Pole barn in PA ,heating , general, etc wheel horses... what else is there

[Shed 248]

Hey everyone were in the planning stage of a pole barn build. 32 wide 31 deep with 10 tall 16 wide door gable side and one walk in door. We plan to spray foam the inside walls and roof. So for heat I have an outdoor wood boiler I use to heat the house. So thoughts are I use the boiler to heat garage as well. So thoughts on heat. I already have a 42000 modine ceiling mounted heater with fan. I thought radiant floor heating. I also thought baseboard heaters. Combination of baseboards modine heater.... modine heater with radiant just radiant .

 

Also what's your thoughts i should do look for the rest of the building. I'm going with green posts they are wrapped on the bottom for protection. 5 inch thick floor. 

[Achto 27,509]

28 minutes ago, Shed said:

So thoughts on heat.

 

 Personally given the heat sources that you have at your disposal. I would do radiant floor heat off from you outside wood boiler and install the Modine ceiling heater for fast recovery ( after you have to open the over head door ) We had this kind of a set up in a body shop that I worked at and it worked very well. The Modines only ever ran after opening the over head doors to bring a car in or out, other wise the radiant floor heat did the job. BTW with the radiant floor heat is great if you have to work under a vehical in the winter.

[lynnmor 7,302]

Be sure to get insulated garage doors.

Unless you plan on spending multiple days of work, I wouldn't heat the slab, it just takes a lot of heat to bring it up to temperature and then there is all that wasted heat as it slowly dissipates while the building is not occupied.

[WHX?? 48,795]

For starters Shed we are gonna need some pics of said barn. 2nd you are gonna need to fork out twenty bucks to Nylon  to upload all those fine pics and get advice from this guy who puts horses in his barn from installing heat in said barns.... nawww just kidding but pics would be nice.

 

Lots of questions here tho ....what are you going to do in this building? Shop I'm guessing. Hobby or for income? How do you run your outdoor wood, full time, part time, just when you feel like it? Is this building being heated full time? 

 

Without a doubt you will want to use your investment in the outdoor wood. No brainer. Forget the baseboard nonsense ... it does not belong in a shop environment. PUT THE TUBING IN THE FLOOR. You may not use it but will regret later if you do.  It cannot be done later. 1/2" PEX 12" on center will suffice. No more than 250- 300 ft loops. 32x31 = about 1000 Sq ft so about 1111 ft of tubing required is a magic number with 4 or 5 loops. 

 

The hot water heater  will work just fine provided you stuff it with 180 degree water versus the 140 ish or so needed to run the infloor.

 

Last question why a five inch slab? You gonna have a frame straightener, very heavy equipment or such in ther? 

 

[DennisThornton 4,769]

Hard to beat infloor for comfort, especially your feet and certainly if you are working underneath a vehicle.  Helps keep the floor dry but expect some high humidity and damp windows if you are melting snow and you don't ventilate.  As mentioned above, there is a serous lag time between setting the temp and feeling the results so not ideal for a weekend project unless you turn the thermostat up Thursday morning, maybe even earlier.  But great for full time heat.  Otherwise you'll have to learn when to turn on and off in advance.  Another approach is to have a combo system by adding either a baseboard or hydronic air heater with fan.  Great makeup heat if sized right.  Keep in mind that if you open big garage doors and all your heat leaves radiant has slow recovery.  Now I've had service garage owners say that was never an issue but I'm sure that the doors were opened and closed as soon as possible, not all at once and all the other mass and the warm floor were able to recover fast enough.  I'd install radiant and hang that modine as an extra.  Wouldn't count on 42,000 BTUs alone.

[WHX?? 48,795]

Flush insulated overhead is a no brainer. With outdoor wood keeping the slab warm is also a no brainer WITH proper slab perimeter foam and the R value of your spray foam . At least two inches to frost line and under slab. Keeping the slab warm don't take much with the right control strategy. Pretty much waste heat from outdoor wood. Fossil fuel yah different ball game. The Modine jobby would give you faster warm ups but it really depends on how you plan to use the building. You wanna work out there in a jacket or in your skivvies? 

[8ntruck 6,991]

I'll be watching this thread.  I'm in the planning stages for a similar sized metal arch building.  I'm planning on having two rooms and a bathroom taking up 10 or 12 feet across one end of the building.  Was thinking of using hotel room type heat pump to heat the rooms.

[WHX?? 48,795]

Heat pumps are taboo north of the Mason-Dixon line 8n. Uness you own stock in the utility co. Or like expensive repair bills. I take that back their are no repair bills... you throw it out and buy a new one in this day and age. 

