Radiant tube heater??

[masher]

I live in southern michigan and just built a new 40x72 barn with 14' walls and need to get heat in it soon. Are the radiant tube heaters a good option? In my current 28x36 barn I just have a hanging/overhead heater in the back corner and it seems to work well but the new barn is much bigger. The radiant tube on the ceiling with no air movement down seems strange to me as heat rises. Is the radiant a different kind of heat?

 

[stingry]

Is the radiant a different kind of heat?

yes it is! Radiant heat heats objects, not the ambient air. It’s like standing in front of a campfire on a cool evening, you feel warm even though the air is cool.

 

[masher]

Does it move the heat around, not just heat up the objects under or close to it? When I'm drinking in front of the fire only the front side of me feels warm.

 

[mikedodge]

It doesn't move heat around it heats everything in the room. Like putting something under a heat lamp.

 

[Buckgnarly]

I have one and love it. The objects become a heat sink and in turn heat the space.

 

[Bert_]

The heat the objects which then heat the air. It's so much better than a forced air heater. Cheaper to run, I think it's comfortable at cooler temps

 

[ScaldedDog]

As others have said, they do work. I have one in our barn (Morton building), and it's been fine. They are not as good as radiant floor heating, though. Faster, for sure, but way noisier, and not quite as good at heating the edges of the building.

Mark

 

[Noltz]

Very very nice heat. We had it in our old auto shop (100x40') with the heaters on the far long side. We drove in through the short wall garage door and turned 60° into the stalls. Even with the heaters 40' away from where we worked everything stayed warm in there. I'll be very seriously looking at radiant when I get into my personal shop.

 

[jptbay]

Big fan of them. Had them in two shops now.

Nice even heat. Very fast heat recovery after having a big door open.

People seem enamored with in-floor radiant heat, but I don't get it. Expensive to install, often poorly installed, hard to repair, super slow temperature recovery.

 

[ScaldedDog]

People seem enamored with in-floor radiant heat, but I don't get it. Expensive to install, often poorly installed, hard to repair, super slow temperature recovery.

I've had both, and would always choose in-floor in new construction. Silent, cheap to run, a warm floor when down on it under a car... Lots to love about it. There's nothing wrong with tube heaters - we have one in the barn that I use as a shop - but I'd pick radiant floor if I could.

The up-front capital investment is expensive, for sure.

I have no idea how often the systems are "poorly installed", but that's an indictment of the installer, not the technology, and could be true of anything. I ran the tubes myself and bought a board with valves included from a radiant heat outfit that was a work of art.

What's hard to repair? Things that break, like valves, are very easy to swap out, though I never had to in the 10+ years we owned the system. The tubes in the floor would be difficult to repair, but I never accidentally drilled a hole in my radiant floor, or any floor, ever, and so have no experience with that.

"Recovery" from things like opening a garage door is super quick, so I'm not sure what you are referencing there. If you are talking about just heating a shop on the weekends or evenings, then radiant floor heat is the wrong solution, and tube heaters are much better for that use case. I'd just set my thermostat to 60* about this time of year, and turn it off in May, and would work in t-shirts all winter. With the tube heat, I leave the barn at 50*, and turn it to 60*, or a little higher, when I get out there. If it's really cold out, I'll turn it on from the house before I go.

Mark

 

[jpaw]

As others have said, they do work. I have one in our barn (Morton building), and it's been fine. They are not as good as radiant floor heating, though. Faster, for sure, but way noisier, and not quite as good at heating the edges of the building.

Mark

I'm not sure why or how you consider it noisy?
Yes you get some expansion/contraction noise other than that in a shop environment it's just white noise.

The recovery is much quicker/cheaper with a tube and I have never had an issue with the floor being cold. However I agree with heating around the edges, though nothing really heats well around the edges unless the building is completely sealed.
A couple of ceiling fans on low do help a lot.

I had in floor heat in my last house and you can't beat the evenness of the heat. What I didn't care for was the recovery time. If you wanted to open the windows in the spring or fall you might turn it down a couple of degrees but you're not turning it off. That doesn't work for me in a shop environment.

The simplicity, cost, comfort and recovery of a tube heater is the perfect compromise for a shop in my opinion.

And nothing beats standing under a tube heater during a cold winter day when you haven't seen the sun in days, at least then it feels like one is above your head .

 

[4x4Pete]

I have a tube heater. It works great and I would use nothing else. I didn't even consider infloor and I did HVAC for a living. I would have done forced air before infloor. With infloor you're heating the concrete first then heating everything else. Tube heaters heat everything first. It's not the recovery time for infloor it's the reaction time. If it's a bit chilly, you can't just turn on the infloor and warm up a bit. And if you get a warm spell, turning down the temp takes a while as the whole concrete floor has to cool down. Especially of you run it off a wall thermostat, indoor outdoor reset would work better but that adds to the complexity as well (with warm weather shutdown, min and max temps, bla, bla, bla) Dealing with service for the system, fillling the loop- either a water supply or a glycol refill station, circ pumps and the boiler itself. Overall not really a big deal but you'll should use glycol if you're in a freezing climate. Glycol isn't as efficient a heat transfer medium as water. If you can't service the boiler yourself (mostly meaning getting service parts for the boiler) you need a service company.
I find that tube heaters are efficient, easy to service, out of the way and work perfectly for a workshop. Maybe a bit ugly for those that are vain but it is a workshop. Lol!

