If any of you use electric radiant heaters, would you share some info about your setup (how high are they mounted, how many heater units per SF? )
I’m trying to develop a very ballpark estimate of how much electricity we’d use, to heat a 150x50 insulated arena.
Oh god, thinking of the cost makes me nauseous! :lol: Will be curious to see if it’s actually a viable option.
Sorry for the nausea. People often tell me I make them sick, but I guess that’s another post. :lol:
It all depends on your cost of energy. So that’s why I’m not asking “how much$”, instead trying to guesstimate how much electricity. 
I have no experience with this as I am not a barn owner, but…
What about solar? Most indoor arenas are big enough not to be shaded, have enough space to mount panels and if you can power tour facility with solar and take advantage of solar tax breaks…
yup, that’s exactly the analysis I want to do. I know the renewable energy part, but I need to estimate what the load will be (roughly, for this first-pass look at things) before I can size the generation side of things.
This is most likely not going to be helpful with no context, but our BO says the new heating in our fairly small, insulated arena costs her about as much as that of her small home, most likely with older heating & moderate insulation.
we are in MN, so neither bill may be small!
I have 3 radiant heaters in my 36x36 barn. 3 is all that I could run with the power available to the barn. They are hung about 12 feet high and we use them when the temperature drops to the twenties. One is hung over the wash rack.
They do raise the electric bill noticeably and the heat doesn’t go much beyond the immediate area. I’ve seen larger ones that heat bleachers and they seem to heat a bigger area. Unless you’ve got some expertise I’d recommend getting some help in sizing them for your space and available electricity.
A trainer friend here in CO uses portable diesel powered heaters on 3 of the four corners. They only run during the training day. Gets hot enough that I could ride in a t-shirt and my body clipped horse sweats (a bit too warm). Another farm uses suspended gas blowers; one in each corner that are thermostat controlled. We turn them on just long enough to knock the chill out of the air (set the thermostat at 39 - 42). Can’t give you pricing though on either. Good luck
I was at an enormous barn, 200 x 100 arena attached to stalls, it was 15 degrees out and i was sweating inside. They heat it with some kind of wood stove.
They put a few above the seats at Longmeadow farm in Scituate, MA when I was there quite a few years ago. I don’t know if they are still there. They were just to heat a few seats for the instructor. You could try contacting them to see how they worked out.
Don’t think I have seen that type heater used for large, open spaces like an arena. Everything I have seen in many states plus Canada is some type of forced air with blowers to circulate the warm air.
Solar is an idea but you’d still need to collect it, store it, convert it and distribute it and that takes quite a bit of equipment that might need more power to run then the solar can provide. Especially further north with less then 10 hours a day of weak sunlight when the heat is most needed.
My last 3 barns all had the radiant overhead heaters over groom stalls, vet/farrier work areas and ringside viewing areas-all on timers to keep costs down, you could sure tell when they were on.
There should be sites where you can research options and costs for heating large, commercial areas (which is what your ring equals, think of a warehouse) via the manufacturers or even your local power companies or the EPA.
JBD - don’t worry, i would not proceed in any detail without bringing in heating contractors. Just at the knocking-around-ideas phase. Not really ready to meet with contractors (but maybe I’ll be forced to, sooner rather than later).
I’m looking at radiant heat first because of its quick uptake – I like it’s instant-on capabilities, because this arena is unoccupied most of the day. So a system with a long ramp-up, where you’d have to run the heat for a couple extra hours just to bring it up to working level, is something I’d want to avoid. This is in Iowa with very cold winters, so we’d be dealing with an arena that may sometimes need to be brought up 30-40 degrees F above ambient. With IR heat, it’s only heating the people and horses rather than trying to heat the air, so it could be done in zones (some activity may not require the entire arena). There are LP-powered radiant systems, but I’m looking at electric first due to the potential for renewable energy at the site. Rather than locking the facility into a future of highly variable but generally rising costs for LP, which puts pressure on ensuring additional revenue to cover those fuel costs, you can make an upfront capital investment for renewable energy and have free fuel for the next 30 yrs.
I’ve found specs that outline the coverage area for a given fixture mounted at X height, so I can start with that. I don’t think it would be essential to have complete coverage of the space-- seems reasonable that you could walk through gaps betw the heated areas without getting uncomfortable. (which is a downside of IR-- since the air is not heated, the spaces outside the coverage area are still cold).
For those who mentioned that the heaters are only in the corners-- I presume there’s a noticeable temp difference between the corners and the long sides. Do you find that very annoying/uncomfortable?
Thanks for the input so far.
findeight, I’m afraid you’ve been given some misinformation on how the solar systems work. PV collection systems do not consume power (assuming fixed mount, not the “tracking” kind that follow the sun). No energy is needed to distribute electricity, it flows on its own accord. While there are losses associated with the inverter (from DC to AC) and resistance due to wiring, these are known and calculated into any system design and financial model. They do not store energy and yes, both wind and solar are intermittent resources, but you can counteract that to a great extent via net metering. The solar resource for a given location is known and quite predictable over time (not week to week, but you look at the long term to determine project economics)
Don’t worry about the solar (or potentially wind) side of things, I’ve got those inputs covered. The investment in on-site generation may or may not offer the right payback for this particular application; that’s what I’m exploring.
[QUOTE=GoForAGallop;7898421]
Oh god, thinking of the cost makes me nauseous! :lol: Will be curious to see if it’s actually a viable option.[/QUOTE]
You must be very wealthy.
Her is a comparison, I was using a 400 dollar Eden Pure Radiant heater up until last month thinking I could save on propane.
I got the bill last month and it was $162.00 I quit using it. just put it in the garage. I have a small house and even in the summer my bills are between 70 and 80 dollars.
Just today got my new bill! HALF! 80.00.
Now just imagine what an indoor would cost!
I rode and taught in unheated indoors for years and years.
You warm up once you start working. plus it is too warm for horses with winter coats.
Note that if we do electric, it would be because we’re generating our own electricity rather than buying it. Rest assured, that would only happen if the investment financials pencil out. Determining the power needs, cost of power, etc in advance prevents the kind of ooops you’ve described where you did not understand the costs before making the investment.
No need to spend time debating my wealth or lack thereof (for many reasons but chief among them is that this is not my arena), nor the reasons arena will be heated, because that is already decided.
Do you have solar already installed? If not, that could run you as much as $30k to install everything.
Thanks, I’ve got the generation side of the question covered.
Looking for feedback on how many heaters in an arena, and at what height people have installed them.
I think, if you insulate the arena well, you’ll require less heat than you would think. I spent last winter (which, as you know, was a BEAST in IA) riding in an 80’ x 160’ insulated indoor, which does have heat (some kind of gas heat with blowers), but the heat was never on in the arena itself. There was some passive transfer of heat from the heated barn when the overhead door between the two was opened, but also heat lost when the overhead door to outside was opened during barn chores. Even without the heat turned on, the arena very rarely fell to freezing, and that was only during the worst of the cold (like when it was -20 for a week). When outside temps were more reasonable, the arena consistently stayed near the 40 degree mark. By the time you were on a horse or walking around, it was quite comfortable, and in fact, I wouldn’t have wanted it much warmer, as horses living outside got plenty warm coming into that. If there’s an area of the arena where people will be standing for longer periods of time, add some radiant heat there and you’ll probably be good to go. Or, if this is the arena I think you might be referring to, make sure the horses to be used for that day’s activities are brought into the arena and let them hang out/be groomed and tacked in there, and they’ll provide a little boost of body heat just prior to any activities as well.
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