Workshop temperature – cold

[Bo’sunParticipant @bosun58570]

Definately agree with the comments regarding humidity. I'm sure if the humidity is up it feels colder. I use a desicant dehumidifier plumbed in for constant drainage. The reduced humidity also helps keep rusting at a tolerable level, and the heat output adds a little to workshop warmth. No much I'll admit, but every little helps.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

It's not the temperature as much as the degree of activity or inactivity involved. My 'hobbying' is more cerebral than physical – I spend more time thinking about it than doing it (amateur) so I like a toasty warm shed.
On the other hand I was adapting my petrol chipper to take solid tyre wheels yesterday… had it parked outside shed in temps around 10C crawling around on an old plastic compost bag on the wet ground and not feeling at all chilled.

Today i have a load of chipping to do. It's reported 9C outside and I know that I'll be sweating in just a tee-shirt while cutting up the brash and shoving it down the hoppers

Perhaps instead of thermal underwear one should recommend a hula-hoop to stay warm

pgk

[JAParticipant @ja]

Many thanks for the replies. I may not be as bigger wimp as I expected. I do agree with Bazyle – Motivation is important. Also I don't like completely dressing up to use the workshop.

Just for information – The workshop is one half of a double garage which is split by a wall for most its length. The other half houses motorcycles etc which are generally dry. The garage door has a separate internal wall and the two external walls have cavities. The window, over the work bench, is double glazed and gets the sun on summer afternoons. The floor is concrete with rubber mats. The roof space is not insulated. Dampness is not a problem. I use an oil filled electric radiator for heating. It really just takes the edge off the cold. It may be sensible to invest in cavity wall insulation and loft insulation.

When I am driven out of the workshop I spend the time catching up on everything that has been put aside.

JA

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

I have in prev. threads described my cheapo heater in mill driptray. Home made 3ply wood box with 4 brass battenholders wired in series with 60W edison bulbs with bayonet fittings.Permanently plugged in but only switched off while using mill. Don't normally forget to activate when locking up workshop for the night. Arranged that cheapo heater shares same plug socket as angel eyes bright light above endmill chuck. So, one out, other in.

Very old 3ft tubular heater in Myford driptray controlled by thermostat via timeswitch often 9pm to 7am or 8.

No heat on Fobco bench drill – not needed, just plastic bag over top and another on table.

Heated lathe covered with flimsy plastic sheet + thick plastic bag over the vfd.

Heated mill table thick plastic bag each end + 1 above y axis slide + 1 below. Enormous, even thicker larger format plastic bag over top of mill.

Workbench also has flimsy plastic sheet, quickly flicked back for work and finish, no heat necessary. 

Heat escapes and makes rest of 10 × 8ft shed gently warm. Max and Min thermometer down end furthest from heaters monitors all..

Shed roof lined with thick polystyrene sheet, door and walls covered in 3plywood and voids stuffed tight with rockwool insulation. Outside, whole shed covered in roofing felt, waterproofing/draughtproofing/insulating.

Winter, temperatures still go up and down like a whores drawers but kept within acceptable bounds for working and very little rust trouble.

Sounds like  lot of aggro with the plastic bags, thick ones held ballast or sand years ago before the aggregate industry adopted much thinner version. I plan work to do as many jobs as possible on one machine, so cuts down on bagshift and setting up time. Set up time is the big time waster.

Edited By DMB on 30/11/2020 12:57:22

[Brian HParticipant @brianh50089]

The temperature in my workshop is set on a blower heater to be not less that 6 deg C which was chosen to prevent frost damage to a pre-war motor car.

The car has now gone but the setting remains.

When entering the workshop I set to temperature to 16 deg C which I find comfortable when wearing a wooly jumper.

Brian

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

My spec for the (Then, 17 years ago ) workshop called for 50 mm of glassfibre in walls and ceiling. Being 2 M x 2.8 M, external, but 2.5 M high, it is quite small,

There are no windows, just a small fixed vent at floor level, and a rarely used small intake fan at high level

The central walking area of the floor is covered with thick plastic matting, but the floor proper is 18 mm ply on 8 x 2 bearers, but with three sides closed off, and the open end sheltered.

When the ambient is liable to go close to freezing, a 60W tubular heater, under the fitting bench (If you can see it for clutter ) is switched on, to keep things above the dew point. Once I am in there, a thermostatically controlled 2Kw fan heater is used. Being small, that runs for about 10 minutes and then the heat from me and from the machines means that it cuts in fairly infrequently.

My clothing is no more than i wear about the house, shirt and sweater, and insulated work trousers.

So even if a bit chilly on first entry, it soon warms up..

Maybe, I have a higher tolerance of low temperatures?

