would like to get a heater for my one car garage. 13x36x7’tall insulated any sugestions. W.V. Making a new woodworking shop.
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I use an electric oil-filled radiator type heater in my garage shop. Mine also has an anti-freeze setting which kicks in when the temps drop too low at night. Handy for keeping near the liquids cabinet.
After a series of expensive gas overhead heaters as I moved around the country, I installed a 4000 watt 220 volt electric heater with thermostat that I bought for $50 in my new shop. My thinking was to use it temporarily while I decided what to do. My insulated attached double garage is 24 X 27.
19 years later I had to replace the heater it when the fan bearings wore out for $79. I bought both at Princess Auto in Canada. Harbour Freight may have something equivalent. They are sold as construction heaters here.
I set the thermostat to maintain 40F when I am not working to keep things from freezing. It take a little experimenting to get the setting right. Within 30 minutes after increasing the thermostat the garage reaches a comfortable temperature, within an hour I can comfortably work in shirt sleeves.
In many places electric is an expensive option for operation. It is hard to beat the purchase price.
I like the idea of no pilot light. If I am doing anything that might generate vapors it is very easy to shut off.
Gear
Gear,
I had one of these explode on me a few years back. The fan pushed molten metal out the front across the cabinet it was sitting on, and onto some plastic tool boxes below.
Like you the shop was in a double attached garage, had it actually started a fire...
The burn marks are still there, as are the chunks of metal embedded in the top of the tool box. They serve as a visble reminder that cheap, may not be better.
Buster
I'm looking into a ductless mini-split heat pump. My shop has a 5KW electric space heater that heats everything toasty and keeps the place warm but even with cheap NW electricity it costs more than $300 to heat my shop during the winter.
It looks like I can buy a 1.5 ton unit and install it myself for somewhere in the neighborhood of $1100. Cost of heat would be ~1/3 of what I'm paying now and I'd have air conditioning should I need it. With the pump outside they're quiet and no danger of fire as with a gas or even electric space heaters.
Anyone have one of these?
Is that $300 per month, or $300 for the season? I'm in the NW too (island near Seattle). $300 for the season would be a bargain. If I could just get the place insulated well enough, I'd go for electric (take out the pellet stove).forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Hi Forestgirl,
I misspoke, it's more like $600 per gray, endless winter. :-) That's keeping it above freezing all the time and >50 most of the time. It's probably a little colder here than on Bainbridge Island.
I've done a lot of insulating in the last few years, I installed a small Lopi airtight wood stove but it took so long to get going and so much space in my relatively small shop that I removed it. The electric heater was a big improvement over the stove. Just a big shock to get a $250 power bill in January!
I got a used pellet stove for $300. and last winter I burned just 1 ton of pellets at $200. per ton. My shop is 1132 sqft and well insulated.
John
Hi, John I have an old pellet stove, bought from an ex-Knotshead (at least I haven't seen him here for awhile). It does keep the shop nice and toasty, but not long after I bought it the control board fried, so now I'm on a manual system (no thermostat, something called a "timer block" to run the auger motor). The lowest I can burn it and not gum up the works takes 1 bag of pellets for 16 hours of heat. The timer block is extremely difficult to fine tune.
Hubby doesn't understand the need to heat the shop to some extent even when I'm not using it (rusty tools, swelling lumber). We grich at each other alot during the winter over this issue.
Insulation is sorely needed in my shop, though it's better now than when I started claiming it as my own, LOL! One thing that would be nice is to have a "quick-start" form of heat that doesn't take too long to get some rise in temp. in there. Nick picked up a fan-forced propane heater at an auction recently -- it's designed to be located outside the building, and one uses 8" ducting to direct the warm air into the building. That would solve the "quick start" thing and also not increase the humidity since the exhaust of the heater is outside, not inside.
Finally, I wouldn't mind getting the space back, what about 20 square feet? It's prime real estate, right in front of the only window in the shop, and it was the only place we could locate the stove. I'm going to re-examine the different propane and electrical options this fall, see if anything looks good.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Polar, what does 1.5 Ton translate to BTU-wise? forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
For A/C, one ton of cooling is 12,000 BTU's.
ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
According to what I've been reading this type of heat pump is rated slightly higher for heat vs cooling. ~20,000 btu. That will also depend on the outside temp to some degree. Depending on the unit - above 40F they might put out 3.5 times the heat of an electric resistance heater for a given amount of power consumed but the efficiency drops off as the temp goes down.
Bill
One thing to consider regarding installing any forced-air heating unit yourself that's hard-wired into the building - in a lot of states, it's illegal to install HVAC yourself (must be done by a licensed HVAC contractor). A good number of states (including mine - NC) allows you to do your own electrical wiring and plumbing so long as it's on your primary residence, you get a permit, and it's inspected before its put in service. However, to my knowledge there's no such exception for heating and air.
Doesn't mean you can't do it, but it could raise complications if you ever decided to sell your property.
If you're building yourself a new shop, I'd strongly recommend at least a 8' ceiling, preferably more than 8'-6" if you ever work with plywood (or other long stock).
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I installed a Modine Hot Dawg in my two-car garage several years ago, it works great. I had tried various other heaters, propane, kerosene and electric and none of them worked very well. The electric was probably just too small. The propane worked but stunk up the house. The kerosene didn’t put out enough heat to keep it warm on a cold day and the low odder fuel was expensive. I finally bit the bullet, ran a gas line and electric circuit and installed the Hot Dawg. Problem solved. The Hot Dawg has a power vent so you can run the exhaust through a sidewall instead of the ceiling. I had a muffler shop weld up a three-inch pipe with a T on the end for the vent. Much heaver gauge pipe and a lot cheaper than the exhaust kits I could fine.
My wood shop is in the basement, but we spend a lot of time in the garage working on cars. I installed the largest Hot Dawg. I thought I would need it because I have 12 ft ceiling in the garage and it is over kill. The small one would do fine for a single garage. Here is a link.
http://hot-dawg.modine.com/
I ask a couple contractors about the price to purchase one and install it but there prices were outrageous. I purchased the unit on line and installed it. Really quite simple to install.
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