters.
Similar in concept to the gas versions,
these units rely solely on electricity to generate heat.
While easy to install, the obvious drawback
is the increased electric bill.
Then there's infrared tube heat.
For the first couple of days of my research period,
I became convinced that infrared
was the only way to go.
It has an enclosed combustion chamber,
makes very little noise,
and doesn't blow any air around the shop.
The infrared energy, just like the sun,
is unique in that it warms the objects and bodies
instead of warming the air.
In fact, you can stand in front of one of these
just after turning it on
and immediately feel the heat on your skin.
But the more research I did,
the more I realized that this might not be
the best solution for me.
First, the tubes are large
and they have to cover a fairly significant area
of the shop to be effective.
Second, this type of heat can result in hot and cold spots.
At least while it's bringing the room up to temperature,
you could easily end up with a hot face and cold feet.
But those who have these units installed
seem to really love them,
so your mileage may vary.
How about pellet and wood stoves?
Now, these are probably the most old-school option,
and you can simply drop a big old oven in the shop
and start burning stuff.
Obviously, you need to exhaust it as well.
These things can really crank out the heat,
but you do have to keep stocked up on fuel.
And if you're concerned about kids or pets,
this could be a big safety issue.
Also, there could be insurance and code ramifications
for installing something like this
in a residential garage space.
Next up, ductless mini-split heat pumps.
Now this one is near and dear to my heart
since I've been running these in Arizona
for the last five to six years,
though I can count on one hand
the number of times
that I've actually used the heat setting.
These units consist of an outside compressor unit
and an indoor head unit that blows warm or cold air
into the space.
They're very energy efficient and super quiet.
As a heater, they aren't very aggressive
and they generally won't work very well
once the temperature drops below a certain point.
And finally, there's radiant in-floor heating.
After all of my research,
I have to say that this, in my opinion,
is the gold standard in comfortable, efficient heating.
It works by pumping warm water through tubes in the floor.
A properly-installed radiant system
will heat the entire space from below,
evenly and without the need
for extremely high temperature heat sources.
But it generally does require installation
prior to pouring the slab.
Now there are ways to install it
in a new subfloor on top of the slab,
but that's a long ways off for me.
So even though I think it's the best solution,
it's just not practical right now.
Now, obviously there's a lot of other options
available to woodworkers,
but these seem to be the most popular
and accessible options.
So what did I wind up doing?
Well, I went with the easiest thing first.
Now, I brought with me a Mitsubishi mini-split
ductless heat pump.
I thought if we installed this, let's see how it works.
It was a little bit undersized for this space,
but I figured hey, if it does any heat at all
it's probably gonna be decent.
And then I could add a supplemental heater
to bring the temperature up,
and then let the mini-split keep it up to temperature.
Well, the problem was the installation itself.
In order to get this thing installed here,
we had to put the compressor on the front porch.
And man, was that an eyesore.
I thought we could live with it,
and we figured hey, it's for the business,
let's just do it.
And after a couple of weeks,
we just decided no, that's bad.
And unfortunately we wasted money on that install
and wound up taking the whole thing out again.
Now, there is one more location
where I might be able to put that compressor,
but it's a lot more work.
It's gonna cost a lot more money to install
because it's further away
and will likely involve busting up some concrete
to get all the tubes and everything
that need to go,
and the power that needs to go to the compressor.
So that is a future thing.
But we had the dang thing installed
and then had it taken out.
So I had to go to plan B.
Plan B was a gas-powered forced air unit.
Now, these seem like they would be pretty easy to install,
but I had an HVAC company come out
and we looked at the situation,
and unfortunately where my gas lines are
means that there's gonna be a lot of work
to be able to connect the gas line
properly to the unit.
Also, again, the whole eyesore factor.
The positioning of this garage
means that the vent would have to go
out toward the front of the house,
near the front porch.
So again, I'm trying not to recreate the situation
I just created with that mini-split.
So I kind of pulled back for a minute,
especially because the bid we received for it
was over $5,000.
Now, of course I would go to a couple different contractors
and see if we couldn't get a much better price than that.
But this was a trustworthy HVAC person
who's actually worked on other things on this house,
and I don't know, I was a little bit surprised.