Howard

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Posted by Martin Kyte on 29/11/2020 16:57:00:

Not sure really, I tend to like it a bit warmer than I used to if I'm in there all day. I am at the moment as I'm working from home so the radiator is on every day all day. I have noticed a distinct drop off in workshop related posts as the weather has turned colder. Many more 'what gets my goat is. . .' rather than 'look what I made today. . .' and 'how do you go about turning whatever . . .' Could it be we are going soft?

regards Martin

Some of us are Geordies and some of us are soft Southerners.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Now anyone involved in that fight will keep warm

Howard

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 30/11/2020 17:04:12:

Now anyone involved in that fight will keep warm

Howard

But some will only be wearing tee shirts

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

I have converted my single attached garage 17' x 8' as my 'hobby shop' the walls have been studded & lined with 'Celotex' insulation, boarded out with OSB, as is the loft space which is insulated with 4" 'space blanket' I have foam rubber tiles in the floor which keeps the 'plates of meat' off the cold concrete. I have two small oil filled rads, one at ea. end which I switch on for an hour before I venture in, which are set to reach 16* C then switch off, nice & cosy, I don't like cold!. Saying that I do wear an over t shirt, extra military style cargo pants on top of my 'house trackies & safety trainers with thick soles & if I am using the lathe I wear a ware house type coat.

George.

[Martin DowingParticipant @martindowing58466]

My garage is warm, with central heating.

Nothing rusts there, even my wife is happy to sit there and observe how swarf is made.

She is very fascinated while watching it, very much like neighbours cat which often comes and also watches.

Welding and rough grinding are always done outside, on free air.

There is wooden bench in garden for that.

[Roger BestParticipant @rogerbest89007]

A warm workshop means less sore joints so mine is insulated better than the house. Neither have central heating, so an electric heater will be used this winter. Last winter there was no machinery installed so no heat was required, yet it kept pretty warm due to heat coming through the wall from the house. I will probably set the thermostat to 18C and lower it as I get used to how warm my smock coat is.

[FatgadgiParticipant @fatgadgi]

One of my little luxuries in life is keeping my workshop at a constant 18 degrees 24/7 in winter.

As Roger said, it’s better insulated than my house as well, and a 600w oil filled radiator keeps it warm.

Toasty 🙂🙂🙂

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

The coldest i have recorded so far is 14 degrees C . With a 20 min blast with the 2kw fan heater it usually comes up quickly to 19-20. I have a 750w chocolate heater from my contracting days hung from the ceiling. This takes over & keeps it a comfortable 19.

Chocolate heater is a old chocolate enrober heater , which is 3 250w ceramic units. Which were originally on 3 phase 415. But each element is 240v so i just rewired for single phase. I had a stack of these & gave them away to friends. I wish i had kept 1 for the main garage area. Fortunately when i built the garage / workshop i used 10mm kingspan type panels which have a very good thermal value.

Steve.

[Neil LickfoldParticipant @neillickfold44316]

I used to put up with a cold workshop. Last year installed a heat pump and it stays 20c all through winter, and cooled in the summer to about 24c Very comfortable. Its the best thing that I ever did for the shop, apart from insulating it. Until the heat pump, I had one of those infrared heaters , it is like standing with the sun on your back. But the heat pump is way cheaper to run, and once it is all up to temp, does not cost alot to keep it warm.

Neil

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Fatgadgi on 02/12/2020 00:05:47:

One of my little luxuries in life is keeping my workshop at a constant 18 degrees 24/7 in winter.

As Roger said, it’s better insulated than my house as well, and a 600w oil filled radiator keeps it warm.

Toasty 🙂🙂🙂

I look at it rather differently. I warm it when necessary. There is little point in wasting both energy (climate warming?) or money unnecessarily.

I make sure my machines are kept corrosion-free without unnecessarily wasting valuable resources. The 15m^2 workshop has been running at 9-12 Celsius during the recent cold weather, currently costing 12p/day for heating/drying. It is detached from the house.

It has 40-60W of lighting and me (100-120W?) while I am in situ, of course, which would steadily increase the air temperature. If I intend staying for more than an hour and a half – after which my hands get to the point of needing warming – I would consider turning on a heater as necessary.

I will be warming it with a few kWh tonight as I intend being in there for most of the day, tomorrow. I take sensible precautions to keep warm in the winter; woollen socks, long johns, thick(er?) trousers, T-shirt and sweat shirt is more than sufficient in the workshop as long as I am active. Oh – and I wear a hat (~10% of our heat loss is from our heads) to reduce my heat losses.

Those few kWh will undoubtedly warm both the air and the metalwork in the workshop overnight. I don’t anticipate any need for extra heat during the day – as long as I keep the door closed – but, if necessary, I expect my dehumidifier (375W) would supply sufficient extra warmth.

