Need some advice.

[xtremes]

Currently I have a 27x30 garage with radiant heat in the floor. Its very well insulated but it seems to use allot of propane.
I have a 100 gallon propane tank which was filled 1/19/13 and it ran out last Saturday the 2nd. So that was 104.1 gallons at $3.19 per gallon. So I can't really afford to keep paying $340 a month to heat my shop. And thats keeping it at 45 degrees
I'm using a 40 gallon hot water heater now. I haven't used this system in the last three years because of the price.
Now I'm using a small electric wall heater now that heats it up in about an hour. But my problem is I want to keep it heated all the time. If I keep the electric heater running to keep it at 45 it runs me about $150 for electric for the month which is much better then the propane.
Now what I'd like to do is upgrade my current system to something more efficient. I've been reading many posts on here but still not sure which way I should go.
I was thinking of going with a tank-less heater not sure if electric or propane.
I live in upstate NY.

This is the current water heater.

This is the set up I have now.

 

[anthony666]

buy a propane boiler

 

[xtremes]

buy a propane boiler

Have any advice on what brand and size I would need?

 

[NCtim]

As someone with an engineering background and knowing quite a few folks will read this thread, I'll just throw this in here because I hear a lot about how electric heat is inefficient:

Electric resistant heat is 100% efficient. All energy goes to heat. Your methods of transferring that heat somewhere may not be efficient but that's your fault.

Okay, I said it!

Tim

 

[anthony666]

do a heat loss on your building, there are tons of calculators online and that will give you a basic idea of the size needed

as far as brands; i like nti, super dependable in my experience .. some of the bosch tankless water heaters designed for space heating give me shivers too

 

[anthony666]

As someone with an engineering background and knowing quite a few folks will read this thread, I'll just throw this in here because I hear a lot about how electric heat is inefficient:

Electric resistant heat is 100% efficient. All energy goes to heat. Your methods of transferring that heat somewhere may not be efficient but that's your fault.

Okay, I said it!

Tim

brand new in a lab setting maybe .. get some hard water build up on the heating elements and that number drops like a stone

nothing is perfect

 

[philjafo]

Now now, there's no need to turn this thread into that argument, there's already a few of them here.

Tank type water heaters are not very good at space heating, as your seeing from first hand experience, boilers work very well at space heating, after all its what they are designed for. Brand is less important then proper size and installation. Tankless water heaters also perform well in space heating applications. Boilers and tankless water heaters are both available in gas or electric, there are benefits to each and it all boils down to what works best in your application. Since you already have gas pipe ran I would recommend a gas tankless water heater properly sized to the heat loss of the space.

 

[xtremes]

Thanks how do I figure heat loss? The bad part with the propane now is the price. Eventually I want to switch my house over to propane. Then the price would be cheaper.