Heater install

[mulepackin]

All of you that have installed ceiling mounted heaters (Hot Dawg, Big Maxx, etc.), how did you raise and then support them until permenantly attatched to the brackets. I have a finished ceiling so no real way to hoist from joists or trusses. Will be installing a Hot Dawg HD 75 soon. Venting vertically through existing flue (relining it with 4in Type B double wall).Any other tricks or pitfalls would be appreciated. Thanks.

ps. New here, but great informative site.

 

[Scott]

How high will the bottom of the heater be from the floor?

 

[Dave Carney]

Installed a 75k btu Hot Dawg. I have a finished ceiling but you can still find the truss above with a stud finder, screwed in a nice sized eye bolt (called an eye bolt but really it's more like an eye lag screw) then used one of those $2 or $3 HF nylon hoists and hoisted her up. Did the whole job with no help. Left the eyebolt in place after the install, so it can come down the same way it went up if I ever need to.

 

[RonBou]

I rented a wallboard lift and used that to drop and put back up my Hot Dawg as it was installed prior to me doing the ceiling.

 

[Donzi4me]

I have a 10' ceiling height. I just put the heater onto my scaffolding with the support plank 8' ft. from the floor. Then just rolled it over to the corner.
Put threaded rod into the ceiling joist, and then thru the heater flange. Then tightened up the nuts on the treaded rod enough to raise the heater off the scaffolding plank, and rolled the scaffolding out of the way...

 

[mulepackin]

How high will the bottom of the heater be from the floor?

I have 9 ft. ceilings, so that less the 18 in. of unit and 1 in. req clearance should put me at roughly 7 ft 5 in. give or take. I don't have the heater here yet, so can't tell with 100% certainty.

 

[mulepackin]

Installed a 75k btu Hot Dawg. I have a finished ceiling but you can still find the truss above with a stud finder, screwed in a nice sized eye bolt (called an eye bolt but really it's more like an eye lag screw) then used one of those $2 or $3 HF nylon hoists and hoisted her up. Did the whole job with no help. Left the eyebolt in place after the install, so it can come down the same way it went up if I ever need to.

Dave,

Where did you locate the eye bolt relative to the final position of the heater. Is it between the finished ceiling and top of heater? I'm trying to visualize the clearance here. Obviously the one bolt was substantial enough to support the weight of the unit until final placement?

 

[MyDomain]

We usually had three guys on step ladders...two to hold while one mounts it to the brackets. They are not very heavy.

 

[Dave Carney]

Dave,

Where did you locate the eye bolt relative to the final position of the heater. Is it between the finished ceiling and top of heater? I'm trying to visualize the clearance here. Obviously the one bolt was substantial enough to support the weight of the unit until final placement?

It passes through the sheet rock and screws into the truss, so that just the eye is all you see, and that is centered right over the center point of the heater. It was probably a 3/8" diameter bolt. Using 2 small sections of rope, a couple feet each, you make an X on the top of the furnace, fastening each end of the rope to a corner of the furnace. Your hoist hook then slips over the center of the rope X. Clear as mud, right? You are just using the short pieces of rope to make an attachment point for your hoist. Then when you get your threaded rods installed, and the unit is hanging permanently on those, the hoist, the rope X and such is removed, just leaving the eye bolt. I had 10' ceiling, and about 18" above the unit to work with, you have a lot less.

 

[beetroot72]

An extra set of hands and a couple of ladders make it go pretty smooth. They are only 65 Lbs. Just make a template of the bracket and pre drill your holes. You both can hold it and zip it in with a cordless and some 1/4 in lag screws.

!!!BE WARNED!!!!

The Hot Dawg has some issues with what they call "Dirty Power" When I first installed the unit the power exaust would come on and off spuratically. If on call for heat the unit shuts down and goes through a restart cycle. They are aware of the issue and have a "Revised wire harness" that fixes the problem. They'll only send you one if you call with the problem. Here's the Email I got from Modine...


We have found in the some areas that we are having a power problem with the power supply company. What happens is there is an interruption of power "dirty power" and it's enough to close a set of contacts to turn the power exhauster on. Please contact Ron at Heinlein Supply 773-774-8616, and ask him to send you out a new wiring harness for the HD units. This harness will take care of the issue. If you need more help let me know.

Modine Manufacturing Company
Commercial HVAC&R Division

Jamie Tuinstra
Technical Service/Quality specialist

1500 DeKoven Avenue
Racine, Wisconsin 53403-2552
Tel. 800-828-4328
Fax 262-636-1665
www.modine.com

 

[mulepackin]

Beetroot,

Thanks for the info and headsup on the wiring harness. I will keep an eye on this. Also, has anyone had an issue with altitude? I had to get a conversion kit from LP to NG, and they mention in the literature that a high altitude kit is required for anything over 2000 ft. I'm at 3300, and I've never had a problem or heard about this at this level. Maybe everything I've purchased before (locally, I ordered this online) has already been adjusted for altitude.