[simondavies3Participant @simondavies3]

When I used to help a friend with fettling his vintage car for racing and hill climbing, most of the work was done in his extensively extended single car garage with the doors wide open at all times of the year.
To maintain any sort of comfort in the garage, we eventually used a 'space heater', essentially a gas burner and big fan attached to a big bottle of propane and designed for large factory type spaces. Ideal for roasting one side of you and leaving the other frozen.

On this particular occasion I had come directly from work and had applied a set of overalls on top of the existing layers and topped off with a set of plasticised paper overalls as supplied in large quantities to BA – and onward to me from time to time. It was a cold evening and as I feel the cold, I was getting closer and closer to the space heater nozzle whilst concentrating on the job in hand.

At some point I started to feel uncomfortable around my legs and looking down, realised that I was slowly being shrink-wrapped by the overheated plasticised overalls!

After this we moved to closed doors and radiant type heaters instead…

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

I only managed about an hour in the workshop from 0625 to 0730 as I was diverted to help a friend for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon so did not warm the workshop overnight. It has been delayed until Friday.🙂 ‘Best laid plans of mice and men’ at work once again…

[Jon LawesParticipant @jonlawes51698]

I intend at some point to incorporate a device my friend used in his carbon fibre workshop; a drainpipe going to the very top of the ceiling and a duct fan at the base. It was astonishing how warm the air was coming out of the fan. When he started using it he barely had to use the heater anymore.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

What’s the ‘U’ value of a carbon fibre workshop?🙂

[Bill PudneyParticipant @billpudney37759]

Being up here in 'straya, where we have a daytime temperature range of (about) 10 degrees C to 45 degrees C. So cold temperatures are not much of an issue. In the Winter I just put on an extra sweatshirt and wear a dustcoat. The big problem is the Summer when the temp in my steel shed can easily get up to 55 degrees C. That's great for carbon/epoxy layups, but not for any machining or fiddly hand work. It gets really unpleasant when sweat starts dripping onto my glasses!! At which point I generally retire indoors and sit in front of the air conditioner for a while!!

cheers

Bill

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Hi Bill,

Us in the UK don’t get that sort of summer temperatures but I don’t like it when the temperature gets up to wards 30!

Last year, the workshop only got too hot when I stupidly left the door open for several hours. Once it had got up to over 30, it seemed to stay like that for several days.

I note, on the renewable energy front, that the Aussie scene is drastically reducing grid-take by occupants installing solar systems for their homes. Seems like your workshop could do with a roof installation and air-con? Only useful with a tin shed that has good insulation! My workshop is cocooned in at least 100mm of insulation with some exceeding that by a large margin. Relatively warm in the winter and cool in the summer (as long as I don’t leave the door open!).

[John MCParticipant @johnmc39344]

After having workshops in garages and various wooden buildings I decided one day that the workshop would be part of the house. When we moved in to our "forever" house and extended it that is what was done. Most of the extension is single story. Insulated cavity walls, heavily insulated roof space, insulated floor, all of which exceeded the requirements of the time and double glazing. The workshop has no external doors, access is through the garage or utility room. Its on the central heating system, the TRV is on a low setting, it can get too warm.

I'm surprised I've not come across more of this approach to keeping warm. Not the cheapest of things to do but well worth it, no more working up the motivation to take the cold walk to a cold workshop.

John

[Roger ClarkParticipant @rogerclark]

My 7 x 5 Metre workshop stands about 3.5 m high at the apex and is lined with 100mm insulation in the roof and 50mm in the walls. I have a diesel night heater, purchased on Ebay, which I run on kerosene, much cheaper and cleaner than diesel!

Main heater

Controller

Exhauster outlet insulated from the timber

100ltrs of kerosene, this will last me 2 to 3 years.

I turn this on when I get up (if I'm workshopping), walk the dogs and have brekkie and by that time the chill is taken off and it's comfortable to work in even if the outside temp is wee below zero.

Only downside is that the metal and machinery is cold to the touch but I have ways around that .

If I need it warmer for painting I just ramp up the heater and leave it on overnight, at less than 50p per ltr it doesn't break the piggy bank.

Roger

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

at less than 50p per ltr it doesn't break the piggy bank.

Where can you get paraffin for less than 50p a litre in the UK in managable quantities ? I use a 25 litre plastic oil container for my fuel tank. The nearest bulk paraffin pump to me is 15 miles away & charged 82p a litre last year when I was looking. A filling station 3 miles away had gasoil (red diesel) at 84p a litre, so I'm currently running my 5Kw night heater on that.

My workshop is a corner of a 16' (approx) square detached garage, single skin Marshall's Heritage block built with a concrete tile apex roof & two steel up-and-over doors. Wall insulated with 20mm expanded polystyrene trapped against the wall with 12mm chipboard sheets & loft boards isolating the roof space. The 5Kw night heater gets the area around the machinery comfortable after an hour or so.

Still working at the moment, so not as much workshop time as many on here – motivation lacking in the evenings & usually other things competing for attention at weekends.

Nigel B.

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