On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 03:17:34 GMT, john smith wrote:

In article ,
"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATcox.net wrote:

www.peoamerica.net/N601WR

Too bad the floor is already poured.
The best hangar heating is via a heated floor.
You plumb it before you pour and connect it to a boiler.
Makes it much more comfortable on your feet and legs while working on
the plane during the cold months and keeps the heat out of the rafters.

The IR heater in my shop heats the floor to the same temp as the rest
of the building. I do have two of the large ceiling fans to circulate
the air to prevent much of a temperature variation between the floor
and ceiling. If I have any complaint about the tube heater it would
be the noise and the supplied thermostat. The noise is not bad, but
it's not quiet. Mine, like most furnaces takes the inlet air from the
room. If I did it again I'd use a firebox that takes in outside air.
The standard thermostat is just a bimetallic strip. It has a very
wide dead band between on and off. Enough of a dead band that you get
chilly before it turns on and uncomfortably warm before it turns off.
It was probably about 6 degrees or more. With the thermostat properly
located and replaced with the programmable one the temperature never
changes enough for you to see the digits change on the read out. Set
it at 70 and the inside goes to 70. Both will always read 70 even
though the furnace will occasionally turn on for a few minutes. Even
with the much colder temperatures this year compared to last and the
gas usage is about half of what it was.

To heat a hangar efficiently it needs very good insulation in the
walls, ceiling and doors. Those doors need to seal well too. It
helps if the floor is insulated from he ground as well although that
is not often done. However it works very well.

As one of the major problems with heating a hangar is it's height,
ceiling fans and a lot of insulation up there can really improve the
efficiency. Without the fans you have to put a lot of BTUs into the
room so the area up to head high is comfortable. When you do that,
quite often you will find it is much warmer near the ceiling. That
makes for a large temperature differential between inside and outside
which required even more insulation and makes for high heat /energy
loss

Were I going to build a hangar I'd model it after my shop. The
foundation would be insulated from the inside with a thermal break and
the floor would be insulated from the ground as well as the
foundation. The ceiling would be no higher than necessary to clear
the tail on a light twin in the "kneeling" position (just in case).

Painted (pre finished) "Barn Metal" makes a good inside surface for
the walls and ceiling. It is far easier to install than dry wall. It
costs a bit more but less labor makes it close to a wash in price. If
the code allows and you can afford it, off set studs between the
inside and outside also make a big difference, but add about an inch
thickness to the wall. Electrical service is run in thin wall,
surface mount conduit. I have a barn metal ceiling in the shop and
that has 16" of blown in cellulose insulation.

As I said in another post, even with the high winds and single digit
temperatures we've been having the shop has been very economical to
heat.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com