Best Way To Heat A Garage

Re: Best Way To Heat A Garage

Barry Va Beach

>Tom, We don't get down to the single digits often, but since no one else has responded yet. I have dealt with three things- first electric - I found that the electric ceramic heaters don't do anything for me. The oil filled electric radiators will knock the chill off in a small area near my bench in my two car garage but don't actually get me warm and I turn it on several hours before I go in. The best I have done with electricity is the quartz heater - as long as you stay within a few feet of it you get some warmth from it. Turning to gas - I got one of those "portable" approx 9,000 btu gas heaters and found that puts off enough heat to warm a generaous area of my garage, but not the whole thing. I use a 20 gal propane tank - from a grill. Home Depot sell one on casters without a thermostat for about $100. The third thing, at least for me, is keeping my feet warm. I have just installed, a few weeks ago, a laminate floor over foam in the hopes that the floor won't feel so clold ( and hard). Cold concrete seems to suck the warmth out of me. Good luck keeping warm.

Re: Best Way To Heat A Garage

Angelo Schembari in Cornwall, NY

>Tom,

When my shop was in a garage, the first heating option I used was a propane space heater that mounts on top of a 20 lb tank. Worked OK, but I was always concerned about it starting a fire, and it did. A friend placed his coat too close to the heater and POOF! My next option was a ceiling mount gas fired heater..required a gas line be run to the garage but heated the whole space w/out a problem. More $$ but a good solution.

Keep Warm, 10� here tonight.

Re: Best Way To Heat A Garage

Kevin Rabenaldt

>Just remember that anything that has a flame is putting out carbon monoxide which is deadly. A portable heater is fine if you provide an exit for the carbon monoxide like a cracked opened window. Use this type for only a short period of time. The permanant gas fired heater mounted on the wall using the gas supply in your house will require professional installation or if you do it yourself, then you mudy obtain proper permitting and local inspection of the installation.

Gas will be your most economical. Can you tie in to your existing heating system. While it is not size to carry your heating load in the shop completely it could be used to supplement your heat. Where I live if it is heated space it is figured into the tax base for property tax. The tax office usually picks this up from the permitting that the HVAC guy or you obtain from your city.

Kevin

Re: Best Way To Heat A Garage

Mike in Mystic

>I have been dealing with this issue lately here in New England, too. Not single digits, but right around or a little below freezing. Anything less than about 30 outside and it is too cold to bother going in the shop for myself.

At the moment I have an 80,000 BTU job site propane heater. It works VERY well in terms of getting the place warm. Today I succumbed to the cold and turned it on and it went from about 35 in the garage to about 60 in maybe 10 minutes. The really big problem with this type of heater is what others have said. The fumes aren't terrible, but you definitely notice. Not healthy, that's for sure. The other problem (which I admit is the real reason I am loathe to use the thing) is the moisture. When you burn hydrocarbons you produce carbon dioxide and water. For every unit of propane consumed, 4 units of water are formed. Anyway, the big iron will rust before your eyes if you don't watch it. The stuff you don't see (hand planes, etc.) are where it really sucks. I've found some of my lesser used, but still expensive, tools with thin coats of rust on them.

What I'm planning to do this spring/summer is to completely reinsulate the garage, including the garage doors. I'm going to resurface the walls with 3/8" or 1/2" plywood. Since I have an oil-fired boiler, I'm probably going to dig a trench out to my detached garage and have my heating guy run a line for hot water and install ceiling mounted convection unit. This will remove any problem with combustion in the shop (i.e. no worries about solvent use or carbon monoxide). He gave me a quote of about $1500 - as long as I do the trench and maybe run the insulated pipe for the water line.

The other option that I'm considering is the direct vented propane heater (the hot dawg type). The cost of oil is a factor, although up here propane isn't that much cheaper (and I haven't checked in awhile so it might be more expensive for all I know).

Mike

Re: Best Way To Heat A Garage

Bob Hackett

>Propane is going for about $1.40 a gallon here in Maine if you get on a program with a supplier,$2.00 if not.

I heat my shop with a smaller Monitor kerosene heater.One approx 4" hole thru the wall takes care of both the exhaust and the intake of outside air for combustion.The only drawback to this heater is that it`s fed by removeable tanks that need to be refilled every day.I`m sure there`s a conversion kit to run it from a larger tank but that would take up more shop space.

The alternative would be to use a propane fired model of the same unit,I believe they`re sold under the Rennai(sp)name.If I were buying a heater I believe that`s the direction I`d go.

Mainely,Bob

Re: Best Way To Heat A Garage

GolfSteve in Calgary

>For occasional heating I don't think you can beat electric heat. Gas furnaces are more cost effective if run 24/7, but if you only heat the garage a couple of hours a week you'll never recover the incremental capital cost that a gas furnace demands.

I don't like torpedo heaters because of the fumes previously mentioned by others.

Forget the ceramic heaters, radiant heaters, etc. To heat the garage very quickly and efficiently, buy yourself one of the 240V, 4800 Watt electric construction heaters. These cost about $70 CDN (~$55 USD) at Home Depot. One of these units heats my two car detached garage from -5 deg C to +20 deg C in about 30 minutes. Once the room is up to temperature, the heater probably only runs for 10 minutes out of an hour. My garage is very well insulated. If yours isn't insulated, then I think the 4800 watt heater will keep up, but may have to run quite a bit.

You can see my heater in the attached photo (it's the orange box) Since the photo was taken, I built a shelf for the heater to sit on so that it's not taking up bench space.

So, for $70 CDN plus the cost of installing a 240 V outlet if you don't already have one, you can easily and fairly economically heat the garage whenever you want.

Re: Best Way To Heat A Garage

JimG

>The first thing I did to my garage was insulate the walls and the attic above. Now, when it gets really cold, I start a fire in the fireplace. Not sure why, I guess the air in the attic gets heated, but the garage stays a comfortable tempurature. My wife is happy for the fire and I like the warmth in the garage.