Winter is coming, garage is cold, do you heat your Tormach?

Howdy,
Winter is coming here in Idaho, and the garage is heated only by the shared wall with the house. I do not use the big garage door in the winter, but it still gets down to 40 degrees at times and feels damp.

My question is simple. Do you, and how do you heat your tormach in these conditions? I have the same question for my roll around tool box with my TTS, collets, measurment tools, fixturing tools, and cutters in it. I can't really afford to just heat the whole garage, and the temperate in the garage doesn't really affect me or my projects. Thus I was thinking of specific dedicated heating for the two items in my shop with delicate machinery.

I have been thinking about getting a couple gun safe dehumidifiers for my roll around toolbox. One for the top and one for the bottom. The 36" ones are 36 watts of heat in a long tube. THey come in 18" and 24" also. Golden Rod® Moisture Control | Brands |

I have been thinking of balttery heater pads, or some other such heat source to put in the base of my milling enclosure to keep the humidy out and the temperature up.

Your thoughts?

kr

I use a 1500 watt electric heater in the winter when it gets cold, I leave it run continuously on the low setting, keeps it around 55 to 60 degrees n the winter.
Also a 18,000 btu AC in the summertime when needed.
I have a 2 car attached garage and its insulated, door ceiling and walls.

When it gets really cold I am not in the shop anyway so minimal heating is enough and keeps everything dry. In the summertime, I have the humidity problems, a bit of AC keeps it dried out.

Heat always. I keep it 68*F I consider part of cost of my hobby. I don't golf, fish, bowl or hunt. I work/play in the shop and I want these old bone comfortably warm. When I lived in Wisconsin I used a dehumidifier year round too.
I have always used a gas furnace for heat, a unit heater in my shop now and a wall heater in my old garage, the garage had a/c too to help beat the Midwest humidity. I don't need one here in eastern WA since the humidity is low.

First thing you need to understand is why things tend to rust in the winter. Once you understand that, you can come up with a strategy that makes sense for your conditions and habits.

Cold temperature, by itself, will not significantly harm your machines or tooling. Your enemy is condensation, which will occur whenever the temperature of the equipment and tools drops below the dew point of the air in your shop. If you take a warm shop, close the doors, and lower the temperature, you will never get condensation, because the dew point will always be up somewhere below (but near) the original warm temperature. As long as the temperature of the machines remains above the temperature of the air outside, you will get no condensation. Where some care is required, is when the machines are colder than the outside air. Say you closed up your shop in the evening, when the temperature was 50F. Overnight, the temperature dips down to 30F, then, in the early morning, rises back up to 40F. The machines, which have a large thermal mass, will still be down near 30F. If you then open the doors, you let in a lot of 40F air. As soon as that air hits the 30F metal on the machine, moisture will condense out on the machine, and rust will result. To avoid this, follow a few simple rules:

1) Keep the doors closed as much as possible. Use only a small door to go in or out, and go in or out as quickly as possible, to admit as little outside air as possible.
2) If you MUST leave a door open, or open a large door, avoid doing so early in the day after a cold night, when the outside temperature is significantly warmer than the overnight temperature. If necessary, heat the shop for SEVERAL HOURS to get the machines warmed up before opening a large door. It is the temperature of the machines that matters, NOT the temperature of the air.
3) Combustion heaters of any kind create HUGE amounts of water vapor, so NEVER use ANY kind of combustion heater unless the combustion chamber is completely sealed, and the exhaust is vented to outside. This means no wood-fired heaters, no kerosene space heaters, no gas heaters - basically no heater with ANY kind of flame, unless it has a flue that vents outside the building. Electric heaters are very good, as they create no water vapor.'