[Bill D 1,910]

A friend of mine built a pole barn and installed radiant heat in the floor.  He goes thru a lot of wood to heat it.  He mapped out where he planed to install a lift  and carefully routed the PEX to avoid hitting it with the anchor bolts.  Pretty sure his slab was closer to 8" thick.  Bill

[JoeM 7,871]

5 hours ago, WHX24 said:

At least two inches to frost line and under slab

a must in a building that size weather you heat the slab or not will make a difference.

 

I have a 16x24x9 insulated and insulated door. I use an over head 5000w, electric heater and keep it at 50 when not occupied, turn it up a bit when I am in there, and that is daily. Cost about a buck a day, just turn a knob, cheap by all means when I get to enjoy the shop all winter long. I am sure it would do much better if the floor would have been insulated. 

 

[ebinmaine 67,309]

8 hours ago, 8ntruck said:

I'll be watching this thread.  I'm in the planning stages

Us too.

 

 

 

8 hours ago, WHX24 said:

Heat pumps

 

I'll have to second the negative vote on the heat pumps. They go over like a lead balloon up here in Maine..

[Shed 248]

Hey everyone thanks for some information I will put pictures as building gets together we still have snow sitting on the ground. For my wood boiler I do run it all year round except when I shut down to clean it in july. I have a lot of wood all the time people like to just drop it off especially pine. But this year I'm hooking up to the swimming pool so we can use it more then 2 months out of the year. That will use some wood.

 

I plan to use the garage for my old 1952 ford f1 build it's a slow project but it makes progress. My old tractors

 Mountain bikes parking backhoe in. I wanted 5 inch floor because of the backhoe and the old truck sitting on stands and I did plan to build a small loft on the one side to put my mountain bikes up away from welding and put air compressor up there to muff the sound

 

I'm worried that the radiant floor heat will take to much of the heat from the house side of the wood boiler. The building I didnt plan to be in all year round to work unless something broke during winter. My job requires me to work heavy when it snows. My son is a winter baby and my thoughts where heat it for birthday parties or even fall parties. 

 

I'm running 100 amp over to it with a water supply I'm putting a drain on it in house side so I can hook air to line and blow it dry for winter if I didnt heat all year round. 

 

Foam board 2 inch on floor with 8 inches of 2a stone and 1 inch on the sides 

Spray foam was 2 inches all around

And the door will be insolated not a cheap door. 

 

My other idea was I have a 10 foot spot between the carport and the garage were I have 2b down and park my two trailers dump and equipment I thought for starter put a header board up and then later put a lean to of the building to keep trailers out of the weather. 

 

 

Main reasons for reaching out to everyone is so i dont miss out on important things I need to do or not to do. The heat seems to be the biggest. I need to see even how to hook radiant up to a wood boiler. Most cost effective method. 

 

 

[Pullstart 62,801]

Great build idea @Shed!  Even if you decide now’s not the time to heat with radiant, I’d suggest running the loops at least!  Like @WHX24 said, you’ve got one shot to install that, can’t ever go back!    He also said hot water heater.    Nails on a chalkboard right there.  If it was hot, it wouldn’t need heated!    I agree that it’ll take quite a bit of energy to maintain the slab for hobby time use... but if you even kept the slab at 40 you’d notice a huge difference in comfort out there!

[charging10 233]

Ive had the modine ceiling mount gas heater in my workshop since the early 1990s, its been very dependable.

[953 nut 55,098]

                Insulation is the key to comfort. The thicker you go the less supplemental heat will be needed. Once the huge mass of concrete is warm the area above it will be comfortable too. If the loft is above your work space you could insulate the floor structure of the loft too. You may want to consider zoned heating in the slab, put the loops closer together in the area you will be most likely to work in so that floor area will be nice and toasty. 

Check with the concrete supplier or do a  search to see how long the floor should cure before you heat the slab with radiant heat.

 

[WHX?? 48,795]

56 minutes ago, pullstart said:

He also said hot water heater.  

I meant use the 

 

11 hours ago, Shed said:

42000 modine ceiling mounted heater with fan.

Is this unit for hot water Shed? Like a fan coil? I took it that way. If it is I would just run that to get things started. Still put the tubing in the floor tho. 

 

30 minutes ago, 953 nut said:

how long the floor should cure before you heat the slab with radiant heat.

 

We have been known to (gently) throw the heat to it right away. There are two types of concrete ya know... concrete that isn't cracked and concrete that is gonna crack. 

[oldlineman 1,481]

All good ideas my understanding is that in floor heat in concrete should not have water hotter than 110 ,120  deg. just I have heard.

