# Infared heat for hotroom



## erik122 (Sep 30, 2015)

Anyone experimented with simple infared heaters (baseboard or ceiling) for hot rooms? Does it penetrate through boxes to heat the honey? I know in-floor radiant heating is the gold standard but looking for economical alternatives as I build a new hot room and expand the honey house.


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## propet12 (Jun 17, 2009)

Yes. I have an infared heater installed from the ceiling pointed down on a 45 degree angle. It works OK. I stagger stack about 5-6 full supers ontop of an empty medium box and use a fan set on low to circulate the air. I put the stacks in rows in front of the heater. I would prefer in-floor heating. I don't believe there is much infared heat penetration in the full supers directly. The bottom full supers are always cooler than the supers above.


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## SWM (Nov 17, 2009)

I use a ventless propane wall heater in a very well insulated room. I also stagger stack and use a fan to help circulate air. I keep it at about 88-90 degrees and everything stays warm and the honey flows nice.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

SWM, please install a CO detector in your hot room if you haven't already. Vent free propane heaters are not approved for use in small confined spaces like bathrooms, nor in bedrooms regardless of size. The blue flame style work better for this application than the infrared which only heats the surfaces of objects exposed to the radiant heat.


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## SWM (Nov 17, 2009)

Yes all good points JW. Mine is a blue flame heater equipped with an oxygen depletion sensor. There is also a carbon monoxide detector in the room. While the room is well insulated, it’s not air tight which allows for proper combustion without oxygen depletion. Has worked well for 10 years and safety always comes first.


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## SWM (Nov 17, 2009)

Oops, double post.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Myself, I would avoid IR in a hotroom. It works on basicly line of site, so supers closer will get real hot, and the bottom of the stack not at all. Floor heat of *** would be my choice.


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## erik122 (Sep 30, 2015)

Thanks for sharing - sounds like a reasonable consensus on infared not really penetrating. 
So Although it’s my first choice, in floor heating seems just too costly - 15-20000$ for a system with boiler according to a hydronics specialist I talked with. (Which seemed crazy overkill for 400 square feet) Even at half that price and a HWT or tankless as the heater, I’d rather put the $ elsewhere in the business. 
Nice to hear about *** - first Ive heard anybody use this in a hot room. I do have a gas line to the honey house and I’ve also got a 10 year old high efficiency gas furnace with a strong blower can use. I reckon if I have a vent low and pointing to the floor in front of each row of stacks on either side, that should heat up the lower and all the boxes nicely... along with a ceiling fan. And really only the cost of running the ducting.


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## dgl1948 (Oct 5, 2005)

We have floor heat. I am not sure it would be better than the infared. We use solid pallets with a drip rail to keep honey off the floor. The solid pallet keeps the heat from rising through the supers. If you leave the pallets in for several days the heat will in time permeate through. The ceiling fans do move the heat down but that would be the same for either system.


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## homegrown (Jul 24, 2016)

How many square feet is the hot room? 8 tall foot ceiling?


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## ABruce (Dec 27, 2013)

erik122 said:


> Thanks for sharing - sounds like a reasonable consensus on infared not really penetrating.
> So Although it’s my first choice, in floor heating seems just too costly - 15-20000$ for a system with boiler according to a hydronics specialist I talked with. (Which seemed crazy overkill for 400 square feet) Even at half that price and a HWT or tankless as the heater, I’d rather put the $ elsewhere in the business.
> Nice to hear about *** - first Ive heard anybody use this in a hot room. I do have a gas line to the honey house and I’ve also got a 10 year old high efficiency gas furnace with a strong blower can use. I reckon if I have a vent low and pointing to the floor in front of each row of stacks on either side, that should heat up the lower and all the boxes nicely... along with a ceiling fan. And really only the cost of running the ducting.


Just a suggestion, but if you only want in slab in the 400 square feet and you don,t plan to use it for total heating in the winter, a hot water tank with a pump and an expansion tank will do it . If your only extracting in the summer and early fall you can even get enough heat out of solar. It doesnt have to meet building code requirements for total heat loss if its supplemental and not the primary.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

erik122 said:


> Thanks for sharing - sounds like a reasonable consensus on infared not really penetrating.
> So Although it’s my first choice, in floor heating seems just too costly - 15-20000$ for a system with boiler according to a hydronics specialist I talked with...