My practice is to leave the shop unheated when not in use. I have three 1500W electric space heaters ($20 each from Sears). Avoid "radiant", which will heat you but not the machines. An hour before I need to start work, I go out and turn on all three heaters. By the time I get out there, the shop is warm, and I can turn two of the heaters off, and the third one down enough that it only runs part of the time, even on the coldest days (in the 30s here). The cost of this is next to nothing, the shop is comfortable, and, in over 10 years, I've never once had a problem with rust. If it's REALLY cold outside, you might want to leave on a heater with a thermostat, just to limit the lowest temperature at some reasonable value (maybe 40-50F), but I've never found that necessary where I live.

Regards,
Ray L.

JEEZ, I don't know how to answer that question, I live in San Clemente, CA where if we have a REALLY, REALLY cold day, it might get all the way down to 55 degrees

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SCzEngrgGroup

First thing you need to understand is why things tend to rust in the winter. Once you understand that, you can come up with a strategy that makes sense for your conditions and habits.

Cold temperature, by itself, will not significantly harm your machines or tooling. Your enemy is condensation, which will occur whenever the temperature of the equipment and tools drops below the dew point of the air in your shop. If you take a warm shop, close the doors, and lower the temperature, you will never get condensation, because the dew point will always be up somewhere below (but near) the original warm temperature. As long as the temperature of the machines remains above the temperature of the air outside, you will get no condensation. Where some care is required, is when the machines are colder than the outside air. Say you closed up your shop in the evening, when the temperature was 50F. Overnight, the temperature dips down to 30F, then, in the early morning, rises back up to 40F. The machines, which have a large thermal mass, will still be down near 30F. If you then open the doors, you let in a lot of 40F air. As soon as that air hits the 30F metal on the machine, moisture will condense out on the machine, and rust will result. To avoid this, follow a few simple rules:

1) Keep the doors closed as much as possible. Use only a small door to go in or out, and go in or out as quickly as possible, to admit as little outside air as possible.
2) If you MUST leave a door open, or open a large door, avoid doing so early in the day after a cold night, when the outside temperature is significantly warmer than the overnight temperature. If necessary, heat the shop for SEVERAL HOURS to get the machines warmed up before opening a large door. It is the temperature of the machines that matters, NOT the temperature of the air.
3) Combustion heaters of any kind create HUGE amounts of water vapor, so NEVER use ANY kind of combustion heater unless the combustion chamber is completely sealed, and the exhaust is vented to outside. This means no wood-fired heaters, no kerosene space heaters, no gas heaters - basically no heater with ANY kind of flame, unless it has a flue that vents outside the building. Electric heaters are very good, as they create no water vapor.'

My practice is to leave the shop unheated when not in use. I have three 1500W electric space heaters ($20 each from Sears). Avoid "radiant", which will heat you but not the machines. An hour before I need to start work, I go out and turn on all three heaters. By the time I get out there, the shop is warm, and I can turn two of the heaters off, and the third one down enough that it only runs part of the time, even on the coldest days (in the 30s here). The cost of this is next to nothing, the shop is comfortable, and, in over 10 years, I've never once had a problem with rust. If it's REALLY cold outside, you might want to leave on a heater with a thermostat, just to limit the lowest temperature at some reasonable value (maybe 40-50F), but I've never found that necessary where I live.

Regards,
Ray L.

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There are a lot of winter mornings here when it's warmer outside that it is inside, so I'll open the big door a half hour before I go out to go to work.

I have winters down to -25 to -30degrees celsius. So I decided to build a room in my garage that is isolated with 15cm of glava (rockwool).

Not done yet, but I think I will only need a 1kW heater on continiously, to keep a room temp above 20degrees celsius.

I have not calculated or read anything about how much the iron frame will excess when warm contra cold.

Heres a pic of my room.
Attachment 254426

My 1100 has been in an uninsulated, non-climate controlled metal building for it's lifespan. It gets below freezing in there. When I go in there on a cold day, the condensation actually accumulates on the inside of the roof panels and rains from the low spots. I give my machinery a spray of WD40 when it is going to sit idle for a while and don't have any rust issues. I seem to get more orange forming on bare metal parts during the summer when it gets well over 100 degrees in there. It's usually on the drill press table and disk/belt sanders though. I've never had anything that wouldn't wipe off with a WD40 covered rag.