[WHX?? 48,795]

1 hour ago, Shed said:

I need to see even how to hook radiant up to a wood boiler. Most cost effective method. 

For a single zone like a shop it's pretty easy.  Just guessing your wood stove is an open system? A zoning circulator perhaps along with a mixing valve to control the water temp. and a thermostat that can sense the slab temp. That's what I use rather than room sensing as most shops we are not real concerned with comfort sensing. You should find simple piping diagrams on the 'net. 

https://customer.resideo.com/en-US/Pages/Product.aspx?cat=HonECC%20Catalog&pid=TH6100AF2004/U&category=T6%20Pro%20Hydronic&catpath=1.2.1.6.4&rank=0&v1=Sort.1.Product.Rank&asc=1

 

Very true Old line man. The incoming water temp is calculated out as to how many btu's per square ft. the floor needs. Many other factors come into play when crunching those numbers. 

[johnnymag3 2,515]

Its a water heater....not a hot water heater !!!

 PULLSTART …..Got to keep those boys in line, why would you heat hot water???

 

 

 

[Shed 248]

Yeah I was told the water in the system cant be more then 80 so I'd have to do a heat exchanger and a mixing valve I am going to call two places that do a diy setup but it becomes out of control for cost vs just doing the modine hot water heater and possibly two of them then I'll go that way. I am going to put ceiling fans forgot to mention that the boiler puts out an average of 165 degree water fully circulated 

[Shed 248]

So I just talked to a radiant floor company diy kits he told me what the best system to do. Radiant like 40 to 50 on one zone and the modine on another zone for hot so a few have stated this so that's the plan and I only need a heat exchanger from incoming boiler water into the heat zone and I need a mixing valve where some hot water is mixed into the return water. The company told me this way I'm not pulling to much away from the boiler and not dumping super hot water into the floor to crack it. Then when I want more heat quick turn the heater on the radiant would turn off for the time being when out of shop turn modine down to floor temp and just maintain the 40 50 

[Pullstart 62,801]

I believe that primary/secondary loops are the best for this application.  What you essentially do is make a loop from your boiler, into the shop and back out.  That’s the primary loop.  The secondary loop, your circ pump pulls from and returns water to an area in the primary loop no more than 12” apart from each other.  The circ pump in the secondary loop (your in-floor manifold) will pull a blend of hot and return water to create it’s own mixing valve.  What you’re looking for I believe is a 20-40 degree differential at the boiler once the slab is up to temp.

 

 Crude picture, I know... but maybe it’ll explain some of what I’m talking about.

 

 

 

[DennisThornton 4,769]

I sold Central Boiler, Toyotomi, Rinnai and Napoleon for a few years and talked to a lot of other HVAC contractors.  Radiant in floor has its pluses but the more I read about the intended use of this new shed I'm less likely to push radiant.  I think if it were mine I'd still consider it and maybe keep it on low but unless you convert your OSWFB to antifreeze you can't shut the system down or it will freeze.  Same with losing power and the circs.  A fairly inexpensive battery back up could run them enough to keep things from freezing for a while.  You would of course need to calculate total heat loads and confirm your OSWFB is up to the task.  Or when it's brutal outside use the OSWFB for the house and whatever backup or additional heat you have in the shed.  Or, since it's not for commercial or full time use, have a cup of coffee in the house and wait for better weather.

[Pullstart 62,801]

Another term to look up is reverse return.  It’ll allow you to not run valving control and have even flow through the manifold, no matter then length of the loop.  This is common when two different sized water heaters are in one system, but are desired to run equal loads... or even the same sized water heaters.

If your inlet runs straight to the first circuit in the manifold, but out of the last and in order throughout the rest, it’ll balance flow just with the tees as designed.

 

[Shed 248]

3 minutes ago, DennisThornton said:

I sold Central Boiler, Toyotomi, Rinnai and Napoleon for a few years and talked to a lot of other HVAC contractors.  Radiant in floor has its pluses but the more I read about the intended use of this new shed I'm less likely to push radiant.  I think if it were mine I'd still consider it and maybe keep it on low but unless you convert your OSWFB to antifreeze you can't shut the system down or it will freeze.  Same with losing power and the circs.  A fairly inexpensive battery back up could run them enough to keep things from freezing for a while.  You would of course need to calculate total heat loads and confirm your OSWFB is up to the task.  Or when it's brutal outside use the OSWFB for the house and whatever backup or additional heat you have in the shed.  Or, since it's not for commercial or full time use, have a cup of coffee in the house and wait for better weather.

Let me check the boiler size I dont want to out btu my stove to house use for the garage. That's my main concern I'll get the stove number. My house is 3000sqf and I have 4 zones on it now