 

[mulepackin]

Just for the sake of completness, thought I'd post how I did it. I mounted it at an angle in the corner of my garage where I previously had an old house furnace. Had to vent through the existing flue so had to get it pretty right on for location. I projected a line from the center of the flue pipe facing the corner I wanted the heater to face the same distance as the horizontal run of vent. Then drew this on the ceiling, and then drew out a "footprint" of the heater on the ceiling. This showed me where my brackets would go. Since I angled it the brackets didn't cross joists at right angles or parallel them. 2x4s on face across the joists at the angles I needed would have looked stupid so I put perforated angle irons in the attic over the joists and dropped threaded rod, even though the brackets are tight to the ceiling. Left it all a little loose, then the wife and I hand lifted it up together on 2 step ladders and got it into position, (this is an HD 75 mind you), the slopiness allowed us to line up the screws more easily. Once the heater was screwed to the brackets, I snugged up the threaded rod in the attic. It really bothers me that with all we put into mounting these things; threaded rod, angles, lags, 2x4s on face, unistrut, etc, that ulitmately six #8x1/2in. sheet metal screws are all that are holding the thing up. Since the holes were there, I added another screw on each side. I'm thinking of a way to through bolt them somehow. Anything with a fan is subject to vibration so I will keep an eye on the screws. I'm thinking even a little locktite can't hurt. Now just need to finish up the gasline extension, power and t-stat and I will have heat again. I' ll try to post pictures when I'm done. ( I'll need the wifes help for that too).

 

[beetroot72]

Sounds Good!

I'm Still having trouble with the exaust fan cycling inappropriately. The New Harness cuts power to the exaust fan unless on call for heat. But once it is "on call" on rare occasion it turns off and on again forcing the heat cycle to reset. Called Modine yesterday and they said not to use a digital thermostat. So I'll drop another $30.00 into this thing and buy a Honeywell "Heat only" round T-Stat.

What A Joke huh?

 

[jwith68]

I just caught this thread myself. I put my HD75 up just over a year ago. I have 11' ceiling height, and mounted it up close. My lift equipment was my utility tractor and loader. A bit of overkill, but worked great.

 

[Britain Smith]

Just curious, what do you guys use for vibration isolation? I have a Hot Dawg mounted in my garage and it vibrates the kids bedroom floors above the garage.

-Britain

 

[MyDomain]

Just curious, what do you guys use for vibration isolation? I have a Hot Dawg mounted in my garage and it vibrates the kids bedroom floors above the garage.

-Britain

If it is suspended with something like allthread then look at these:
http://www.google.com/search?q=hang...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

 

[regguy1]

I made a template from the box, punched out where the holes should be, positioned the template where I wanted the heater and drilled the holes through the drywall, then I went in the attic and cut 2x4s to fit between the trusses and lag bolted the heater to the 2x4s. Now the heater looks as if it's bolted directly to the drywall but has solid support above. I screwed the 2x4s to the trusses above. It wasn't to bad to do.

I got 2 guys off the street who where doing utility work and talked them into holding it up, It went fast because I had everything lined up and pre-drilled with the template I'd made

 

[regguy1]

Just curious, what do you guys use for vibration isolation? I have a Hot Dawg mounted in my garage and it vibrates the kids bedroom floors above the garage.

-Britain

you might correct this by devising a method to isolate the heater from the wood framing of the building. rubber bushing like used to mount automotive shock absorbers or sway bar links might work. I'll bet you'll barely notice any vibration with rubber isolation.

 

[Paisley Canoe]

That's a bunch of work guys. Venting, gas lines (if you have gas readily available) electrical, thermostat, retro-fits, etc. An electric IR weighs 12 lbs and hangs like a flourescent fixture. Mount to the wall, ceiling or suspend. No venting required, no gas bi-products, no noise or vibration, no moving parts. Drop me a note or call. I can show you how easy it is and how well it works. Al @ www.infraredconcepts.com or www.perfectkennelheater.com I use in my garage and it's great. Hooked up to a programable timer. Can turn on with a touch, have heat in 60 seconds and if I go inside and forget, it shuts itself off. Perfect!!

Al

 

[ket-tek]

That's a bunch of work guys. Venting, gas lines (if you have gas readily available) electrical, thermostat, retro-fits, etc. An electric IR weighs 12 lbs and hangs like a flourescent fixture. Mount to the wall, ceiling or suspend. No venting required, no gas bi-products, no noise or vibration, no moving parts. Drop me a note or call. I can show you how easy it is and how well it works. Al @ www.infraredconcepts.com or www.perfectkennelheater.com I use in my garage and it's great. Hooked up to a programable timer. Can turn on with a touch, have heat in 60 seconds and if I go inside and forget, it shuts itself off. Perfect!!

Al

You keep posting your product links in heating threads while saying negative things like that's to much work, and in another thread that people were just going to kill themselves using kerosene heaters..

