Heating a New Hangar?

Currently I'm talking to a builder as we are designing my hangar home. At this air park, the homes look like regular houses with hangars built into the house so it all blends together. Think LARGE garage.

Being that it's in the northern country and winter about 364 days a year (ok almost) I'm trying to figure out the best way to heat the hangar.

Note that I am an addict and build one plane after another so this 55' X 50' hangar will be my perpetual workshop.

I could go with heated floors and perhaps a separate furnace. I could use a radiant heat system, or the builder suggests I could hang two gas furnaces in the corners.

Obviously I'm looking for the most efficient system to run. Can anyone discuss their heating system to give me ideas?

Thanks in advance!!

I would suggest you take a serious look at hydronic floor heat. Lots of good info available from your friend Mr. Google

I am looking at the same issue for our new place, my plan is to only heat a walled in workshop/office/bathroom area, not the entire hangar. The plane has electric sump heat for the times I need to have a warm engine.

Whatever you do, be sure to insulate well. No sense loosing any more of the heat (that you have paid for) than necessary.

Ditto what Mike said.

Dave

+1 on the hydronic floor heat. That's what I did in my shop. Why heat the air that's 20'+ above you before it reaches you? Hydronics can use a gas or electric fired boiler (small wall mount). Very simple and trouble free systems once up and running, and far more efficient that forced air systems.

The one guy I talked to at the airpark has the hydronic heated floors and he said it works well. In fact he said he installed the tubes himself to save some money which might be an option for me too. I can't recall but I think he said that his house furnace is also ducted into the hangar so he has floor heat, and forced air heat.

I've been searching Google and so far it seems that floor heat is the way to go. There's a lot of good reviews on the infrared radiant heat too.

It's good to hear about experiences of others too...

Hydronic all the way

We built our hangar home 8 years ago. I use the same gas fired boiler for the hangar and lower level of the house. 3 zones in the finished basement and one zone in the hangar. I keep the entire hangar at 58 degrees all winter.

We live in Michigan so the winters are pretty cold.

Gary

Shop Heat

I have a 48 x 72 x 16H shop/hangar with infloor heat. It runs off a small wall mount boiler burning 500 gal propane a season maintaining 55F. Great system, no noise or air movement, warm feet and will bump up 5F in an hour if I want more heat. (Iowa winters)

+1 floor heat

I kept my plane outside of a very large hangar. It had floor heat and a supplemental radiant? tube system up high. They rarely if ever used the radiant heat. The floor kept it nice and warm in the Chicago area. I pulled my bird in a few times to deice my wings and once I shut the door it would warm up very quickly as the concrete floor would retain the heat well.

We built our house at Independence Airpark four years ago. It has a gas commercial furnace hanging in one corner.

How you heat it is not as important as how you insulate and seal it. Our hanger is attached to the house and insulated to the same standards as the house, I.e., R-38 in the ceiling and R-21 in the walls. The windows are same Eglass double pane as the house. The slab should have edge insulation, but it is not critical in a 44' X 50' 16' high hanger. There are four ceiling fans that have not been shut off since we occupied the house. They keep the hot air mixed and not all up top.

The doors are a problem. There is a large insulated RV door. The Hanger door is covered with R-11 foam board. Keeping it tight is a problem. Pay careful attention to how the top is made airtight, a flexible fabric attached to the door frame and the hanger works best, but it is not a standardized thing.

A heated floor would be nice in the winter.
.

I have 2 forced air heaters in opposite corners of my 60x60. They definitely heat the place up quick but the floor will stay cold for a while. I have big *** fan that I turn on to help move the air and that helps the floor. All of this is controlled with an app on the cell phone so I can turn on the heat as I head to the hangar and its warm when I get there. While this works it's probably not the most efficient system. Gas infrared heaters are nice to put over work areas since they'll heat up work surfaces and tools very well.

I have in-floor heat in my 36X48X16 shop in Iowa. My boiler is a little on the small side and in a bad spell it doesn't stay warm enough to be comfortable. A bigger boiler might fix it. I'm toying with the idea of adding some radiant heat to address bitter cold spells and for rapid recovery. If the door is open and closed several times on a cold day it can take a while to warm up again.
The in-floor heat is very nice. It might be more expensive than radiant. When I put it in it was the way to go. Now, I'd have to look harder at radiant.
Others have pointed out that insulation and tightness if critical. I have a Hi-Fold door on one end that will seal tightly (except for the bottom corners, but that is my fault). The overhead door on the north end is more drafty and sometimes I stuff the cracks when the wind blows against it.
I have not felt the need for a fan, but respect the opinion of those who have them.
No drafts means I leave my thermostat at about 55-60 allyear round. It's very comfortable and it's nice to work on a floor that is warm.
My own preference is to avoid the forced air furnaces as I think they add a draft that requries a higher heat setting for the same amount of comfort.
My in-floor is run from a conventional LP water heater.
My teen-age girls and I installed the Pex heating tubes.
Tubes in the floor means you can not just drill a hole and install an anchor. I once drilled into a floor a nicked a line. I had to chisel the concrete out, cut the tube and install a connector. It was a nuisance but it has held ever since.
If you ever have a notion to install a jib crane or a car jack, it would be good to installthe footings for them before running the Pex as it's pretty hard to do that after the line is laid.
In my opinion, a radiant heater is more flexible when it comes to modifying the floor in any way.
The in-floor heat needs to be laid out by someone competent. I wish I had taken pictures of the lay-out with some reference stakes so I could measure to where a line was - that would let me drill into the floor with more assurance. I thought of using a heat sensor to locate the lines but haven't explored that - I suspect it might be hard.
I wish I hard run my in-floor heat just outside the doors a foot or so to be sure they didn't freeze down.
Sub-floor insulation and some kind of vapor barrier is important for in-floor heat. A good footing or rat barrier is useful, as the rodents otherwise will tunnel under that nice warm floor.
My bottom line - I think I'd investigate radiant heat now. Will need to be careful to not place it directly over something that doesn't take higher temperatures well. My farm shop gets the doors opened regularly so recovery time may be more important than for a hangar, and my boiler is a little small so recovery or added heat in bitter weather may be more of an issue to me than if the system were sized right.
FYI, I run pure water. The concrete acts as a heat sink so if I lose power or run out of LP I won't freeze up instantly. I'd not like to leave it alone for a week in a blizzard with a power failure.
My insulation is 6" bat in the walls and 12" blown in the ceiling. Foam would be better. Door insulation is critical, as most doors are thin. Doors have max loads so you can't add unlimited weight.
These are just my observations.