I saw an installation of a 30 gallon hot water heater as the primary heat source in a 1400 square ft home off the grid in California. Just need a pump to circulate the warm/hot water. Was designed and built by an architect for his own home. Much less expensive than the numbers you quote. HERE is a youtube video about it.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

erik122 said:


> Thanks for sharing - sounds like a reasonable consensus on infared not really penetrating.
> So Although it’s my first choice, in floor heating seems just too costly - 15-20000$ for a system with boiler according to a hydronics specialist I talked with. (Which seemed crazy overkill for 400 square feet)


That spendy system was likely intended to keep the place warm over the entire year in your climate. Do you need to keep the room heated in the off season when it's -25C outside, or, just during extraction when outside temperatures are more like +20C and warmer ? Makes a big difference. My first thought, if you are going to be pouring a floor, put the pipes in the concrete anyways, wether you intend to use them or not. Putting pipes in while pouring the floor is not a huge expense, but retro-fitting them later is impossible if you decide that is the route you need to go.

We are on a much smaller scale, but we did build the 'bee shed' this fall, it is just 12x20 with 4 feet on one end partitioned off to hold boxes. The construction is a hip roof barn style, and the warm closet has an 8 foot ceiling that gives us a big storage loft above it. The ceiling got good insulation, as did the walls so we ended up with 4x12 well insulated. The floor is raised off the ground, 2x6 joists on beams, no insulation. In November I was curious as to how well it will work so I tossed in a small ceramic heater (1000 watts) set to keep the room at 30C, outside temps were running in the -5C to 0 range at the time. We had a dozen boxes that didn't get extracted this summer due to other workload issues and we didn't want to get everything set up for just a dozen boxes (we didn't have dedicated space then). I put them in that room with the heater going, sitting on 2x4 slats to raise them off the floor and allow the warm air to circulate under the stacks. A few days later we ran them thru the extractor. The boxes were nicely warmed up and the honey flowed easily.

The issue of heat penetrating the boxes boils down to basic thermodynamics (glad I went to engineering school in the 70's and 80's, I still understand that stuff). If you put some heat into the room, and typical systems do it by heating the air, then the warm air will rise. An uninsulated cold roof will allow that heat to escape immediately, but, a well insulated roof will prevent it from escaping, and in a short time all of the air will reach the set temperature. If that warm air is surrounding the boxes, then it's just a matter of time till the boxes (and contents) come up to the same ambient temperature. Circulation will help keep an even temperature gradient throughout that room.

The difference between yours and mine is just scale, 50 sq ft vs 400 sq ft. Mine is set up to handle 50 boxes at a time, and yours about 10x that number. But I know from our own experience, we put stone cold boxes in that were around outside ambient temperature (in the 0C range) when they went in, and 5 days later that honey was flowing nicely. Insulated roof with insulated walls and a small heater with a fan is all it took. We did set the boxes on 2x4 risers so the air can circulate under and thru the boxes when they are stacked in there. In the summer when the boxes come in at normal summer outside temps we wont have to add much heat at all to keep the boxes at a good temperature for extracting the next day.

As a side note, when we were building during October, and I mentioned to the contractor constructing the shell that the small room was intended to be heated, he immediately started talking about rather expensive 'upgrades' to the construction. Then I pointed out, it's not heated year round, just for a couple weeks in August when we are extracting. That changed things dramatically, and we stuck with simple 2x4 framing, but used 2x6 joists to hold the ceiling above the warm closet. When the shell was up, I stuck fiberglass bats in the ceiling and walls, then sealed off the inside using reflectex stapled to the studs, which holds the the fiberglass in place. It's crude, simple, cheap, and works well. We went with simple shed style construction, but if I had poured a floor, I would have put the pipes in for floor heating even if I didn't intend to use them right away, ya never know how plans will change in the future, and it's not something that can be retrofitted easily.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

*** is stupid simple, cheap and relaible the only trick is thermostats, I use an old mercury type tilted on the wall. All the new eltronic ones that are cheap wont go that high.


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