Heating/Cooling Garage based shop - Upper Midwest

Swarthy said:
Buy an old oil furnace. they go Cheap ($600) when they run a new gas line down a street everyone throws them out, you can get a oil tank with it. Install it in a small side garage, use a car battery blanket if it gets to cold for the motor to turn over. Then get a hvac guy to put AC in it. (same price as a split unit) The fan filter is nice to keep the shop air clean so you get very little dust.

Then walk around in your tee shirt all winter long, (big furnace made to heat a house in a small garage) If you can afford it, the AC in the summer is great.
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The furnace may be cheap, but the fuel certainly won't be. Our oil furnace gave up a couple years ago, so we changed to natural gas. At the time #2 furnace oil (diesel fuel) was over $4.50 a gallon plus a $100.00 delivery charge if you ordered less than 250 gallons. The fuel company was charging more per gallon than it cost at the gas station even though the gas station price included road tax. We were using about a tank full a year (275 gallons) at the family cottage that was only being heated 4 days every other week.

Since we've switched to gas it runs less than 100.00 a month and we leave the heat on all the time. The furnace runs less than 6 months of the year. The other 6 months we pay the minimum $10.00 a month just to have the service. If you do the math, it cost over $1,200.00 a year for 48 days of heat using oil, and $660.00 for six months of continual heat with natural gas.

Installation of the gas line and meter was free if less than 100' from the main line. According to the utility person measuring for the installation we were 96' from the line. I didn't get the same distance using my tape measure, but I didn't question his figures either.
 
@jareese I live about 200-ish miles north of you and have lived here my whole life. The following is my recommendation.

I would install a mini-split in your shop space. Heating and cooling solutions are both covered with minimal fuss. The one I recommend claims it will work down to -17F, although I have never tried that because 1.) I have a wood stove in my shop for the winter heating season, and 2.) My shop is too big to heat with just that unit (36'x36'), plus I have 22 acres of woods ;) The mini-split that I have in my shop is a Friedrich brand. I purchased it from here and installed it myself, which you will find to be an easy peasy job. The only thing I hired out was the refrigerant filling, which I had done by an HVAC friend of mine. I chose the Friedrich due to input from my HVAC friend and another friend with two mini-splits in his shop, a Panasonic and a Friedrich. He prefers Friedrich. Your space isn't huge, so for those very cold days, I would use a portable infrared heater. Keep in mind that any open flame heating source, such as bullet heaters, etc., will dump a ton of moisture into your space, along with carbon monoxide, so I would advise against those solutions.
Walls... As someone pointed out, the one concern I have about your space is the car(s) parked on the other side of the interior wall and the potential for water intrusion into your workspace. If that potential exists, you will need a barrier of some sort under or next to the bottom wall plate. I would not recommend the standard sill plate foam as it is not robust enough to prevent water intrusion. An EPDM seal of some sort cut into a dado on the underside of the bottom plate would be ideal but may not be practical. A bead of good caulk would possibly work too. I would also build a wall across where the garage door is. The reason for this is two-fold...1.) Garage doors, even if insulated, are terrible when it comes to R-value. 2.) When someone goes in or out of the garage with your vehicle, you now have a heat/cool recovery to contend with. You could make a door from wall framing and make it any size you want. It would be insulated just like your walls and inexpensive to build.
 
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We installed a DIY from MRCOOL 4 years ago for the house. 18000 btu unit on 1000 sq ft. A bit undersized but the house is heavily shaded. Does a good job and better than any window unit as the noise is outside not in the room. For heat the house has a gas fired furnace. Have looked at installing electric in floor heat in the bathroom.
 
I heat my shop with a woodstove, It has been 25 below here but normally only gets down to -5 or so most winters. I can get it too hot in my 30x30 shop. I had my shop insulated when I built it including 2 roll up doors. There is 21 inches of blown in insulation in the ceiling and R19 blown into the walls. Whatever you do, Don't buy batts and install them yourself, When I built my shop 8 years ago, I went to Homie Depot and priced the insulation to install myself and it was going to be $1500.00, I called an insulation company and they came out and did everything for $1100.00 and in my book was way better than Batts. I am sure the prices have went up considerably though.
 

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woodchucker said:
I'll add that any insulation you add, you should consider Rockwool. It's got many advantages over fiberglass or blown insulation.
1st its recycling metal slag
2nd its so dense, that it stops the incursion of wind (major advantage)
3rd, it doesn't sag
4th it doesn't get soaked from water, it beads off, so if you have some issue, you will not have a mold issue. Fiberglass gets soaking wet.
5th little varmints don't like it. So you won't have bugs or mice eating it and making a nest.
6th it doesn't itch like FG. some people still find it itches, but I find it is much more forgiving.

I am amazed how well it works compared to your regular fiberglass batt.

The price differential is not that great, but the advantages are.
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+1 on the Rockwool.

That stuff cuts very easy neat and straight with an electric meat carving knife. The kind that you may have in the kitchen.
 
If you need a water barrier under a partition wall, I would suggest a footing of concrete brick. The cost is $.62 ea. at Menards or less than $2/ lin ft.. A bag of mortar couple of hours and you will have a barrier that will hold back 2" of water and your wall will be above any standing water that might lead to rot or mildew.
 
Some pretty nice looking spaces and heating solutions mentioned in this thread. I put a split mini unit in my house and absolutely love it. For my garage shop I wanted to do the same but couldn't quite justify that cost right now. For the interim I just installed a ceiling mounted electric heater placed to blow right in there area I work in. It works great for me.
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