Thanks for the replies.
Will not heat the shop. Will not just do nothing. Will not move to Kali, even at gun point. SCz is always good for a lecture, thanks. Thanks for the electric bathroom heater idea, but the wifee will not have that.

I guess what I'm hearing is that no one has tried golden rods or battery heater pads. I have one on a variable speed control. Maybe I just need to try it.

Thanks again,

kr

a 100 watt incandescent light strategically placed would work, the battery heaters would too if you just want to heat the machine itself.

I find that I dont work in the shop if its too hot or too cold so the ac and heat are worth it to me, near as I can figure it costs about 20 to 40 dollars a month depending on the weather, I am in the St Louis area, so the weather extremes arent the same as Idaho.

I designed this circuit http://clementfocuser.com/images/Tem...trol_Print.pdf about 15 years ago to automatically keep optics a minimal amount above ambient temperature thus insuring no condensation. It works off of 12V DC and will use the absolute minimum amount of power to keep condensation away which is a necessity in order to not have the heater effect seeing with a telescope. The nice thing for using this circuit as a toolbox heater, machine heater or bathroom mirror heater is that it uses the minimum amount of power to do the job. BTW I have swapped out almost all incandescent and compact florescent lights for the more efficient LEDs in my home. Next thing is to replace the 4' florescent light fixtures in my shop with LEDs.

Don Clement

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Originally Posted by R.DesJardin

Heat always. I keep it 68*F I consider part of cost of my hobby. I don't golf, fish, bowl or hunt. I work/play in the shop and I want these old bone comfortably warm. When I lived in Wisconsin I used a dehumidifier year round too.
I have always used a gas furnace for heat, a unit heater in my shop now and a wall heater in my old garage, the garage had a/c too to help beat the Midwest humidity. I don't need one here in eastern WA since the humidity is low.

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Rory, I'm with you, the heating bill is tax deductable, I like warm at my age. :wave: (Good to hear from you. BTW Check out my post on Sprutcam forum, I posted last night, you have any input?)

And Steve, you don't have to rub it in about your harsh climate in California, :) ..... but on the other hand your in California ...Nancy P and all. LOL JK

Quote:

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Originally Posted by freeidaho

I have been thinking about getting a couple gun safe dehumidifiers for my roll around toolbox. One for the top and one for the bottom. The 36" ones are 36 watts of heat in a long tube. THey come in 18" and 24" also. Golden Rod® Moisture Control | Brands |

I have been thinking of balttery heater pads, or some other such heat source to put in the base of my milling enclosure to keep the humidy out and the temperature up.

Your thoughts?

kr

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How do these heaters dehumidify?

If humidity is concern then most floor dehumidifier models will produce on average 300-500 watts of heat while filling reservoir or hose to a drain.
This would solve both problems for the most part.
These days cost of electricity is so high Im in process of changing everything not just lights to the most electrical efficient appliance I can find.
md

I have one of these in a 2 car garage - Mr. Heater Big Maxx

Attachment 254696

Leave the thermostat at 45* at night, and heat to whatever I need during the day.

Comes setup for Propane, but they sell a natural gas kit - I used both, glad to be on Natural Gas now.

I'm in Central Iowa, so it gets down to -10*f or so for a couple weeks a year.

It's on sale, I'd suggest getting this and not looking back. Bite the bullet you won't be sorry.

Presumably that heater vents combustion gases outside, but don't forget that water vapor is a significant product of the combustion process unless you are burning pure carbon.

Yep, it goes outside.

Also my ceiling was not insulated at all last winter, and it did excellent. Just insulated it to R30 last week, so will be impressed for sure this winter.

