Garage heater

[ghostranger]

I have a three stall garage that is insulated and I'm wanting to put some kind of heat out there. Mainly just to keep it above freezing. What kind and what size of heater would you recommend? I'm thinking of going with something electric. However, I do want it to be efficient. One store I looked at some heaters recommended putting two heaters up and I'm not to sure about that.

[MSRiverdog]

Stay as far as you can from electric if you want economy, go to propane. You should have put in floor piping and a small boiler when building it, too late now. I put in floor and connected it to my water heater, added 10% to my gas bill, 3 stalls, 2 large insulated doors, 10 foot ceiling, connected to the house. Keeps the garage at 50+ even on 10 below days. I think you can get propane radiant heaters for the ceiling, not cheap but do a good job and the propane price is good with a big tank.

[rundrave]

I put in floor and connected it to my water heater, added 10% to my gas bill, 3 stalls, 2 large insulated doors, 10 foot ceiling, connected to the house. Keeps the garage at 50+ even on 10 below days.

What do you set the temp at for your boiler? I plumbed infloor heat in a garage I built last summer looking to get it going some time in the near future.

[MSRiverdog]

I just set the water heater at high in the winter, once the slab gets warmed up, sorta, the water heat used hasn't seemed that much to me. My house is rented out to a heating and air conditioning guy and he has said nothing other than he likes it. I actually set it on a timer on the manifold to keep the hot water use down during the normal daily water use times. Again, I just used my normal water heater to save money as my research said it would work, if you have a family it wouldn't because of everyone using hot water unless you had a really big heater.

[Eric Wettschreck]

Ghost, I put a Hot Dawg heater in my garage last fall and I"m a big fan. My garage is not insulated and it does a nice job of busting out the chill and keeping things warm enough to work in when it's really cold out.

Paid around 700 at Ferguson in Worthington and installed myself.

If my garage were insulated it would work like a million times better.

As far as electric heat goes, run away really fast. Run like deer. Don't even think aboot it if you want anything close to efficient.

[dan z]

Hot dawgs are the Cadillac especially if your insulated brother n law has one and he keeps the garage warm 60° and it kicks in a few minutes an hour even when the temp is hovering in the single digits.

[ghostranger]

Eric, What size Hot Dawg did you go with? How many gallons of lp do you go through a winter?

[Eric Wettschreck]

75000 BTU.

I'm on natural gas so I really can't say aboot the LP. About all I can say is I don't use that much more natural gas with the garage heater on. They're quite efficient.

[nobody05]

I have a 3 stall garage, insulated and have a 45k/btu hot dawg hanging in the corner. its the most economical price wise. I leave it at 40 all winter. When I want to work I turn it up give it 15 min and its good to go!

[BoxMN]

I have an old 75(80)k home furnace in my garage, and it works great. I have an old mercury tstat that I "tilt" so that it keeps the garage at 35 degrees except when I tick it up when I am out there. I even ran a couple insulated flex tubes over to spread out the heat a bit, as it just has a quick made plenum. Basically put my old home one out there (insulated 1000 foot detached garage) when I got a new one in home. Works great.

I notice more gas being used in Jan and Feb when it is really cold, but not like even $75 more a month, maybe $50 in cold months (2) and$25-$35 more Dec and March. Wife likes the warm car in the am, and I don't have to worry about anythign in the garage freezing - freezer, pressure washer, etc. And can heat it, like mentioned, to 70 in short order.

Key thing from my long winded post is have heat source that is vented. If not vented, you will likely get moisture issues. Had that happen at old cabin with electric heat. Good luck.

[Surface Tension]

Electric is 100% efficient. What you put in is what you get out.

It is however the most expensive way to heat although fuel oil might be now.

Natural gas if your hooked up and if not propane, don't consider anything else.

Don't consider anything that isn't vented either.

Next option is outside combustion air. Not a deal breaker but remember whats getting blown out the exhaust has to be pulled in from somewhere.

Which furnace is more efficient.

Hot Dawgs are 80% efficacy rated. Not the best but that is what you get with a compact ceiling hung furnace. Its biggest Plus is it takes up no floor space.

You up the efficacy with a standard furnace plus have ability to run heat ducts but you give up floor space. Install of both as far as cost and technical aspect are about the same.

[nobody05]

one bad thing about a High Efficent or condensing furnaces in garages is that if you keep it at say 35 or 40 and your gone for a weekendand it quits and the garage freezes could do some costly damage to a condensing furnace because there is water in it. Where as a 80 you can shut it off if you want and doesnt hurt it to freeze

[Surface Tension]

nobody05, very good point on the condensing furnace.

[MJBaldwin]

I use to sell Reznor Heaters which are just like the HotDawg ones. I have heard nothing but good things about them one thing I did hear about the HotDawg Heater is that they are a little noisy. Over all its personal preferance. I have seen guys use a furnace,unit heaters, electric heater, & infloor tubing. It all depends on where you are how much you want to spend a month along with how much you want to crank it up and be out there during winter months.

Overall which is propably not possible for your applocation would be infloor heat. I am a mechanical designer and we do this on most of our projects that consit of a shop/garage. Its easy to install along with not that expensive, I helped my co-worker install it in his smaller cabin and thats all he uses to heat it has a nice little boiler mounted on the wall works nice!

[LOWRetreat]

We heat our 3 car garage (960 SF/9' walls) with a 75,000 BTU HotDawg Heater on natural gas for past +10 years. Temperature set at 52 and very quick to heat up to 70 for projects. Do not know the monthly operating costs, but insignificant to the comfort of warm vehicles. Heater located in corner. Also have a LP HotDawg Heater for the farm workshop. Have had minor issues with control board on both LP and Nat Gas but replaced under warranty. Would stay away from electric due to costs and infrequent off-peak service.

[low277]

I heat my garage 28' x 40' x 9' sidewall with electric unit heaters. I keep the garage at about 50 degrees at all times with (1) 5kw unit heater, ths unit is on a off peak system which I pay about 5 cents a kw. I have a second identical unit which s not on off peak it costs about 8.5 cents a kw.

I normally have the second heater set at 45 degrees which allows t to run when my primary heater s being controlled (about 150 hours a year). I also use it to help bring the garage up to 65 degrees f want to do some work n there.

My garage is 2x6 walls insulated to R19 and I have about 10 inches of blown in cellulose in the attic.

5kw is about 17,000 btus