OT: Garage heater options and recommendations

1845 Views 28 Replies 13 Participants Last post by OVTaco, Jan 11, 2007

screeber

Discussion Starter · Jan 7, 2007

I know this is off topic, but I'm looking for opinions on heating my garage. We're having our first "real" winter here in several years, and my garage is on the NE side of the house, and is DAMN COLD. I've been scanning craigslist for used heaters, and I'm trying to narrow my choices. Seems like the most common options are:

- portable kerosene / electric heater
- portable propane / electric heater
- mountable electric blower heater

I like the idea of mounting it to the ceiling joists, and getting it out of the way, but I"m worried about not getting any heat down by the ground where I spend most of my time. The portable gas ones seem pretty good too, and I don't know if there are disadvantages other than the footprint they will require for storage / usage.

So gimme your ideas, opinions and pitfalls please. I've got about 650 sq ft, and I don't really need to heat all of it if there's an option that can be localized. Don't really have a budget at this point, but I'd like to keep up under 200 I guess.

Thanks - Matt

1 - 20 of 29 Posts

BillBrasky

· #2 · Jan 7, 2007

Ya gotta wear that coat.

Marc M

· #3 · Jan 7, 2007 (Edited)

Get a "waste/used oil" burning heater, that way when you change your oil throughout the year, you can store it and heat your garage in the winter.

Marc M

hoofhearted

· #4 · Jan 7, 2007

^+1

TucsonTRD

· #5 · Jan 7, 2007

^i didn't know they made such a thing, pretty cool.

i've been around those kerosene powered "jet" heaters that blow the heat out. they work good for keeping you warm while at the shop bench or at your truck. but i don't know if it would work well for heating a whole room

BillBrasky

· #6 · Jan 7, 2007

^ A salamander.

My pops has one. Pretty nice and it'll warm a 2 car garage with no problem.

The Warm Morning wood burning stove works better, though.

screeber

Discussion Starter · #7 · Jan 7, 2007

BillBrasky said:
Ya gotta wear that coat.

ROFL

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screeber

Discussion Starter · #8 · Jan 7, 2007

Marc M said:
Get a "waste/used oil" burning heater, that way when you change your oil throughout the year, you can store it and heat your garage in the winter.

Marc M

Hmmm - sounds interesting. I don't think I've seen such a beast.

screeber

Discussion Starter · #9 · Jan 7, 2007

BillBrasky said:
^ A salamander.

My pops has one. Pretty nice and it'll warm a 2 car garage with no problem.

I've seen those salamanders - the one's that can hook up to a propane tank. Seems like a pretty good option, although the ventilation requirement could work against trying keep the doors closed to trap the heat.

PiercedTiger

· #10 · Jan 7, 2007

I wouldn't do kerosene. My inlaws used one to help offset the amount of propane they used to heat their house. Turned everythin black from the soot after a couple years, and leaves a horrible smell when used. They smoked in the house, I smoke socially, and it overpowered that and gave me a headache when we would stop by. They sell a "clean burning" kerosene at some of the hardware stores around here in gallon jugs. Not sure how well it works or how much, but normal kero is $2.75 to $2.89/gallon around here.

Propane or waste oil would probably be best. Propane would be cleaner, and the waste oil would probably burn almost any oil (vegatable, motor oil, heating oil, kero, diesel). I'm not positive about that, but look into it. That would give you more options when shopping for cheapest way to heat up the place. I think they run more than $200 though. I saw some by a company called Cleanburn www.cleanburn.com and they look like small furnaces. Furnaces = not cheap. :lol: One had a collection tank too so maybe you could have neighbors drop off used oil! :thumbsup:

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magnumrecoil

· #11 · Jan 7, 2007

I'll drop in a vote for the electric ceiling mount heaters. They actually work pretty good takes them a good hour to break the chill and after three hours your looking to turn them off.

screeber

Discussion Starter · #12 · Jan 8, 2007 (Edited)

magnumrecoil said:
I'll drop in a vote for the electric ceiling mount heaters. They actually work pretty good takes them a good hour to break the chill and after three hours your looking to turn them off.

Yea - I was at a buddy's house Friday night playing poker in his garage. He had a ceiling mount electric heater. It was 15 degrees outside, and we sat in there comfortably for 5 hours - not even wearing a coat. :thumbup:

Not sure what those cost tho....

PT - thanks for the link. Those things look nice (and $$).

PiercedTiger

· #13 · Jan 8, 2007

screeber said:
Yea - I was at a buddy's house Friday night playing poker in his garage. He had a ceiling mount electric heater. It was 15 degrees outside, and we sat in there comfortably for 5 hours - not even wearing a coat. :thumbup:

Not sure what those cost tho....

