Heating 28x28 with Pex Tubing in Slab

[HunterSmitty]

Hi Everyone,

A couple of years ago we bought a house with a detached 28x28 garage built in 2012. It seems very well built and insulated, but the previous owner never installed a heat source. It does appear however that PEX piping was placed in the slab, but I'm wondering if anyone has an idea of options for how to utilize this.

I have no natural gas in my area, so I'd be looking for oil, propane, or electric heating. I live in Nova Scotia, Canada, so it gets fairly cold in thewinter.

I've attached a picture of what I have access to. Unfortunately I have no way to know how the slab layout was done. I'm just looking for opinions on possible options that are reasonably priced, and don't take up a ton of space in the garage.

My other options are to just install a Reznor Propane or something along those lines.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT - Not sure why the image is not attaching. May be because I dont have 5 posts?

https://ibb.co/iXqZKe

 

[kelpaso1]

Fairly cold there? Pffft. Most of the winter is around 0-10C with a few days here and there of -15 or 20. A minisplit would be a good choice. Mine keeps my garage at a steady 20C or 70F in temps down to - 10C Below that it drops off some but for the few really cold days we get I can live with it. Plus they are very economical to run. Oil, LP, and electric resistance heaters will kill you in costs. There is a reason minisplits are so common here. Plus you get AC in the hot summer months.

 

[The Cobbler]

in floor heat is nice,but you have to keep it at a comfortable temp cause it takes a long time to warm up the space when you call for more heat.
forced air will heat up the space a lot quicker so you can keep it above freezing, then crank it up when you want to work out there /.

 

[FastKat]

I am about to build a garage of roughly the same size so I am interested to see the responses. I am trying to figure out if it's worth it to put PEX in the slab. I already have a natural gas powered heat source and I am also considering a mini split... or both.

 

[HunterSmitty]

Thanks for the replies. I guess my thought was the previous owner did spend extra to put that tubing in, although I believe his intent was to eventually run a trench from the house and hang a zone off the house oil/wood boiler. I'm not too keen on that idea though as its a fairly long distance away, and don't really want to dig up my driveway for this.

Regarding a mini-split, I'm quite familiar with how they work as I have a single outdoor, tri-units indoors in my house. My concern with putting one in the garage would be that it's not insulated as well as my house. and I have 10 foot ceilings in the garage so quite a bit of area overall

@kelpaso1 How big is your garage? I have a buddy that has a mini-split in his garage, but its 24x26 with 8 foot ceilings who seems happy with him. I guess I'm used to garages back home in Northern NB where its all wood and oil furnaces. The pex being installed in the slab got me curious if there were decent options to provide heat on some sort of closed system. There is no water run to the garage either.

 

[kelpaso1]

Mine is 22x24 with 8 foot ceiling. R-22 in the ceiling and R-13 in the walls with vapor barrier. 18,000 BTU mini split.