Heat for Hangar?

[Cardiff Kook]

I have a 50 x 50 x 15 very well insulated hangar that I wouldn’t mind getting a bit of heat in.

High desert climate so probably wouldn’t need ac or humidity control.

Whats the best option going?

[DENNY]

The best is in floor heat. But if the slab is already in that horse has left the barn.
DENNY

[hotrod180]

The best is in floor heat. But if the slab is already in that horse has left the barn.
DENNY

I agree.
Unless you can saw out slots or whatever in the floor to install heating tubing.
Or install the heating tubes on top of the old floor and pour a new one on top of that.
Both ideas seem impractical.

My 50x50 hangar has a propane forced-air heater hanging up high in one corner.
Heat has to come down, but soon rises again-
a fan mounted up in the overhead helps keep the heat down where it's needed.

We have a couple guys here who've installed split system ductless heat pumps in their hangars.
Those seem to be popular as add-ons for residential use--
I dunno how well they work in a hangar, or how installation or operating costs stack up vs a propane heater.

A good alternative to that might be a through-the-wall heat pump.
I've only seen them in institutional use, for example on portable classrooms,
but seems like it'd be effective for a hangar.

[Cardiff Kook]

I amseeing alot of stuff in infared for hangars?

[cubdriver2]

I have a 50 x 50 x 15 very well insulated hangar that I wouldn’t mind getting a bit of heat in.

High desert climate so probably wouldn’t need ac or humidity control.

Whats the best option going?

You leaving it on all the time or just want a quick warmup when you get there?

Glenn

[flynlow]

I amseeing alot of stuff in infared for hangars?

I have a couple of these 90,000 btu in my 40x50 shop....really only need one. they are on a thermostat

I have a 50x60 hangar that I plan on putting one 40,000 btu heater in it is well insulated and i likely will keep the temp above 45 F.

I would not hang it directly over the wing unless your ceilings are super high.
Steve

[stewartb]

A high efficiency unit heater. My hangar is 60’ x 55’ x 14’ and is heated by a single unit heater. Works great. 4 big ceiling fans help keep the floor warm and the temperature consistent in all 4 corners. Here’s a link, but off-hand I can’t tell you which BYU rating I have. Your heating contractor can calculate what you need for your building in your climate.

https://www.acwholesalers.com/Modine...iABEgKED_D_BwE

[Cardiff Kook]

You leaving it on all the time or just want a quick warmup when you get there?

Glenn

I highly doubt I will leave it on all the time.

[Penguin]

I have a floor diesel tornado heater connected to my Switeheon. I click it on on my way, and the hangar is super toasty by the time I get there.

[Cardiff Kook]

I highly doubt I will leave it on all the time.

Although I am kicking around the idea of building a Bearhawk 5

[mvivion]

First question should be: What kind of utilities do you have available? If natural gas is close, there are pretty efficient gas unit heaters. I have one in my hangar, and cost to keep it as 50 degrees is reasonable.

Im not familiar with electric options….my experience there in past was it got real expensive, but that depends on your utility.

MTV

[Cardiff Kook]

Im on propane- and it doesnt currently run to hangar. Its at my house so I can do whatever makes the most sense

[BC12D-4-85]

There was a time when direct vent counterflow furnaces were preferred. They blow heated air out at floor level and can include an air filtration system. Ceiling fans keep the air circulating. That may be old news if air flow at floor level isn't wanted.

Gary

[cubdrvr]

Mine is 50X40. Used a Reznor for years before a buddy donated his old high efficiency home unit(with filter) that replaced it......vented out the side.....simple install.... Should have done that to begin with but I have natural gas available.
Almost halved the fuel cost of the Reznor. Two ceiling fans. I keep at 40 degrees unless doing maintenance. Fast recovery.
Separate office area is heated with a oil filled heater that keeps it at 65.

[skywagon8a]

Although I am kicking around the idea of building a Bearhawk 5

That's making sense. You'll end up with a brand new airplane on which you will be legally able to perform all the maintenance. It will meet your transportation desires and still have a tail wheel. While building it, you will be able to advance your learning curve with your current Cub. There is nothing like having your own NEW airplane in which no one else has ever made a hard landing or worse, without telling.

You could even put it on floats someday if that was your desire.

[Mark_Moyle]

I like the Toyotomi Toyo oil fired stoves. For your hanger one Laser 73 will do the job. Output of 44,000 btu per hour. Has a fuel efficiency rating of 92%. Supposed to run on stove oil. I’ve run #2 diesel with antigel. I have three. One for my apartment home, another is the sole heat source for a rental with 1100 square feet of living space. Another I bought in 1994. It heats my shop when I’m not getting enough heat from the heat recovery from the powerhouse. My hanger has hydronic heat….


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I literally live in the middle of nowhere.. you can’t drive here from anywhere. It was cheaper to buy a 7 yard cement truck and barge it to Platinum to pour the hanger floor.

[BC12D-4-85]

We've heated with Toyo stoves in Fairbanks for 20+ years. Takes oil unlike gas. Very efficient as Mark notes plus they have timers to program daily temps.