PT - thanks for the link. Those things look nice (and $$).

NP! Ran across those this morning reading on ways to get rid of waste oil.

As for the electric heaters, I saw some 1500W (maybe 1700W?) ones at Sam's Club for around $80. Had wall/ceiling mount bracket and long cord too.

bassdog

· #14 · Jan 8, 2007

research

I did alot of research last year on garage heaters. I was torn between a propane setup, heater that ran from my oil burner and electric.

Electric is quiet and units can be had in the 100k btu range. The oil burner was going to be about $1500 installed, and I never got a price on propane.

The propane convection heater ($100 job) I had gave me CO poisoning too many times.

I ended up with this (the small version)
http://www.avcsalesandservice.com/radiant.php

It's clean burning and can burn diesel, or kerosene. Really warms up the garage nicely

PiercedTiger

· #15 · Jan 8, 2007

Another thought would be a pellet or wood stove. I know the pellet stoves are out of the price range you mentioned. Around $1200 and up, but they work great! I have a small one in my back family room. It'll heat that room up above 80*F (thermostat thermometer stops at 80), and the ceiling fan in my kitchen helps draw the warm air down a 10ft hallway to help heat up our first floor. We can run for about a day, give or take, on one $5 40lb bag. You can shop around for cheaper pellet prices, and get good discount buying by the ton. Some of these stoves can also burn cherry pits, corn, and a few other things. You just have to clean them more when using something other than wood. I guess the sugar in the corn/cherry pits/etc causes more build up in the burning pan.

We have a real basic one that came with the house, but some have remotes, thermostat controls, timers, etc. You could probably get one that could come on automatically (or via remote) an hour before you started working to bring the shop up to heat. Mine has to be hand lit, but the more advanced ones can light themselves somehow I think.

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screeber

Discussion Starter · #16 · Jan 8, 2007

bassdog said:
I did alot of research last year on garage heaters. I was torn between a propane setup, heater that ran from my oil burner and electric.

Electric is quiet and units can be had in the 100k btu range. The oil burner was going to be about $1500 installed, and I never got a price on propane.

The propane convection heater ($100 job) I had gave me CO poisoning too many times.

I ended up with this (the small version)
http://www.avcsalesandservice.com/radiant.php

It's clean burning and can burn diesel, or kerosene. Really warms up the garage nicely

Thanks bass. So that thing doesn't require any ventilation? How much did the small unit run you? Looks pretty nice.

screeber

Discussion Starter · #17 · Jan 8, 2007

PiercedTiger said:
Another thought would be a pellet or wood stove. I know the pellet stoves are out of the price range you mentioned. Around $1200 and up, but they work great! I have a small one in my back family room. It'll heat that room up above 80*F (thermostat thermometer stops at 80), and the ceiling fan in my kitchen helps draw the warm air down a 10ft hallway to help heat up our first floor. We can run for about a day, give or take, on one $5 40lb bag. You can shop around for cheaper pellet prices, and get good discount buying by the ton. Some of these stoves can also burn cherry pits, corn, and a few other things. You just have to clean them more when using something other than wood. I guess the sugar in the corn/cherry pits/etc causes more build up in the burning pan.

We have a real basic one that came with the house, but some have remotes, thermostat controls, timers, etc. You could probably get one that could come on automatically (or via remote) an hour before you started working to bring the shop up to heat. Mine has to be hand lit, but the more advanced ones can light themselves somehow I think.

Yea - my mother in law has a pellet stove in her family room, and that thing is powerful and very efficient. It's really nice, but probably cost prohibitive for what I'm looking for. Once I move into my garage permanently to escape the madness in my house I might go this route

OVTaco

· #18 · Jan 8, 2007

Just recently installed the Farenheat electric heater from Northern Tools. It's great! It's ceiling joist mounted and puts out 17500 BTUs. You set the thermostat to how much you can stand. the fan is not very loud either and will heat up my garage from 40 to 70+ in less than an hour. If you like to work on your truck in the buff, then this is your heater!

It cost me about $250.00 for the heater and $275.00 for the electricians to put in a dedicated 30 amp breaker and pull #10 wire over to the garage as it's a 240 volt heater.

RTFM

· #19 · Jan 8, 2007

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=44590&cat=1,43456,43465

Buddy of mine just got one of these for Christmas, haven't tried it out yet.

Small heating area, 115VAC circuit, low cost. I'll be looking at them after trying out his.

screeber

Discussion Starter · #20 · Jan 9, 2007

^Thanks. Interesting...it says it can heat a 14x14 area, which is pretty good. And the price is right. If you get any feedback (good or bad) or try it out yourself, let me know.

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