Well I may have stumbled onto a solution. Kats makes a magnetic oil pan heater in several power levels. I'm thinking of attaching one of these to the back of my metal tool box and letting the back of the toolbox transfer heat into the box. It may need to be hooked up to a variable speed box to cut down the power. The lowest power unit is 200 watts, and there is a 300 watt and 600 watt unit too. The 200 watt unit should keep my mics, calipers, Haimer, etc., from getting too humid.

One of these on the bottom side of coolant tray might keep the mill area humidity free and raise the temperature a bit. It would keep the computer and coolant tank warm too.

I like this approach. No fans or other moving parts, and the heat is very specific to minimize heating cost. I sent out an order tonight. Like I say, I personally have no issues with working in a 40-55°F shop. I know y'all have other solutions, but I post this one here in case it helps someone else.

Your thoughts,

kr

I havent had a humidity problem in the winter time with a 1500 watt heater set at mid point on the thermostat. I have had a problem in the spring and fall when the cement floor gets wet from the humidity due to large temperature changes and everything sweats, I just keep the heater on low or the ac on and it takes care of that problem, this condition usually only happens once or twice a year though.

I started with Electric heat, I think it was around 4000 watts, and it was a wall heater I built into a wood frame so I could move it around the shop on a long 220v drop cord. It's great for heating where you are working, but not good for heating a whole garage. You will find that heating with electricity is inefficient and costly. Go with Natural Gas or ....Propane if you have to.

IF you already have Electric, then get some of that silver wrap (with or without the bubbles, I tell about it in my shop tour video) as it will make you *FEEL* warmer than the air in the garage. This only works with Electric heat I have found.

I have a wall mounted natural gas furnace in the shop which is about 45000 btu. I keep the Honeywell programmable/internet connected thermostat set at 54 degrees. The HW thermo is connected to my wireless router so that I can run an app on my phone. So when I want to warm up the shop to 64 or whatever, I just call it up on the smart phone and turn up the temp. Works great. I also have a hourly time recorder attached to the HW thermo that records how long the furnace is on. I use that information to calculate heating costs for tax purposes.
BTW I also have a window air conditioner for summer use. It is IR controlled, so I built a microprocessor controlled IR controller that will turn on and off by the air conditioner when the same HW Thermo turns it on, so effectively I can turn on and off the air conditioner with my smart phone using the same app.

I have a split ductless system in my garage (heat pump) I use it as an air conditioner, as the heat function won't work under about 26*f outside, plus heat isn't efficient.

LRF - Does your heater vent outside, or does it have a catalyst and vent inside (water), etc?

I have a manual thermostat, I'm not rich enough for any fancy ones, lol.

Its a pretty standard wall furnace (do a Google search) that I bought used about 20 years ago and has done me very good service (Its was probably 10 to 15 years old when I bought it for $90).
It is a 2 speed model so has really heat good recovery. It vents thru the roof.

As for the thermostats, kind of have an in there as my daytime job is an R&D combustion and control engineer in a division of a company that makes gas valves, burner controls and thermostats. You figure out which company. LOL

Seriously, The thermostats that you control from your smart phone are unbelievably nice and the program ability is a great energy saver. I have 2, one in the house and one in the shop.

I've always wanted one, just haven't done it. I have 2 T-stats I'd probably replace. Link to one you suggest?

Search Home Depot for Honeywell Thermostats. Now they can be quite expensive but what you want to look is for the ones that are WiFi compatible. Mine are RTH8500 but the RTH6580WF which is under a $100 is very nice and if you have a family gone during the day the program ability and turning the heat down during the day will save you the cost in as little as one winter.

Thanks LRF, I assumed Honeywell, :) Neither of us leave the house, lol

Howdy,
The inside of my machinist tool box is 68°F to 71°F, while the other items in the shop are 60°F. Two Katz magnetic oil pan heaters hooked to a variable speed router control box are working well. Electricity is $0.32 per day or about $9.60 per month.

kr

Attachment 256190

Neat idea

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BAMCNC.COM

Go with Natural Gas or ....Propane if you have to..