But the bottom line was the eyesore factor
and it just was cost-prohibitive.
So I figured let's shelve that idea
and move onto the next option.
So where I finally wound up
was pretty much the path of least resistance
in terms of installation and cost,
and that's forced air electric.
Now, the big drawback with this
is power costs a lot of money, right?
So my electric bill is definitely gonna go up.
But I could get these units installed,
have the shop warmed up,
and that means I can actually work,
which is the thing that makes the money
that pays the bills anyway.
So for now, I think this is a really good solution.
And let me show you what I have here.
So I have two different models
made by the same company called Fahrenheat.
The one behind me is 7,500 watts.
That's pretty darn powerful.
And the one over here is 5,000.
Now, they're actually configurable
to different wattages.
So I think the 7,500 could be configured for 3,750 watts,
and the 5,000 could also be dropped down to 2,500
depending on your needs.
So I had an electrician come in, wire it up for me
just to make sure it's nice and safe.
And I have them hung in such a way
that they're trying to create
sort of a circular pattern of air around the shop,
and they work in unison with each other.
Now given the location, as high as they are
it's about 11 feet to the ceiling,
I'm gonna need to add some ceiling fans
to help push down the air.
Because right now, a lot of the heat, of course,
is gonna stay sort of in a pocket at the ceiling.
So we do need some air mixing to make this work.
But even as they are right now, it works pretty darn well.
The cost for these, about 400 for the 7,500 watt unit,
and I think about 250 for this guy.
So with the cost of the electrician,
I actually was able to help the electrician
to save on money.
I like to do that when people work on the house.
I'm like, "Hey, you need a helper?
"If it saves me money, I'll help you today."
So these were installed,
overall I think we're looking at maybe 1,500 bucks
for the total investment for installation
and the cost of the units.
So performance-wise, I'm extremely happy with the two units.
Basically, first thing in the morning
I come in, turn them on.
No matter what the temperature is in the shop,
within about 45 minutes, hour at the most,
I've got a comfortable working temperature.
Usually I come out in a hooded jacket like this,
and then within 10 or 15 minutes I'm taking this off
because it's getting too warm.
So I do have to climb up the ladder
to reach those thermostats,
which is a huge pain in the butt.
But I have read online there are solutions
for adding an external thermostat
that we could then run down the wall,
and then I don't have to worry about the ladder.
I didn't do a shut-off at the unit.
If I really need to shut them off,
I can do that at the circuit breaker
because it's so easily accessible.
But when I do the thermostat,
I may consider either putting in a little plug module there
or some kind of a switch or something.
But right now, this is simple,
it works really well, and it definitely heats the shop.
Now when we talked about the different types of heaters,
we talked about infrared being one
that warms all the objects first and then the air,
and this type of heater being something that warms the air
and then eventually the objects warm up.
So you might be wondering if I open a garage door,
which I actually do every morning
to be able to take my son to school,
how much cold air comes in?
How much hot air do we lose?
I have no way of quantifying that,
but ultimately just opening it real quick,
getting into the car,
shutting it, and doing that again 15 minutes later
doesn't really seem to have
any sort of impact that I can feel.
Obviously, air is gonna exchange.
If you keep that door open for a long time,
it's gonna be problem.
But I don't really see it being super problematic
to open it quickly and then lower it again.
Ultimately, once everything is up to temperature in here
and the floor is a little warmer,
the walls are warmer, the tools are all warmer,
opening and closing a door
isn't really gonna just suddenly chill everything.
It may cause the heaters to stay on a little bit longer,
but I don't think that's that big of a deal.
It's a garage, right?
It's a shop, so we're not gonna be super picky about it
like we might be inside a house.
So, so far, so good.
And the final question is the electric bill.
Now, we haven't had these things running long enough
for me to give you that perspective,
and I'll certainly let you know
as soon as our first bill comes in
because it's probably gonna hurt.
But ultimately, again, this was just a factor
of how quickly can I get myself back to work.
Because if I don't work, I don't make money.
So you have to sort of do a cost-benefit analysis
and figure out if it's worth it.
Ultimately, in the long run we might do something different,
but for now this is gonna get the job done.
So next time,
you may've already noticed we have new lights.
Next time, we'll talk about that installation.
(gentle guitar music)