How do you guys heat your garage?

[Midlife]

I have central A/C and heat, so it's never a problem. Always between 68 and 76*.

I agree with wood stoves: you gonna stay up until all the embers have died? Once an enclosed wood stove is going, you can leave it alone until it dies on its own. When I lived in DC, that was the only source of heat we used, and we stoked it up good before going to bed, and there were just enough embers to re-start it in the AM.

As far as I am concerned, heat from a wood stove is the most comfortable system of all. Sometimes, the air gets a bit dry, but putting a tea-kettle or an open pot of water on the wood stove fixes that right up!

 

[tjc1965]

I use a propane convection heater and a 20lb bottle. 24 x 24 garage, and it takes about 20 minutes on a 20 degree night to get it to 55 or so, then I turn it down or off.

I had a 25,000 btu for years and it finally wore out. Just bought a larger one at Home Depot , bargain at $ 99.

Tried Kerosene, too sticky and loud. Tried a propane torpedo, just too loud. Electric too much juice $$$

Keep the propane tank off the concrete floor so the gas doesn't "freeze" when it's really cold.

 

[mcconneje]

I installed one of those two years ago, I have no idea why I didn't spend the $ before. It ran me about $550, doing the work myself (the heater was 299 IIRC).
http://www.mrheater.com/product.aspx?catid=50&id=117
The 45,000 BTU unit heats my 26x30 garage from ~50 to 65 in no time, and holds it there easily. I'ts not well insulated (parts of the ceiling are not insulated, but the walls & door are). I could save some fuel insulating, but given how much of the time I run the heater, I doubt it would payback.

As I said, best thing I've done to make the garage livable. Bonus: now the wife doesn't mind if the little one is out there during the winter. Gotta start 'em earlly. This w/e I plan on more lights and paint (plain drywall now).

So does this unit sit on the floor or is it mounted at the ceiling?

Thanks for all of the great suggestions, guys. Jeff

 

[Epperstang]

Our garage is 24x45. Heated with a HotDog natural gas fed heater, 75,000 BTU. Hangs from the ceiling which is 22 ft at the peak.
Thermostat is always set at 55 degrees.
J.

 

[RapidRabbit]

So does this unit sit on the floor or is it mounted at the ceiling?

Thanks for all of the great suggestions, guys. Jeff

It hangs from the ceiling. They come in a few different sizes depending on the size of your garage, and can be setup to run on Propane or natural gas.

This is what I am going to install in my garage soon. My garage is about 1000 square feet so I need something kind of big.

 

[apollard]

So does this unit sit on the floor or is it mounted at the ceiling?

Thanks for all of the great suggestions, guys. Jeff

I have 13' ceilings, so I mounted mine ~3 ft from the ceiling. It can be mounted directly to drywall if you need to. Even with it dropped, I still run two ceiling fans on low to keep the heat down low.

 

[Shaun]

It hangs from the ceiling. They come in a few different sizes depending on the size of your garage, and can be setup to run on Propane or natural gas.

This is what I am going to install in my garage soon. My garage is about 1000 square feet so I need something kind of big.

I use a 75,000btu Hot Dawg for my 1200sqft and a ceiling fan. Keeps things toasty.

 

[Mach1ne]

I just picked up one of the Home Depot propane convection units for $99.

My garage is insulated so we will see what happens in the morning when I go to warm it up to work on the car.

Went this direction based on the information regarding the noise of the propane torpedo units.

I have a diesel unit at the farm and it can get really annoying.

I will post a review tomorrow.

 

[Anonymous]

Used my convection heater all morning/afternoon while working on the 66. Sure was nice to work in a comfortable temp!

Finished up the extra plates for the cage mounts and installed the HD driveshaft safety hoop since the interior is out. Try to put the interior back in tomorrow.

 

[Mach1ne]

And where are the pictures?

 

[Anonymous]

tomorrow, too tired to go back out now!

 

[ZFORCE]

Well down here in Laurie land (Tucson) we only read about winter. I worked outside for about 4 hours today, and it was a bone chilling low to mid 70s.

The wife locked both sets of keys in the car. One set in the trunk, the spare set in the console. World Wide Wisdom (WWW), said you couldn't Slim Jim a Lexus, yeah right. Weather was so nice, I really enjoyed myself!

 

[Havok1]

Well luckly it doesn't stay too cold here for too long, but when I need to get out there and work I use a combination of a Mr Heater convection heater that sits on a 20lb propane bottle and an electric heater. It gets it warm enough (50s) in about 20-30 min.

 

[BB]

Since I already have a woodstove in the house, I decided to put one in the garage. So far, it works great. Just need to be extra careful about flammable fumes. I have a seperate room in the garage that is heated with baseboard heat when I want to do some parts painting. I put a fan in the room window and crack the door open about an inch so that it draws air from the garage and fumes go outside.
If I already has gas heat, I would probably have added a gas heater to the garage, but didn't want to go to the expense of adding gas just for the garage.

 

[Mach1ne]

The $99 Home Depot convection heater worked just fine to heat my instulated 3 car garage.

39 outside and 60 inside. Almost got it too warm.

The only bad thing was the smell from burning the "new" off of the thing.

I figured a hour or two of use will take care of that.

Now just waiting for my propane tank that I stole off the grill to run out. Won't be outdoor grilling here in Kansas any time soon.

 

[Anonymous]

I got tired of the bottles and finally plumbed that sucker into my main line, whole lot less hassle!

 

[vamustang]

Boy I sure need some heat in my shop this weekend. We got 18inches of snow yesterday ! I have several barns and old buildings on my property and I'm looking to build a shop next year hopefully! But in the meantime, I'm making due with a 100 plus year old building 600sq ft and pretty drafty. It does have a concrete floor and a very old woodstove in it. I have been afraid to fire-up the woodstove because the chimney isn't lined. Probably been 40+ years since anything was burned in it. So for the past few weeks I used a Kerosene torpedo heater which worked good but boy it gave me a headache for 2 days. I think I will spend the week insulating and use the propane because doesn't seem to put off the fums the same way.

 

[mcconneje]

The $99 Home Depot convection heater worked just fine to heat my instulated 3 car garage.

39 outside and 60 inside. Almost got it too warm.

The only bad thing was the smell from burning the "new" off of the thing.

I figured a hour or two of use will take care of that.

Now just waiting for my propane tank that I stole off the grill to run out. Won't be outdoor grilling here in Kansas any time soon.

I watched the Browns-Chiefs game on TV today, and it looked very nice out there. I can work outside in 40 degree weather and my electric heater.

 

[Mach1ne]

It actually got up to 46 today here in KC. A big surprise based on the forecast.

The garage and floor were still cold after it stayed cloudy and cold all day Saturday.

The big test for the new heater and insulation will be later this week when in cools back down below freezing for the daily high and we get snow.

 

[guruatbol]

I just got some extra bottles from one of those bottle exchange places. They have one at Wal-Mart. Now I have five bottles. One on the BBQ which this time of year gets only a little use and four for the garage. when I get down to two, I take the other three in and trade them out.

Propane or natural gas is the only way to go.

Mel