For gas there's Rinnai (https://www.rinnai.us/direct-vent-wall-furnace) that makes a similar efficient unit. Also takes outside air for combustion like the Toyo's.

Gary

[180Marty]

I have an Eneradiant propane tube heater hanging from the ceiling that works pretty well.

[jrussl]

A high efficiency unit heater. My hangar is 60’ x 55’ x 14’ and is heated by a single unit heater. Works great. 4 big ceiling fans help keep the floor warm and the temperature consistent in all 4 corners. Here’s a link, but off-hand I can’t tell you which BYU rating I have. Your heating contractor can calculate what you need for your building in your climate.

https://www.acwholesalers.com/Modine...iABEgKED_D_BwE

I have a Modine Effinity 93% direct vent unit. Same as the one that Stewart linked to but a bit larger in size. I think mine is 150k btu/hr. I have a 50x50 well insulated hangar in WI. I like my Modine unit a lot but also see that they have gotten expensive like everything else.

Jeff


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[cubdriver2]

I have a floor diesel tornado heater connected to my Switeheon. I click it on on my way, and the hangar is super toasty by the time I get there.

Be careful where you leave it when you leave the hangar. A while back in Cooperstown they spent a year restoring a 15,000 SF high end nursing home. They were almost done and the inside painters were working days and left
Propane space heaters on thermostats in the center of the rooms they had painted. The carpet guys came in late afternoon and pushed all the heaters that were not running into a closet. Cold night around 2am and the heaters burned the building down.

Glenn
Be careful

[Dan Gervae]

I have a 125,000 BTU Mr Heater Big Maxx ceiling mounted propane heater…they are about $750-$800 and work very well. It’s a direct vent type unit. My hangar is also 50x50

[aktango58]

Hangars are just big rooms! Heat rises- so the more heat you can capture low, (in the slab), the better you are. Also, while I know everyone likes to turn heat down at night, remember that over time everything gets cooler, not just the air. When you go to turn the heat back up it needs to heat everything inside- so you lose some efficiency. In homes I recall a study that showed the volume of energy to bring everything back up to temperature was about equal to the energy saved by having lower heat for 8 hours.

Cost of BTU's is what you need to research. Some places it is more cost effective to run heat pumps or electrical heat, others have Natural Gas for cheap. I know guys that use wood heat. Location energy selections will determine the most cost effective to create the heat.

In-floor heat is the way to go. Clean heat throughout, the floor is warm so easy on feet, and there is very little stuff to worry about in your way. How you produce the heat for the in-floor is really a location situation. If you already have a poured floor, and it is not insulated, you have lost lots of in-floor advantages.

Our area has excessively high electrical costs- to the tune of $.66/kw! Yes, you read that correct. So efficient heat is important.

We use diesel heat as it is more efficient than propane, (no NG around here). I had a Tee hangar in Juneau with one of the Toyo type stoves, and it was very reasonable to heat with that. It had it's own fan that blew the air around the room. For single rooms they work great!

I moved to a larger hangar and put an oil fired heater up in the ceiling. Same deal, worked great, just noisy.

You might want to look around your local area and check with the fuel and gas suppliers and hear their pitch as to why they are the best way to go. Also new technology keeps coming out!

[algonquin]

I worked in big hangar that had radiant floor heat and working under a airplane after lunch was great for us old guys, the boss didn’t care for it so much,lol. Grumpy young guy kept waking us us.

[hotrod180]

....Our area has excessively high electrical costs- to the tune of $.66/kw! Yes, you read that correct.....

Wow!
I just checked my latest electric bill--
I'm being charged $.09 for the first xxx kwh, and $.11 thereafter.
This is in Washington which has a lot of rain,
and a lot of hydro-electric dams to take advantage of that renewable resource.
Of course, the push is on to tear out all the dams,
without any good (aka politically acceptable) alternative sources,
so I'm sure that our electrical costs will be going up steadily in the future.

[Paul Heinrich]

I was told that when doing fabric work the use of portable diesel heaters should be avoided because they will deposit a sooty film on everything.

Also, elevated sealed-flame heaters are the safest way to heat when around highly flammable/volatile liquids. Gasoline fumes are heavier than air, so you don’t want an open flame anywhere less than 6’ off the hangar floor. Good ventilation is also important.

No one wants to accidentally be around a homemade thermobaric bomb if and when they go boom. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon

[courierguy]

One huge factor in electrical heat, is if your utility has a TOU (time of use) rate. Mine doesn't, but I'm told many areas do, and that is custom made for a radiant floor heat install. Heat the concrete slab from whenever the much lower rates kick in, and shut it down before they end, using a simple timer. Coast thru the day time. One thing about electrical boilers, as compared to nat gas or propane, there is zero heat loss up the stack, because there isn't one.

