Heating/Cooling Garage based shop - Upper Midwest

[projectnut]

Can't do the basement or that's where I'd be going - no way to get the lathe down there.

Never say never. Here are a few pictures of some of the machines in my shop. Almost all had to be disassembled and moved piece by piece to the basement and reassembled. I did all of them by myself with a refrigerator dolly except for the column of the Bridgeport mill and the headstock cabinet of the Sheldon lathe. There are more, but I think you get the idea.

 

[jareese]

Never say never. Here are a few pictures of some of the machines in my shop. Almost all had to be disassembled and moved piece by piece to the basement and reassembled. I did all of them by myself with a refrigerator except for the column of the Bridgeport mill and the headstock cabinet of the Sheldon lathe.

I have 2 sets of walled stairs going down with a 90 degree turn - getting the new pellet stove down there, with help, was...... Interesting to say the least..

This is not going down the steps..

 

[slow-poke]

Some time back I had some equipment in a well insulated garage in Toronto that I would heat electrically on a as needed basis. Really sucked I had no problem getting the heat up, took a few hours in the dead of winter but the hot-cold-hot-cold cycle is not great for rust. We moved to a house with a larger basement so everything is now in the basement and just infinitely better.

 

[projectnut]

My stairway is a bit different. There is a wall 4" from the bottom. To make things easier I removed the railing on both sides of the stairway. Later I had to add some plywood to keep my assistant from sneaking uninvited into the shop. Before I added the plywood she would jump through the openings and try to take a nap under the Sheldon lathe.

 

[Ischgl99]

Can you add a Bilco access door to your basement? That is how I get all my stuff into the basement. That would certainly be cheaper than adding on to your garage. If you built it so that it was a pit with removable stairs, you could use a hoist to raise and lower anything into the basement very easily. Mine has cast stairs, so I had to make a skid and used a flatbed wrecker to lower it down.

 

[jareese]

Can you add a Bilco access door to your basement? That is how I get all my stuff into the basement. That would certainly be cheaper than adding on to your garage. If you built it so that it was a pit with removable stairs, you could use a hoist to raise and lower anything into the basement very easily. Mine has cast stairs, so I had to make a skid and used a flatbed wrecker to lower it down.

Nope, plan is to use the bay in the garage that's full of crap that we mostly don't touch....

 

[tailstock4]

Never say never. Here are a few pictures of some of the machines in my shop. Almost all had to be disassembled and moved piece by piece to the basement and reassembled. I did all of them by myself with a refrigerator dolly except for the column of the Bridgeport mill and the headstock cabinet of the Sheldon lathe. There are more, but I think you get the idea.

Nice shop and equipment. It looks like a fairly large basement. Is it? I spent some years in large power plants and around boilers - a lot of heavy things in tight spaces. One thing I learned from that time was that you can put almost anything almost anywhere with enough determination, rigging and experience. Good job!

 

[Charles scozzari]

My shop is heated with a thermostat controlled NG 20.000 BTU ventless Mr. Heater and I never looked back.

 

[jareese]

My shop is heated with a thermostat controlled NG 20.000 BTU ventless Mr. Heater and I never looked back.

what about cooling and humidity control?

 

[Batmanacw]

I have a 30x40 garage. I walled in 12x20 and built my own 4 ft wide door so I can move machines in and out, but the garage door is not inside the shop.

Now I'm planning on insulating and drywalling the rest of that side of the garage all the way to the garage door and insulsting the garage door.

I use an oil filled radiator heater on 600 watts to keep the 12x20 part at least 40⁰ in the coldest outside temperatures. It takes about an hour to get up to 65⁰ using a radiant buddy heater combined with two radiant electric heaters at 1500 watts each. I maintain 60 to 65⁰ with one radiant on low.

The new section will be ambient temperature but easily heat up to working temperature with a couple propane tank top radiant heaters in a short time. The new section is only 12x12 or so. More of a fab shop area.

The two radiant electric heaters cost under $200 and the heat is nice and dry. I only leave the buddy heater on an hour or so to keep the moisture down.

The oil filled radiator runs at 600 watts which would be $56 a month running non-stop. It only runs half the time or less at 40⁰. I might turn up the temperature a bit just because.