New Shop Ideas?

[farminflyboy]

Epoxy coat your floor right away, before it gets stains on it. It makes it sooooooooo much easier to clean up.

[Snipe]

I am also for floor heat. A question for others with floor heat? do any of you use geothermal to heat and cool shop? I have floor heat with a insulated floor so my concrete doesn't cool in the summer. I am wondering if any one uses geothermal to cool in the warm season.

[711bert]

we have geothermal we do heat and cooling in summer, but the cooling it creates a bit of condensation and its nothing compared to ac, it doesn't do too too much but everything helps when summer is extremely hot, we find that opening the doors and creating air movement works way way better, only when it gets extremely hot we use the cooling.

[mikey350]

personally i wouldnt bother with floor heat, but if you do, put a tracer wire in with the pipe so when you decide to put that new two post lift in, you dont hit a line.

[BillHilly]

Thanks for all the good ideas everyone. Good to get lots of different opinions! Floor heat is out of the question just too much cost up front. Have heard a few horror stories of lines breaking a few years in. I realize its probably not too common but still makes me a bit nervous. We have overhead heat in our current shop and it works great in there. Warms up pretty quick after opening the big door and always stays nice and warm in there even on the coldest days. And that is in a building that was insulated in the 60's so i dont have too much concern for a new building. Also i had a guy tell me that when he worked in a shop with floor heat it killed his feet and legs. He is kind of a bs'er so not really sure what to make of that.

[jackalope]

Actually, the older mechanics who worked without floor hear said it killed their feet and knees. Standing on cold cement will do that. Ask any mechanics if they like working on a heated floor. They will say yeah. The only thing is you need the keep the temp cooler, as when your feet are warm, you are. I keep my shop ar 64 degrees to work in, otherwise i will sweat up.

When they cut the stress lines in our floor, they cut a couple of lines. They just broke the cement around the cut, spliced the line, and patched the cement. Just make sure you use good line that won't get eaten by the cement and can be spliced. My floor is 7 years old and no issues. It is pretty durable stuff. Much like saying that plastic skis won't work on snowmobiles.

[cr9060]

For work benches along walls put electrical and air outlets under the top of the bench near the edge. Keeps cords and hoses out of the work area on the bench and gives a couple extra feet of reach when trying to work away from the bench.

[wiscjim]

Do radiant heat tubes heat the floor also? I was thinking infloor heat and a wood boiler but I could probably heat the building for quite a few years with gas for the extra money they cost. I think I would be better off putting the money into insulation(spray foam).

[Richardson Farms]

I have in floor heat in my 60x60 shop. Best investment I made

[redgreen]

Originally Posted by wiscjim

Do radiant heat tubes heat the floor also? I was thinking infloor heat and a wood boiler but I could probably heat the building for quite a few years with gas for the extra money they cost. I think I would be better off putting the money into insulation(spray foam).

Yes and no. They heat objects. A cement floor is a big object to try and heat. We have two radiant tubes in our 50' x 60' and I think the shop itself is warmer when it is cold out because the tubes run for longer periods and heat the objects more resulting in a very warm experience. But I don't think much of the heat from the radiant system penetrates into the floor.

I don't find our floor to be real cold at all with this system though, it won't make your feet sweat but I can where sneakers for 12 hours very comforatably when shes -30C out. Recovery time seems to be adequate with opening and closing a 24/16 roll up door too.