A Good Garage Heater

Right now it's c-o-l-d in Hot Springs, Arkansas! ---20 degrees is just to cold for me to crawl under my Speedster.

Has anyone found a garahe heater that you are happy with? I don't want anything with an open flame and recently cbought some electric heater that smells funny and plain doesn't heat anything---so I'm asking the forum folks what they have found to heat a single bay garage?

Thanks!---jack

Wild Bill and my son, Chris are both heating two bay garages with second-hand, forced hot air, oil furnaces. They're both "Up No'th".

Zero to 70F in five minutes flat...

Guys here in "Beautiful Beaufort by the Sea" usually have heat pumps just for the garage - Cool in Summer and heat in Winter (although we usually don't need much heat). A couple guys have window/wall mount units of 12K BTU's, but the larger garages (3-6 bay) run small house units. Mucho insulation is the key...

A few of my friends have propane heaters from Northern Tool Catalog

see: http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/NTESearch?storeId=6970&N=0&Ntk=All&Ntt=propane%20heaters&Nty=1&D=propane%20heaters&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Dx=mode+matchallpartial


scroll down to the 7th, 9th and 11th heaters. They look like a large horizonatal cylindrical tube

I heat my 550 sq ft. shop with a single in wall 220v fan forced electric heater from Lowes. It sets between the studs, was around $200 is hard wired and has it's own on board stat. ( Great for quick drying smaller painted parts too)
Option 2: ... get a couple of 220v baseboard heat units and a wall stat. ~Alan

There's another post very similar to this one...

Those propane heaters mentioned above have an open flame. I have one that is kerosene fired. They are good in a well ventilated area but will generate too much moisture and fumes in a closed garage. I sued mice in Dec when I did the off to the side about 4 ft away and pointed at the area I was working on. Kept my work area relatively warm with no wind. They are hot and will easily start a fire...a buddy of mine up north in Rankin Inlet burned his garage to the ground trying to thaw out a snowmobile with one so be careful.

I have both a 200 v heater and a propane wall heater, the one that vents through the wall and does not need a chimney. The electric heater I got for $20 from a second hand shop and the propane heater got for $100 from a buddy. I use the electric heater to heat up the garage quickly and for short periods of time whereas I use the propane heater if I want to heat the garage for extended periods of time. Actually, with the cost of heat these days I don't use either very often now. I'll just wait till it warms up.

Don't know what it costs in your neck of the woods but here I know of people recently getting heating bills for $1,800 a month. I burn wood mostly now. Go to the dump and pickup pallets for free then cut them up for fuel. Costs me a few bucks a season for carbide bits.

first thing i did was insulate my garage. best $80 and an afternoon i could have spent.

keeps it cool in the summer and warm in the winter

I use a Farenheat ceiling mounted unit like this:

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_595_595

to heat my 24x24 insulated and sheetrocked garage. Easy install and heats up my northeast garage from bitter cold to very comfy in about 15 minutes. Just last weekend we were replacing some brakes working in short sleeve shirts and it was 8 degrees outside.

I see I really screwed up my post....

I didn't "sue mice" back in Dec. that should have said "I used mine back in Dec when it was minus 30 outside and I replaced the front brakes on my VW. I had the thing about 4 feet away pointing in the direction of where I was doing the repair and it kept me, and the tools and parts, warm enough. Even at minus 30 just in the driveway."

Point is those torpedo heaters are HOT!

I think I liked "sue mice" better

Ya know Larry, I've heard that those folks in the Northern Territories, where sunrise is 10 a.m. and sunset is 2 p.m can get a little strange after a few months. I just took him at his word and figured that "sueing mice" is some sort of local activity that maybe I didn't want to know about . . . .

Built a 24'x 34' attached garage. Added a gas fired 40 gallon domestic hot water heater, circ pump, baseboard heaters, and filled the system with propoline glycol. The water tank is sealed off from the garage area, has it's own built-in temperature switch so the water stays hot all the time. Any heat lost there just helps heat the garage. A wall mounted thermostat turns the circ pump on/off via a relay. I keep the thermostat at about 52 degrees. Above the tank, higher than where the tubing passes over the garage doors, ia a small, vented two gallon "stand tank". It acts to keep the system full of glycol and provides a place for any trapped air to escape. There is also a manual ball valve above the garage door section of tubing to quickly bleed any air from the system prior to starting it up in the early winter.
It's been working great for 8 years now, and because our winter temperatures typically average in the upper teens at night, and above freezing during the day; it hasn't cost much to run.

Brian, a buddy of mine heated his house that way. Three hot water tanks did the job. But then when he came to sell no buyer could get a conventional mortgage so he had to convert to a conventional boiler.

And actually the days are getting longer!! Suns up about 9:30 and dark about 5 so things are looking up. Problem is that when its sunny its cold!! Minus 42 the other morning. But sunny and longer days.

But you are right...it kind of wears on you.

When it's really, really, cold in my garage in So. Calif. I'll switch from shorts to jeans and if it's really, really, really, cold, I'll wear a sweat shirt

Larry--you are breaking my heart! That's how I lived years ago in beautiful Woodland Hills ,CA. Sigh-----Jack

Here's what ya need Jack!
In my case, the woodstove had very little effect in my 1500 foot bare-metal walled "tin can" bldg. In a smaller insulated space, it might do the job.
On the other hand, the price was right: free from Craig's list (in the summer of course).

Check out our forecast for the next few days...

http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/nt-24_metric_e.html

Needless to say my car wouldn't start...and its colder now than this morning. Going to put the herman nelson under a tarp over the front end at noon to see if I can warm it up.

Brian:

Why are you way up there, and when are you coming to NOL?

Robert, originally work but now I'm really not sure?? What was once a sweet deal is no longer. Wages have not kept par with "real" inflation up here. Don't know where the stats folks get their low single digits when they do CPI indexes but they can't be taking into consideration the real costs...like folks I know who are now paying $1,800 a month to heat their house. You talk about gas prices that are over $1 a litre down south...try heating fuel at that price too.

Anyway, if the bottom does not fall out of the housing market here then be in NOTL this fall.

Perhaps sooner, both my wife and I work for the Gov't and right now we're working on a 15% overall budget reduction exercise. My wife's job's gone April 1 (sooner if her boss keeps riding her to quit..). My job is still there, apparently. I've not been privy to the cuts in my area.

Tired of this cyclical up and down with this Gov't and want to take my meager pension and just work a couple of days a week at Home Depot or something like that.