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Message: <blockquote data-quote="geezer77" data-source="post: 3746389" data-attributes="member: 49872">My 30 year old shop is fairly similar in size (25x55), but is standard old wood frame construction and insulation instead of metal. It's split with a rear wall into two areas, a front "dirty" area of 900-1000 sq ft for grinding, welding, blacksmithing, knifemaking, woodwork, and general noisy/dirty work, and a 300' "clean room" (in relative terms) in back for electronics and computer-related work. I cool the back with a little 8K window unit which keeps up ok unless it gets near 100 outside, when it struggles some. Probably needs a 10-12K, but I've been too lazy to enlarge the window opening. I tried an18K window unit in the front area, which actually worked fairly well if I ran it hard (24K would have been better), but the problem turned out not as much cooling but keeping grinder residue, welding/sanding dust, etc. from overwhelming the filter. I finally gave up and used a couple of hefty 24" pedestal fans in a push/pull configuration on opposite sides of the area for circulation, and left the doors open in warm weather. Works fine. If it gets over 95 I'm going in the house anyway, ha. Heat in front is 75K BTU commercial (Dayton) heater hung overhead in one corner. A full 250 Gal LP tank will get me through winter with thermostat at 60 degrees without a refill. Heat in rear is a single 8' baseboard electric. Shop is on it's own meter, and OG&E for that meter runs about $60-$80/month year round. Propane is another story, hasn't been too bad up to now but next winter I might need to get a second mortgage to refill that tank. I can always turn off the shop heat completely if LP gas price gets out of control (house is all electric on a 5 ton heat pump), but I feel for those who must do everything with propane. I suspect unless you are raising very little grit and dust in your shop work (pretty hard to do) or invest in an expensive high-zoot air filtering setup, that dust and dirt might be more of a hassle than trying to stay cool.</blockquote>

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