You need to provide some additional info.

Are you talking about in-floor hydronic, or an electric heat grid in the floor? Hydronic is a great system, but much more expensive than a few infrared heaters. A new shop with in-floor hydronic and a high efficiency boiler or tankless water heater is not a simple system. There must also be significant insulation under the slab to keep the heat radiating up instead of down.

Even high quality in-floor hydronic heats quite slowly, and most folks keep it within a few degrees of normal working temperature. Heating up from 50 degrees to 72 degrees is a slow process for a large slab of concrete.

Bruce

System would be hydronic.

By significant insulation what are you thinking? There is a garage below about 70% of the shop/studio that will likely be kept around 36°f or possibly colder.

How long would you guesstimate for the space to go from 50°f to 70°f?

Thanks,

IR is expensive to run, better for small spaces (baths). 220V systems are the better way to go with these. Think about heating the whole space with toaster elements.

Large spaces more effective with hydronic but this should be in process at groundbreaking.

Both add lots of money.

Mini splits are OK for a single space or multiples if there is no other viable solution, but central HVAC systems still rule... most cost effective.

How best to handle wood dust w/ a central HVAC system? My understanding is that mini-split cassettes do not need filters and will function well in dusty environments but that central HVAC systems do need a filter (and extremely frequent changing) as otherwise they will clog from wood dust. This is somewhat surprising as I'd think both would use a similar cooling coil/fin.

Thanks,