bpattonsoa said:

We built our house at Independence Airpark four years ago. It has a gas commercial furnace hanging in one corner.

How you heat it is not as important as how you insulate and seal it. Our hanger is attached to the house and insulated to the same standards as the house, I.e., R-38 in the ceiling and R-21 in the walls. The windows are same Eglass double pane as the house. The slab should have edge insulation, but it is not critical in a 44' X 50' 16' high hanger. There are four ceiling fans that have not been shut off since we occupied the house. They keep the hot air mixed and not all up top.

The doors are a problem. There is a large insulated RV door. The Hanger door is covered with R-11 foam board. Keeping it tight is a problem. Pay careful attention to how the top is made airtight, a flexible fabric attached to the door frame and the hanger works best, but it is not a standardized thing.

A heated floor would be nice in the winter.
.

Click to expand...

At my last working job, we had a huge shop for heavy equipment. Designed for 365 day use down to -20F. The doors could not be fully insulated, so the design used a pleated drop insulation from the top. There was a gap of about 1-2 feet to the door. At -15F it really worked well. No heat in the floor due to need to support a D11, 785 truck, etc.

Here in central ill - I got a ground source heat pump, and it is fantastic. My home is super insulated, but the GS still cut my electric bill nearly in half, just in time for a 100% increase in $/kr-hr hike (for wind farms). Earth supply temperature is 60F all year. GS might be a cost effective option for the long term, NG is not available for me. Floor heat (hydronic) sounds comfortable for work.

suuuuuuuuuuuuuuch a problem!!!!

Mark, much as most of us just hate you for having a 55'x 50 hangar.....I have to put in my $.02 a couple ideas nobody has forwarded.

because it's so big, I have to ask.....how many places can you stand, or work, at once?
Perhaps just heated boots?

I have a 3 car garage, but I work in front of the bench 99% of the time. So a $60 radiant heater sitting on the floor warms me up in about 5 minutes. by lunchtime, the bench, tools etc. are all warm to the touch. Radiant kicks butt.
Your 'contractor' should be put in that special place where they put people who suggest what's quick, easy, and cheap...for them. They don't have to live with the result. Big hanging forced air units are 1940's tech, and they were stupid then too!..... good for wasting a LOT of energy ( $$$) and heating the air at the ceiling. Sure, fans can push it down a bit ( more $$$ to run) but the draft is uncomfortable.
Look at the big hangars, like Buffalo Airways in the faaaaaaar north, ( Yellowknife etc.) they have black pipe radiant tubes overhead. It warms the planes, then the floor, then the air.
If you have a 'tool zone' you could put a wooden subfloor in the area only, or even build up a platform, 3" thick, insulate it, and put radiant floor panels in it.
.....hang a clear poly curtain/ceiling enclosure, and you'll have a shirtsleeve environment for a few bucks an hour.

If you have the choice, and budget, radiant first, for quick heat, then slab heat, but put in a LOT of zones, so you can mitigate leaks, and only heat the area you are using. You need good thermal breaks at the outside walls and under doors etc....or you lose all that nice slab heat to the outside....unless you WANT to melt the snow on your ramp!?!?? Beats shoveling! ( wait, tell the wife you need a 4-wheel drive tractor too, with a blade, and backhoe, with mower, and a cab, with a towbar, and a/c with MP3 surround-sound, ......ah heck, you probably already have one eh???

Well let's not get excited yet-55x50 is my initial plan that is being drawn up. Once I get the price from the builder I may have to make it 10x10 LOL...

Forced air is definitely out as it is too inefficient. Heated floors or the tube radiant heat sounds like the way to go and so far I'm leaning towards heated floors.

Heated Floor

My nephew is building a house in Southern Indiana and plans to use an outdoor woodstove to heat the floor in his basement and garage. He already has one in his apartment in his pole barn and swears by it. All he has to do is keep the outdoor wood stove fired up. We have a electric heated tile floor in our bathroom and love it.

Heating

Either forced air gas furnace or heated floors circulating hot water heated by a gas boiler. Natural Gas prices will be you lowest cost heating for the next two decades at least.

Steve Gubser
Houston, Texas

in floor heat

insulation is mentioned but i want to stress the insulation under the floor.direct contact with the ground will suck the heat out like a tongue on a cold flagpole. get good advice on how much styrofoam under the floor.