Anybody do industrial heating and air?

[protraxrptr17]

I gotta do something about the whole heat situation here at my shop. I have a Dayton 140,000 btu natural gas heater and a wood burner. My gas bill was $550 last month. It is set to come on at 50 degrees during the night and I turn it up to about 65 during the day. Most of the time the bill is about $300. I'm sick of the wood heater. I spend 30 minutes each morning getting it started. I let it go out in the afternoon so I won't have to worry about buring my shop down. Why is my bill so high just for the one heater? Would a bigger heater make the bill cheaper? My shop is 40 x 100 x 20. I'm quite sure the heater I have is too small. What do most large buildings use?

[TM426]

The heater you have sounds slightly undersized. I'm assuming your building has 20' ceilings at 4000 square ft. I would try to insulate the building more. The set back may be to low at night too. Is the heater cycling on constantly and how long is the thermostat set back for? If your unit has air filters make sure they are clean. There could be a lot of factors. Do you have big drafty bay doors?

[protraxrptr17]

Yeah, I have three bay doors that are pretty leaky. I guess I have kinda overlooked those. I have left the heater on 65 at night too and it made the montly bill much higher. Yes the ceilings are 20'. I'm sure that is a big factor too. What size heater should I look for? I found some 400,000 btu's on ebay really cheap.

[Sandsjbyz22]

You may want to look into some big *** fans. Yes that is the company name. They push alot of air at a low speed. Helps immensely with stratification of the hot air. We use them quite a bit in our industrial HVAC designs.

What is your insulation R-Value in the exterior walls? If you give me some specifics on construction type I can run a load calc and help you size a heater.

[protraxrptr17]

Man, I have no idea on the insulation. This shop is pretty old. It's fiberglass insulation with the vinyl backing. Looks to be about 3 inches thick.

[Sandsjbyz22]

I will make some assumptions and run a load calc and see what your heat loss is.

[outacontrol]

Originally posted by Sandsjbyz22
You may want to look into some big *** fans. Yes that is the company name. They push alot of air at a low speed. Helps immensely with stratification of the hot air. We use them quite a bit in our industrial HVAC designs.

What is your insulation R-Value in the exterior walls? If you give me some specifics on construction type I can run a load calc and help you size a heater.

those fans and better insulation will help a large deal