All Northerneres: Heating a Garage in Winter?

best
geo thermal with radiant infloor heat .... no flame no gas minimal elect....
use water from a well and a?c adaptable
most expensive to install cheapest to operate for ever and ever

 

For those interested in Radiant heat in the floor, I have a buddy that was big into that for a while. What he found was if you wanted to be able to afford to run it you had to design it in from the beginning, because you loose too much heat through the ground. He tried the Blue board (high density styrofoam sheet) and several other things on various builds, he found that an inch of spray on urethane foam worked best (the professionally sprayed kind not the stuff from a hardware store). That goes in before you pour the floor. I never got an estimate from him on what percentage that saved him, but knowing him it must have been a bunch.
He has since moved to Washington state and the electricity is so cheap where he is that his shop is heated with it. He keeps that on low all the time and had propane infrared heaters put in the ceiling (as was mentioned earlier, the ones that don't use any of the air in the garage). He installed the Infrared heaters because the electric took too long to bring the temp up. It only takes the Infrared heaters a couple of minutes to bring the temp up to comfy. And yes he insulated the hell out of it.

 

Don't know if anyone has posted this or not. I'm going to be using a ventless blue flame radiant propane heater in mine if I'm still in Kansas this winter, it gets pretty frigid at times and I'm a night owl so it's definately cold when I work in winter. Its like 36,000 BTU, but it'll be in a garage big enough to fit 6 cars (like 25X60), so I don't know how it will work, hopefully better than the cast Iron box stove I used 2 winters ago.

 

I have two shop buildings.
One heated with a Modine overhead heater, and the other with overhead radiant heat.
The overhead radiant heat uses about half the propoane per sq ft to heat.
It is also a lot more enjoyable to work in as it heats the object in the shop.
If you use wood or a homemade heating system your shop will not be insurable. Even if all componants of the system are UL approved when you open the door to add wood there is a hudge draw of air into the stove. Any fumes in the air will be drawn into the stove and cause an explosion.
When money allows i plan on converting the metal shop over to radiant heat.
Also both buildings are well insulated.