Restoration of an old skate rink

i found mine to only be good from about 45-55*. anything below that and it runs all day just to maintain the temp and above that it still runs 40-50% of the time vs just using propane it might only need to run for 10 minutes every couple hours. with the furnace being 10' away from me in the same room i dont want to listen to it run all the time to only save pennies

 

No where for mistress to eacape

 

Sounds right to me...might be a good question for yooperdave though...

 

I would question the heating and cooling load calculators. The ones on the internet will give you a ball park idea but talk to or have an HVAC company rep come out and take a peek with their recommendations. I don't know of any company (around here) that charges or obligates you for this.......and you should end up with a quote stating sizes of heating and cooling equipment. It would be a shame for you to purchase over or under sized equipment.

I don't understand why you only need 13Kcooling and then are considering 36K???

Talking about closing the vents to the crawl space. Around here, the only time its done would be during winter/freezing temps. Water, sewer lines are run down there-typically-and you don't want those to freeze of course. Many furnaces are installed in crawl spaces around here........almost all of them as a matter of fact. I remember less than 5 attic installs for heat/cool up here. (residential) With that being said, there is heat loss from the normally UN-insulated ductwork that keeps the crawl space from freezing............unless......
Things like air infiltration, insulation of crawls space walls, floor composition, extended cold snaps (important) all play part of decision making. We would normally add at least one 6 X 10 duct register into the ductwork to help temper the crawl space air.

I think you would benefit also from laying a heavy gauge plastic sheeting on the bare dirt floor of the crawl space limiting frost in winter and moisture in summer. But you should have air vents from the outside to the crawl space during summer for ventilation purposes. Kinda the same thing as your attic requires.

This is the first time I saw this thread. I did not read through it....just peeked at a couple post here and there. I commend you for taking on such an ambitious project! Good luck!

Remember this too, I live in an entirely different temperate zone. My advice may just sound like nonsense for your area.

 

Haha! That's a classic!! Dang autocorrect! I typed that out as I was running!!

 

From?

 

From the Fire Dept to my house...to be specific. I was "exercising " as some people call it.

 

yooperdave here is what i used for heat load calc.... HVAC Load Calculation - Maunualj - Whole House Loadcalc also did a paper calculation where i had to do all the math for square footage of windows and doors etc....came up with basically the same numbers.

i thought about calling around and having them give me quotes just to see what furnace/ac they came up with but i dont feel right doing that because i know for sure i wont hire any of them to install it or even be buying the furnace from them. I got quotes on my current building and they ranged from $8-15k for furnace/ac/install. Got the new furnace/ac thru a buddy for under $3000 and installed it in just a couple hours.

i ran the numbers on it for my current building as well as my moms house and it comes in pretty accurate on both of those with the exception of the A/C on my current shop. current building is way oversized on A/C but in reality with garage doors opening it barely keeps up on 100* days. my current building needs less than half of what is installed but with doors constantly opening the larger ac works out good plus i overwork it by keeping the stat set around 65* in the summer so i figure the new building is double the size with the garage door opening slightly less often so go with the same tonnage ac.

calling it a crawl space is a bit of a stretch, dirt floor is mostly only about a foot below the floor joists. getting under the building to insulate the floor or lay plastic is impossible and because of that there is nothing ran under the building. electrical is all ran in the attic, water lines will be run along the ceiling, and sewer is poured right into the concrete slab at grade, bathroom is an addition on the main part of the building.

furnace's in my area are installed either on the main floor or in a conditioned basement. crawl space or attic installation is unheard of. same with ducting, everything i have ever seen installed is run in a conditioned space other than maybe an addition that has a crawl space so they use insulated flex for that room only.

 

Around here ducts are run in crawls or attics as well. Attic makes no sense to me since summer it's 130f up there aND your loosing lots of air and in winter it's almost outside temp as well .

 

lots of loss from that even using insulated ducts. I understand doing it when retrofitting an old house but anything with a basement or built from the 50's and up should have duct run in a conditioned space to minimize the losses.

 

I agree. I guess they save on not having to make bulkheads?

 

Can you sprayfoam the floor from the crawlspace ?

 

not anytime in the near future. dirt floor is 8-10" below the floor joists so no way to get under the building.

building is 40' wide with 2 support walls running down the middle of it so it ends up being 3 separate sections to the crawl space that are roughly 13' wide each. My plan when i get to the garage side of the building and pull the wood floor up to pour concrete is to go under the main part of the building with a mini skid and dig a trench in each of those sections. i figure if i go 3' deep and 3-4' wide that will give me enough space for a company to come in and spray foam the floor but that is a long ways off.

3 trenches 3x4 is 107 yards of dirt to be dug out and those little mini skids only have 4 cubic foot capacity buckets so not sure if thats the best/fastest way to dig the trenches but i want to stay as far away from the pillars as possible. Not sure how deep the footers for them are and digging to deep or to wide might cause issues with the dirt under/around them settling and letting the floor sag

 

I rented a dirt conveyor to make a crawl space into a semi-basement back in my younger days. Hard to describe how much fun that was.
(Edit: I’ve been enjoying following this thread - doing a nice job)

 

I get that if you pull up one section of floor to pour concrete you are at ground level on that section, but how are you driving a minI skid under the other 2 sections in 10"s of space with the floor intact on those sides?

 

idea is to dig a ramp down in and end up with a 3-4' deep trench under the floor, once the channel under the building is dug out fill the ramp back so all i am left with the trench/channel under the wood floor part of the building. IDK at this point....seems like an awful lot of work and i keep thinking its allot of wasted time but digging a channel under the building is the only way i can think of to be able to get the floor insulated. mini skid seems like the easiest way to do the digging.

I helped a friend dig out under an addition on his house.....basically the same deal as my building. floor joist set on pillars about 10" off the ground. we hand dug 2 channels 3' deep and maybe 2' wide the length of the room so we could insulate the floor and run ductwork. used a conveyor once we were about 6' in. miserable and took forever, worked on the project for a couple hours every sunday for an entire summer.

back when i did excavating i got roped into the same deal except it was taking a 14x14 addition that was built on sandstone pillars and we dug it out for a full depth basement. Actual digging of the basement went fairly quick.....trackhoe to dig down and used a full size skid steer to dig back under the house but the blocking and jacking of the house was time consuming and nerve racking.

Will never do either of those projects again.

 

I personally don't think i would go to all that trouble. Just spend $10 more a month or whatever to heat and cool it and have a cold floor in winter.

 

When you do the math at 20$ a month for 10 years it's still pretty cheap lol
I'd look at trenching a channel just wide enough so a man could spray .

 

getting closer. these are from 2 weeks ago, didnt get any from this weekend but we finished the drywall in that small room and pretty much have everything cleaned up and moved out of the retail side of the building.