I recently found these forums and am having a great time reading through these various posts and gaining a much deeper (and unbiased) understanding of these various technologies. I recently received some terrific feedback from several people on the off-grid section so I wanted to solicit some opinions here as well. One of the ideas I've been considering is some evacuated tube panels for radiant heating a shop floor but I really have no idea how efficient that really is or if it makes since in this application
The details...
I'm in the beginning stages of planning/designing a new wood shop for our very rural weekend (future retirement) property. We're on a 40 acre wood lot and I have a band saw mill that produces a lot of wood waste so we have a practically unlimited supply of the original solar heat source - wood. The building will be approximately 24' x 32' w/ 10' ceilings and the property is located in the Hudson Valley of NY with very long, cold winters at 47 lat.
Winter heating requirements should run about 30,000 BTU hour and I plan to primarily heat the building when in use with a wood burning furnace. The building will most-likely be timber framed with SIPs panels so very well insulated with insulated concrete floors, proper frost wall, etc. The gable roof will be SW facing and I've calculated my kWh/m2/day for Nov at 3.25, Jan at 2.8 and March at 5. The garage doors will also be SW facing however so I will not have much room on that facade for windows/passive heat and I would want to avoid skylights on the SW facing roof to keep summer temps low as we generally don't need much AC there.
I know from experience what kind of heat a 150,000 BTU stove can put out but my primary concern is those ealy Sat mornings when the building (and concrete slab) have been sitting at 20 degrees F for the past 5 days so I'm weighing some supplemental heating options. I won't be running water to it so freezing is not a concern. Our house is heated with oil but we do get a propane delivery for cooking but it is expensive and this building will need its own fuel storage.
Anyway, one of the things I've been considering is a couple of evacuated tube panels on the roof that could heat a closed glycol loop but I have no idea how much it will cost or even if it would do what I need. I know radiant flooring can work efficiently with cooler water temps than a traditional hydronic system and I won't really need to maintain a specific temperature when I'm not there but starting from 50 degrees every Sat morning when I fire up the stove would be a lot faster and comfortable than starting at 20 F. If these systems are relatively low maintenance and installation costs are not much more than what a traditional supplemental heating system would run, it may make sense. Or maybe not, I really have no idea which is why I just wrote this essay, lol. If you made it this far - thanks!
EDIT: Also open to a DIY solution as discussed here as well... https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum...hop-floor-heat
EDIT #2: https://www.builditsolar.com is an awesome find from the thread above. Thanks Mike90250
The details...
I'm in the beginning stages of planning/designing a new wood shop for our very rural weekend (future retirement) property. We're on a 40 acre wood lot and I have a band saw mill that produces a lot of wood waste so we have a practically unlimited supply of the original solar heat source - wood. The building will be approximately 24' x 32' w/ 10' ceilings and the property is located in the Hudson Valley of NY with very long, cold winters at 47 lat.
Winter heating requirements should run about 30,000 BTU hour and I plan to primarily heat the building when in use with a wood burning furnace. The building will most-likely be timber framed with SIPs panels so very well insulated with insulated concrete floors, proper frost wall, etc. The gable roof will be SW facing and I've calculated my kWh/m2/day for Nov at 3.25, Jan at 2.8 and March at 5. The garage doors will also be SW facing however so I will not have much room on that facade for windows/passive heat and I would want to avoid skylights on the SW facing roof to keep summer temps low as we generally don't need much AC there.
I know from experience what kind of heat a 150,000 BTU stove can put out but my primary concern is those ealy Sat mornings when the building (and concrete slab) have been sitting at 20 degrees F for the past 5 days so I'm weighing some supplemental heating options. I won't be running water to it so freezing is not a concern. Our house is heated with oil but we do get a propane delivery for cooking but it is expensive and this building will need its own fuel storage.
Anyway, one of the things I've been considering is a couple of evacuated tube panels on the roof that could heat a closed glycol loop but I have no idea how much it will cost or even if it would do what I need. I know radiant flooring can work efficiently with cooler water temps than a traditional hydronic system and I won't really need to maintain a specific temperature when I'm not there but starting from 50 degrees every Sat morning when I fire up the stove would be a lot faster and comfortable than starting at 20 F. If these systems are relatively low maintenance and installation costs are not much more than what a traditional supplemental heating system would run, it may make sense. Or maybe not, I really have no idea which is why I just wrote this essay, lol. If you made it this far - thanks!
EDIT: Also open to a DIY solution as discussed here as well... https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum...hop-floor-heat
EDIT #2: https://www.builditsolar.com is an awesome find from the thread above. Thanks Mike90250
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