When I built my current plane, the RANS S-7S, I framed in a 20' by 10' insulated room inside my un-insulated pole barn, and poured a slab with rad heat tubing over foam insulation. It was my paint booth, and I'd pre heat it to 75 degrees air temp using a 1 KW electric boiler, start painting, and stop when the temps dropped to 60 or so. I had to vary my technique with the spray gun as the temp dropped, but it at least had zero chance of blowing up. Turned out, by the time the temp dropped, I was ready to quit spraying anyway, had got done what was needed, other than the advance notice needed to get it up to temp at first (several hours) it wasn't a problem. Of course, it was winter time, so my cold filtered intake air was a big factor. I thought of running a temporary 24" duct over to the heated shop, 18' away, so at least the intake air would be 60'ish, but got done before I got around to it. Spraying Poly-Tone, which is pretty forgiving, it came out pretty good.

[Dan Gervae]

I’m doing a fabric job (recovering a J3) and I decided to put up temporary walls to make a smaller area to heat. I put plastic on both the inside and outside of the walls. I heat with a ceiling mounted 125,000 btu Mr heater Big Maxx

[D.A.]

I have a 50X60 hangar and I installed 2 125,000 BTU Infrared Tube Heaters down the center of the ceiling pointing outward. Infrared heaters don't heat the air, they heat everything "IN" the air - - - starting with the floor. I couldn't be more happy with them. Very easy to install and you feel the heat almost immediately after they come on. Also, since it's heating the items in the air (Plane, car, boat, tool boxes, etc.) those things continue to radiate after the tube heaters have shut off. After the heaters have been on a short while, if you reach for a wrench, it's warm.

[Cardiff Kook]

Google suggested infrared- surprised you are the only one who has used it.

Anyone else with infrared experience?

[stewartb]

Have had it over the loading docks of my AK buildings because it keeps the guys warm when the doors are open in winter temps, like below zero. I wouldn’t want it as primary heat, and I really wouldn’t want it cooking my airplanes.

[skywagon8a]

Google suggested infrared- surprised you are the only one who has used it.

Anyone else with infrared experience?

This is mine, a simple system. It operates on propane, does a nice job making it comfortable to work under. However, the rate of fuel consumption I thought was high. In 5 weeks of use it went through three 100 gallon tanks of propane. That I could understand, until the price of propane doubled. It cost over $1100 to heat the hanger for those 5 weeks. When I installed the heater the propane price was half of the cost to refill. So I had the propane removed and don't use it any more. That was 20 years ago, who knows what the cost would be today? There was likely a lot of heat loss into the upper section of the hangar and the door wasn't as tight as it ought to be even though it was clamped closed.

[180Marty]

Anyone else with infrared experience?

You must not have seen my previous post. I have the Eneradiant tube heater in a shop within my hangar. It is an insulated 22 by 19 by 13 tall enclosure where I welded 4130 tube aircraft structure with my Syncrowave 250 welder. I liked it because there wasn't air blowing around and what I was welding was warm. It didn't seem to use too much propane either.

[BC12D-4-85]

Can radiant heat affect fabric, especially dark colors? Don't know just asking.

Gary

[Kid Durango]

I have the radiant heat in my shop, almost as big as the hangar but not quite. 14’ ceiling, so yes there is some separation. I love it, and it’s extremely efficient. Only gripe is working under a vehicle or similar. If the IR can’t ‘see it’, it’s cold. I would definitely recommend it. My brand is Schwank.

[Gordon Misch]

Can radiant heat affect fabric, especially dark colors? Don't know just asking.

Gary

Yes, for sure. Think of it this way - the sun is radiant heat.

[frequent_flyer]

Think of it this way - the sun is radiant heat.

The sun emits a far wider range of wavelengths than an infra-red heater. An LED flashlight emits visible light. The sun emits visible light. The sun damages paint and fabric so an LED flashlight will damage paint and fabric. Same false logic.

I suggest that it is the sun's UV wavelengths that damage paint and fabric. Infra-red radiant heaters don't emit UV.

Yes, the IR heater will warm the fabric. Will it damage it? Depends on how hot it gets.

[Gordon Misch]

The sun emits a far wider range of wavelengths than an infra-red heater.

Well, obviously - - - No false logic. Fact is, an IR source will warm fabric, and that which is dark to visual light is typically dark to IR.

The question was, "can radiant heat affect fabric?" Furthermore, the word 'radiant' is applicable to so much more than IR.

I know you know this - - - -

Just for smart-alek giggles - - - Ever notice anything while standing too close to a wood-burning stove - without actually touching it?

[Canadian Farmer]

Unless I’m not seeing the picture correctly, Although the Infrared heaters are incredibly efficient, they still should be vented to the outside to prevent monoxide build up

[D.A.]

Unless I’m not seeing the picture correctly, Although the Infrared heaters are incredibly efficient, they still should be vented to the outside to prevent monoxide build up

Oh my goodness my friend, if you're referring to the pictures I posted, I apologoze - those pictures were taken "In Progress." My heaters are absolutely vented to the outside, ALL the heaters that have been mentioned here absolutely have to be vented outside!!! Thanks for speaking up, edit of my previous post to follow...

[Steve Pierce]

I have 2 125k btu natural gas radiant heaters in my poorly insulated, drafty work hangar. They work great. I see them in a lot of hangars in my travels. https://www.supercub.org/forum/showt...59-Hanger-Heat