Yet you don't give any advice or specs? Right on your website your largest 240v heater only covers 56sf? It may be nice to have directly over a work bench, and GJ users may be interested in that use. But these are not going to heat a 2-3 car garage like most people installing forced air gas heater or heat pump systems are looking to do.

Instead of spamming threads with links and no useful input, please give some insight on how these infrared heaters will help us heat big spaces with tall ceilings like you seem to be claiming these units can be used for.

 

[Paisley Canoe]

Sorry. I'm just passionate about the technology. There are twelve different models. The largest can be mounted up to 14' high and direct coverage is roughly 150sq ft at that height. You can get as fancy as you want. i.e. thermostat, timed, even motion activated, or simple on/off.

My garage is 600 sq ft, 9' ceiling with two overhead doors that don't seal as well as they could or should. I guess I could work on that. As required by code I have open louvered ventilation built into an outside wall. I usually see first snow in Oct and last in April, so seven months of cold temps.

One side of the garage is work bench, shelving and toys, including motorcycles, quad, some power tools, etc. The other side is a collection of junk (snow shovel, rakes and so on) and a 38 year old Mercedes that is Hollywood clean and room for my truck or van if I wanted to take up all the available floor space. I prefer to have open areas to tinker around and have room to open the car doors on both sides and still move stuff around freely.

I use two IR overhead heaters. One is mounted overhead around my workbench, motorcycles and power tools and clears the overhead door on that side of the garage. I can work comfortably in this area any time in any conditions with doors opened or closed. The second is a smaller heater suspended in front of the Mercedes. It is used primarily for my dog when I have to be away overnight. This heater is on a timer that turns it on around 8:00 or 8:30 and off around 7:00 am. It comes back on around 9:00 am and runs until around 10:30. I only use the timer function when I am away and this unit operates for roughly 8 cents an hour. He has a dog door into the yard so when the sun is up he's outside in the afternoon and I know he's bedded down and warm at night. When the hood is up on the car it takes care of me.

The benefit is IR warms me and every other solid object, including tools bikes, the floor etc. I am not trying to heat the air in a drafty, poorly insulated, openly ventilated garage that's one third occupied. I can open the overhead door, come and go, and still enjoy the warmth without all of my heated air just blowing away. When I'm done I turn it off with the lights.

Again....I just think it's a great solution for many of the conversations here, and I know what I'm talkin' about. Sorry if my enthusiasm....well..... I'll chill....so to speak. I'm new here so I guess I should participate in more topics.

Al

 

[Steevo]

I used uni-strut to mount my heater, with two lengths above the joists in the attic, and two below the sheet rock to mount the heater to.

Then I made a uni-strut frame to mount a small 110v winch to, with two cables and a pulley at the far end of the frame.
I bolted this assembly across my unistrut hangers, borrowed a wire shelf from the storeroom, rigged up a platform using the shelf, strapped my heater to the shelf, and hoisted away!

 

[csp]

I've installed them in my garage and my dad's with a Vermette material lift a friend has.

Makes it soooo easy.

http://www.industrialladder.com/pro...17D3265BAEC0635?productID=7032&categoryID=223

 

[jumpingryan]

I used uni-strut to mount my heater, with two lengths above the joists in the attic, and two below the sheet rock to mount the heater to.

Then I made a uni-strut frame to mount a small 110v winch to, with two cables and a pulley at the far end of the frame.
I bolted this assembly across my unistrut hangers, borrowed a wire shelf from the storeroom, rigged up a platform using the shelf, strapped my heater to the shelf, and hoisted away!

Wow, I love it! Wish I had thought of that.... I ended up manhandling the heater with help from the father in law and building a platform..... we also had to do the same to get it down, as I will be moving soon and taking the heater with me.

Thanks for the idea.....

Ryan

 

[aveguy]

Sounds Good!

I'm Still having trouble with the exaust fan cycling inappropriately. The New Harness cuts power to the exaust fan unless on call for heat. But once it is "on call" on rare occasion it turns off and on again forcing the heat cycle to reset. Called Modine yesterday and they said not to use a digital thermostat. So I'll drop another $30.00 into this thing and buy a Honeywell "Heat only" round T-Stat.

What A Joke huh?

The NEW "round" honeywell thermo are in fact electronic and they have a battery inside. Take one apart and you will see. I found this out the hard way! When I installed my MrHeat 75K 2years ago I purchased a round honeywell thermo thinking it was the simplest reliable thermo for the application. WRONG! I don't heat the space 24/7, so when it is cold the heater needs to run for a long continuous time to get up to temp. The thing would kick off after say 30-45min of runtime. After a lot of tinkering around and swapping in an old mechanical thermo, I found that it was the honeywell causing the problem. They either have a limit on run time or the long run times are just to much for the battery to maintain the closed contacts and it was dropping out. I even called honeywell tech but they are clueless. I also chng the their "non-serviceable" battery which didn't help. In the end I went back to old mechanical thermo and its been working fine ever since.