How much will it cost to heat this winter?

[tagoes11s]

Just finishing up the insulation in my 40x70 with 12 foot ceilings. Ceiling will have R36 blown in, walls have R16, Two insulated Garage doors, cement floor. Just installed a Modine 200btu hanging heater. I live in Michigan. Any suggestions on what temp to keep it at this winter? I want to keep it just above freezing. Should I set it at 40-45? not sure if there is a point where it's more effecient to raise it or not.

The modine will be feed off a 200 gallon propane tank. Any idea's how much propane a month I might use keeping it just above freezing like that? Say in January the average temp is 20F.

Thanks
Dan

 

[toyotadriver]

That's a big shop and a big heater. Will that tank handle withdrawing at 200k btu rate when it's extremely cold outside? I'd be concerned about that too.

You're gonna use a lot of propane. It's not extremely well insulated for your area (not bad but not great) and it's very large with tall ceilings. I can't predict how much you will use but I think it'll be a lot.

 

[mrobins297aaa]

like everyone has already said your probably going to burn a lot of propane and its anybodys guess on how much, but if you end up trying to keep it 60 degree's I'd say probably $1000 a month.

one thing about trying to keep it just above freezing especially with that type of heater your going to have a lot of cold spots, spots where it might be below freezing so be careful where you put things if your worried about freezing

 

[lzenglish]

You need to do heat load calculation to get close to the BTU required to heat your shop. You may find a "short form" heat calculation sheet on the RSES site, or look in the Carrier Systems Design Manuals for one. It is all about the total sq. ft.x the "r" factor of the materials, and insulation, and the total glass "r" factor, times the total temperature difference. RSES is the Refrigeration Sevice Engineers Society.

Good Luck,

Wayne

 

[A_Pmech]

That's a big shop and a big heater. Will that tank handle withdrawing at 200k btu rate when it's extremely cold outside? I'd be concerned about that too.

Yes, so long as that is the only thing he will be running and the temperature doesn't drop below 15F or so.

Per the propane vaporization capacity calculation on page 7 of Rego Product's LP-Gas Serviceman's Manual:

http://www.regoproducts.com/PDFs/LP-Gas_Servicemans_Manual.pdf