 

[ScaldedDog]

I'm not sure why or how you consider it noisy?
Yes you get some expansion/contraction noise other than that in a shop environment it's just white noise.

The recovery is much quicker/cheaper with a tube and I have never had an issue with the floor being cold. However I agree with heating around the edges, though nothing really heats well around the edges unless the building is completely sealed.
A couple of ceiling fans on low do help a lot.

I had in floor heat in my last house and you can't beat the evenness of the heat. What I didn't care for was the recovery time. If you wanted to open the windows in the spring or fall you might turn it down a couple of degrees but you're not turning it off. That doesn't work for me in a shop environment.

The simplicity, cost, comfort and recovery of a tube heater is the perfect compromise for a shop in my opinion.

And nothing beats standing under a tube heater during a cold winter day when you haven't seen the sun in days, at least then it feels like one is above your head .

Not so much noisy, as noisier than floor heat. Just a few expansion/contraction pops and cracks and the fan noise. Not a big deal, but I could only hear the floor heat if I was standing close enough to the boiler to hear the flame start.

As I mentioned in another post, when I had a shop with floor heat, I never touched the thermostat, and certainly not when the garage door was open. I don't with the tube heater now, either. Recovery time wasn't an issue with either.

While I never felt the need to be near something with floor heat in my attached shop, I, too, like to stand under the tube heater as it's warming the place up. It feels great after a cold walk to the barn.

Mark

 

[Roothawg]

I am curious about these. I am looking at building a 40x100 with 40x20 of it being 2 story office etc. So in essence, a 40x80 shop area. If I have the big fans, say 8' diameter, does this hurt or help radiant heat? Or make no difference?

 

[Mr onetwo]

I have a Sunstar in my shop and have installed quite a few Detroit Radiant and Dayton (Grainger) units in warehouses and industrial buildings.Back in the days before infloor these were very popular and work very well. Don't have to worry about freezing, no dust being blown around and they dry off vehicles and equipment fast. 15 years and still purrs like a kitten, never had to replace 1 part ever. https://sunstarheaters.com/

 

[Firebrick43]

Many like the radiant heaters but I have one customer that wishes he had done something else. He has high ceilings and parks an RV in the pole building. The RV blocks the IR and creates cold spots along one wall in particular.

 

[Graham08]

I've had Enerco (Mr. Heater) radiant tube setups in two shops with no complaints. In both cases, I insulated under the slab with 2" of rigid foam like you would with in-floor heat, which I feel contributed to the efficiency of the units. As mentioned several times above, everything in the building stays warm and it seems comfortable with lower air temps than you would need with forced air. I left mine in the low 60's 24-7 in the winter.

To answer @Roothawg ...I don't think it would really impact things one way or the other to have large fans circulating the air once things reach a stable temperature. I didn't have them in my shops and didn't miss them in the winter (one building was 32' x 48', the other was 36' x 48').

 

[Bert_]

I am curious about these. I am looking at building a 40x100 with 40x20 of it being 2 story office etc. So in essence, a 40x80 shop area. If I have the big fans, say 8' diameter, does this hurt or help radiant heat? Or make no difference?

40x80 assuming 16'+ ceiling a tube heater would be a great choice. Really no need for ceiling fans. They just create a draft since a tube heater doesn't heat air

 

[Just_Steve]

Of all you guys running radiant tubes are they all gas? anyone using electric?

 

[jpaw]

Of all you guys running radiant tubes are they all gas? anyone using electric?

I don't think that there is an electric tube heater. In simplified terms a tube heater is a torpedo heater hooked to a long tube to more evenly disperse the heat.
I believe you are thinking of infrared heaters which work on the principle of radiant heat but are more for spot heating.

 

[Just_Steve]

I don't think that there is an electric tube heater. In simplified terms a tube heater is a torpedo heater hooked to a long tube to more evenly disperse the heat.
I believe you are thinking of infrared heaters which work on the principle of radiant heat but are more for spot heating.

Got it, terminology confused on my part.

 

[sz0k30]

Lots of places use above radiant tube heaters. Car washes, car dealer service bays. Just go into one of them to see. I have one in my 23 x 48 with 12 foot walls. Like others have said its not forced air so it doesn't move air, it radiates the heat and it heats objects not air, but eventually as objects heat up they also radiate the heat.

I don't heat my barn on a normal basis, only when I go out there to work, so depending on temperatures it takes at least 2 hours to get it up to what I consider "Working temp" which for me is mid 40's.