heating a shop?

[aaj4]

Good morning,

Just wondering if anyone can recommend the most cost effective way of heating a small shop with no gas supply?

Thanks v much

 

[mhall]

Body heat from customers.

The shop only needs to be bearable for the staff who, if they are moving about will stay pretty warm if they are wearing sensible clothing. Have the shop too hot and the customers will feel it is unbearable in their coats. A very small heater to take the chill off is all you need. If you get draughts from outside, a curtain heater over the door will help (but not much)

 

[TheCandyCabin]

I have a small shop also (sweets). We installed an electric radiator under the window. To avoid the windows getting condensation (single pane, no glazing) the radiator has a thermostat. I also have a small electric fan heater to use when it's just 'chilly' like today, and that's plenty. And it does heat the shop too!

 

[kelvin1950]

Ice cream freezer and drinks chiller supplemented by a small oil filled electric radiator. As someone else said, not hot but warm enough. Staff wear fleeces to keep warm (and work hard!).

 

[fairdealworld]

Body heat from customers.

The shop only needs to be bearable for the staff who, if they are moving about will stay pretty warm if they are wearing sensible clothing. Have the shop too hot and the customers will feel it is unbearable in their coats. A very small heater to take the chill off is all you need. If you get draughts from outside, a curtain heater over the door will help (but not much)

This used to be my theory until I found that many customers complained that the shop was cold and made it clear that they weren't enjoying browsing for that reason -ooops!

I think one catch is that many of our customers are making a brief excursion from their very warm car, or their very warm office and actually aren't all that warmly dressed as they expect to be able to hurry from their car or office or nearby school etc and plunge into a nice warm shop.

 

[fairdealworld]

Ice cream freezer and drinks chiller supplemented by a small oil filled electric radiator. As someone else said, not hot but warm enough. Staff wear fleeces to keep warm (and work hard!).

Depends on the type of shop. My staff dress warmly but they have to spend quite a bit of time doing 'fiddly' pricing up of e.g. silver jewellery and handcrafted items - the sort of thing you don't just slap a pricing gun label on, you sit and write a nice little card with a silver pen. We also do a lot of sale or return and though the customers - mostly - have to go round and choose their own goods staff sit and write up their s or r lists. Unfortunately not matter how hard you work at sitting and writing something, it just doesn't keep you warm!

I've tried all sorts of heating over the years. I find small fan heaters generally too noisy for the atmosphere I'm trying to create in the shop and not very effective. Oil filled radiator was good as when placed near staff sitting and writing or unpacking it kept them okay but didn't do much for the customers. My best solution so far has been a 'ceramic' fan heater one of the tall narrow ones with lots of settings. It was rather expensive to buy but no more expensive to run as it turned out from the bills, it operated quite quietly and pushed out heat from just above floor level to roughly knee level and seemed to work well for both staff and customers even though placed at the opposite end of the shop from where staff do any 'sitting' work.

I used to trade near to a small shopkeeper who was a passionate believer in having a large storage heater on the premises. He had a place to put it which I don't but he felt it kept the building dry and he made the point that though storage heaters in the home have the disadvantage of starting to get low on heat just as the evening draws in and gets cold, but they offer their best heat precisely during the 'day' hours when his shop was open. His shop never felt too warm but neither did it feel cold, in fact if you went in wearing a coat the temperature was just about perfect, i.e. something you didn't notice.

 

[Thinehost]

We're firmly in the storage heater bracket (we have a small gift and coffee shop) - and although you can get caught out by sudden warm, sunny spells, the customers prefer to be warm and comfortable.

Margaret

 

[Talay]

I heat a couple of places using technological upgrades of the old oil filled radiators which have LCD displays and can be set to come on and off when you want and can maintain a set ambient temperature.

At a maximum 2kw each they are not the cheapest things to run but they are efficient at what they do because they are not just on or off and can adjust their output to 1/3, 2/3 or 3/3 output.

 

[aaj4]

thanks for all the replies...

I'll have a look around and see what's best..

cheers