Well I have a radiant tube heater in my recently built pole barn, at the present time it's also non-insulated too. Will be doing the insulation soon, I hope. Anyways, it's a two stage furnace 40' long and 150,000 / 100,000 BTUs, The barn size is 40 x 60, with 5 garage doors and +10 windows, along with a 12 foot leanto. I've only been running it on the weekends and at daytime. I'm in SE Michigan, it was 14 degrees earlier last week and it took about 4-5 hours to get to 40 degrees. So, it needs to be insulated for sure. Hope this helps. Oh, on warmer days like 30 degrees it just takes just couple of hours to get it up to 45-50 degrees. For what I'm doing out there I really don't need it any hotter.
Radiant tube heater installed in garage
Finally got my radiant tube heat installed in my shop/garage. It's a 32'x48' pole building and they spec'd a 40', 80,000 BTU natural gas unit. I thought that was a little low on the BTU side but two different companies that I had provide a quote spec'd the same size unit. I don't have any insulation in that building yet (other than one small area) but it is on my list to get done. Both companies based the unit size on an un-insulated building and being able to maintain 70 degrees. I told them it might be a while until I get the insulation done so wanted the heater to still be able to get it into that ballpark until I could get around to insulating.
They just finished the install and it has been running for about 3 hours now. Outside temp is 35 degrees and the pole building has only got up to 48 degrees. It actually got to 48 degrees about an hour after it was first started and has not gotten any higher. Not sure what to expect since I have never had one before so looking for some others with experience.
Does the BTU sound a little low?
Does anyone have a similar building with a similar size tube heater?
Does it just take a while to get all the "things" in the building up to temp before they start radiating back?
Any advice or experience is appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
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They just finished the install and it has been running for about 3 hours now. Outside temp is 35 degrees and the pole building has only got up to 48 degrees. It actually got to 48 degrees about an hour after it was first started and has not gotten any higher. Not sure what to expect since I have never had one before so looking for some others with experience.
Does the BTU sound a little low?
Does anyone have a similar building with a similar size tube heater?
Does it just take a while to get all the "things" in the building up to temp before they start radiating back?
Any advice or experience is appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
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It's poured, for the record, I always planned on it being insulated, eventually it will be insulated, just ran out of time before winter hit. Just using it now to take the chill out of the air. I understand the concrete will be a nice thermal mass when I finish insulating it and leave the furnace on. Just trying to give the OP an idea on if the his furnace is sized right.
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