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Natural gas, definitely.

Propane. Hmm, not so much, frequently it is on par with electricity for cost. Unless you have a heat pump, and than electricity is clearly much cheaper (until temperature get down to 30F or so outside).

Electricity is $0.13 average per KWH here

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BAMCNC.COM

Electricity is $0.13 average per KWH here

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Ok, you re right, I hadn't done the calculations for a few years, propane is cheaper than resistance heating (but not heat pumps if outside temp above 30F).

Assuming a 90% efficient propane furnace, that would mean for you that propane would be cheaper for heating if you can buy it for cheaper than $3.14/gallon. Since the going rate with residential delivery is about $2.40/gallon (but $1.62 in Iowa? how did you luck out?).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tmarks11

Ok, you re right, I hadn't done the calculations for a few years, propane is cheaper than resistance heating (but not heat pumps if outside temp above 30F).

Assuming a 90% efficient propane furnace, that would mean for you that propane would be cheaper for heating if you can buy it for cheaper than $3.14/gallon. Since the going rate with residential delivery is about $2.40/gallon (but $1.62 in Iowa? how did you luck out?).

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Propane prices, at least in California, have been all over the map the last several years. A few years ago, we were paying over $4/gal, and now is well under $3/gallon. Electricity rates, OTOH, have been much more stable, ignoring the Enron fiasco in the early '00s.

Regards,
Ray L.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by agurkmedia

I have winters down to -25 to -30degrees celsius. So I decided to build a room in my garage that is isolated with 15cm of glava (rockwool).

Not done yet, but I think I will only need a 1kW heater on continiously, to keep a room temp above 20degrees celsius.

I have not calculated or read anything about how much the iron frame will excess when warm contra cold.

Heres a pic of my room.
Attachment 254426

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Hi all,

As previously posted I said that when I got my Tormach I would build a room around it.

Well...I started with the whole room itself on Saturday, and today I am done with all the work regarding the walls and insulation.

Tomorrow I will build some tables and stuff and start throwing my computers inside again, its a total room of 20m2.

The whole reason I started with this project was that I could only hold about 10C with 8kW of heating, when it was only -4C outside...in Norway and especially where I live..winters are down to -30C.


Its a lot of photos to digest, so I rather uploaded them to dropbox and share all the photos as an album for those who are interested in the result.

Another sidenote: The whole project did cost me around 400$, its as cheap as possible, but still well enough insulated for Norwegian winters..

Here's the link for anyone who is interested, I documented the whole part, even when I got my tormach 2 weeks ago :)

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/g6k3pgrez...tnyIKMz_15pGqa

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tmarks11

Natural gas, definitely.

Propane. Hmm, not so much, frequently it is on par with electricity for cost. Unless you have a heat pump, and than electricity is clearly much cheaper (until temperature get down to 30F or so outside).

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I read this and was thinking this guy is nuts and this should not be even close!
Then I did the math and was blown away that it costs about $3.60 in power in my area to get the same btus as 1 gal of propane. Much closer in cost then I was thinking.
md

Yeah, my heat pump won't work under 26*F I think it is, so I don't even use it for heat. This morning it's 14*F outside, I'm nice and cozy with my Mr. Heater Big Maxx Natural Gas heater :) Huge difference when I have my air cleaner on circulating the heat, it's almost instant heat using both.

Not sure why Iowa is cheaper for propane, that is odd. I just know Natural Gas is always on tap :)

What is funny is I use to work at the wind turbines 10miles east of here, I know what Mid American gets for electricity and I KNOW that it's going to our city (use to work in Sub Station too) and our City monopoly (they buy by the Mega Watt from Mid American.. wish I could tell you the price...) and they still charge 13cents... for a Killo Watt

Cool Dropbox
agurkmedia
http://maxcdn.cnczone.com/images/sta...er-offline.png

It's pretty much how I started too!