keelan
Well-known member
I have a 12x17 room at the back of my garage that I need to heat.
The good: The room is surrounded on three sides concrete block walls, backed by dirt right to the top. The fourth wall and ceiling are well insulated. It's about as close to a cave as a person can get. I have around 12,000 pounds of cast iron in there, so the space has quite a bit of thermal mass.
The not-so-good: For a number of reasons, Electrical heat is my only option.
I want the space to be continually heated, not necessarily room temperature, but above freezing. I've read that a good guideline to follow is 10 watts per square foot, which puts me a little over 2 kW to heat the space. Baseboard heaters are a good option for me, as I'll have quite a bit of unusable wall space on both sides of the space.
I've been looking at Dimplex's Linear Proportional Convectors (who are they kidding, they're still baseboard heaters!), a 1250 watt unit takes up 35" of wall space. I'm thinking that two of those, on on each 12' wall, would provide enough heat to keep me more than comfortable. The Dimplex LPCs are made in Canada, which gives me a little bit more comfort from the standpoint of manufacturing quality.
I'm a bit concerned with the watt density of the Dimplex units; they can heat the wall above them to around 70 degrees C when in operation, I'm happy to spread the heat around a little bit more than that. Are there other options I should be looking at? I'd be happy the same with wattage in a larger unit if possible, but there doesn't seem to be much readily available. Of course, I've only looked at what is available at the local hardware stores - Rona, Home Hardware, Home Depot. I've found some made by "Global Commander" that are 60" long for a 1250 watt unit, but I have trouble having faith in a name like that.
My preference is something passive -- no moving parts (fans) means less stuff to break down, but maybe I should be looking at something other than baseboard heaters?
The good: The room is surrounded on three sides concrete block walls, backed by dirt right to the top. The fourth wall and ceiling are well insulated. It's about as close to a cave as a person can get. I have around 12,000 pounds of cast iron in there, so the space has quite a bit of thermal mass.
The not-so-good: For a number of reasons, Electrical heat is my only option.
I want the space to be continually heated, not necessarily room temperature, but above freezing. I've read that a good guideline to follow is 10 watts per square foot, which puts me a little over 2 kW to heat the space. Baseboard heaters are a good option for me, as I'll have quite a bit of unusable wall space on both sides of the space.
I've been looking at Dimplex's Linear Proportional Convectors (who are they kidding, they're still baseboard heaters!), a 1250 watt unit takes up 35" of wall space. I'm thinking that two of those, on on each 12' wall, would provide enough heat to keep me more than comfortable. The Dimplex LPCs are made in Canada, which gives me a little bit more comfort from the standpoint of manufacturing quality.
I'm a bit concerned with the watt density of the Dimplex units; they can heat the wall above them to around 70 degrees C when in operation, I'm happy to spread the heat around a little bit more than that. Are there other options I should be looking at? I'd be happy the same with wattage in a larger unit if possible, but there doesn't seem to be much readily available. Of course, I've only looked at what is available at the local hardware stores - Rona, Home Hardware, Home Depot. I've found some made by "Global Commander" that are 60" long for a 1250 watt unit, but I have trouble having faith in a name like that.
My preference is something passive -- no moving parts (fans) means less stuff to break down, but maybe I should be looking at something other than baseboard heaters?
