Electric Garage Heater

wish2fish

wish2fish

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Dec 19, 2006
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Locust Creek, Ohio River mm 433
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2003 220BR
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Wondering if anyone uses an electric heater for the garage.

I have a 2 1/2 car detached garage that is 24' wide x 30 deep. Not looking to make it tropical out there but something that could take the edge off and allow me to work on various projects. The garage does not have any insulation at all.

I have 240 volts available out there but don't have gas. I have used a torpedo heater but it can us one 20lb tank a day. That can be a real hassle.

Have seen heaters like this online. 5000 watts, just over 17000 BTU.
http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200578579_200578579?cm_mmc=Google-pla_with_promotion-_-Heaters%2C%20Stoves%20%2B%20Fireplaces-_-Electric%20Heaters-_-27553&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=27553&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=27553&gclid=CKWdoMXjucICFQNk7Aod7gkA4w

Please provide your thoughts and/or opinions on this idea.
 
I'm sure that would help, but I live in a milder climate, and my garage is insulated. I've found that a spare refrigerator for beer gives off just enough heat to keep things comfortable. It's a slow, steady, reliable soure of heat. Sometimes 2 are required.

Don
 
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Southpaw II said:
I'm sure that would help, but I live in a moilder climate, and my garage is insulated. I've found that a spare refrigerator for beer gives off just enough heat to keep things comfortable. It's a slow, steady, reliable soure of heat. Sometimes 2 are required.

Don
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Yeah, but when you open the door for another it cools of the room again! :)
 
If your numbers are correct, and you are burning 20 pounds of propane in a day, then the electric heater will be disappointing. I've been down this road before, so to speak. Here's the breakdown:

1 pound of propane has 21,600 BTU of heat content. If you burn 20 pounds in a day, that's 432,000 BTU. Assuming it is a 10 hour period, that's 43,200 BTU/hour, or over 2.5 times as much heat output as the electric heater you are considering. If you're burning the 20 pounds in 8 hours, it's roughly a 3:1 difference. I think if you buy the electric heater, you'll be disappointed.

For my boat storage shed (see my blog for some details - roughly 16' x 45', uninsulated), I have tried a few different things, but the best by far was a simple, small, forced hot air furnace in the 80,000 BTU range. It has enough capacity to warm the area in 10 minutes or so, and keep it toasty as long as you are working. The moment you leave the work area, turn it off. In the end, it uses less fuel, because it only runs while you are actually in the shop. I used a clean 55 gallon drum as the fuel tank, and have my oil delivery guy fill it when necessary. I found the furnace used on Craigslist for $200.00, and rebuilt the burner with a new nozzle - purrs like a cat, and well worth the investment.

Dale
 
I would think the electric wouldn't be cost effective either. I went the LP route for a while, then switched to kerosene. But after doing a CL search as mentioned above, I found a hot air furnace for $300. That will do the trick, I should think. Tap off of the house oil and your done. Just not sure how expensive it will be to run. I would give that option a look see.
 
You may want to do something about insulating too. I'm sure most of your btu is going towards trying to heat the great outdoors.
 
Southpaw II said:
I'm sure that would help, but I live in a milder climate, and my garage is insulated. I've found that a spare refrigerator for beer gives off just enough heat to keep things comfortable. It's a slow, steady, reliable soure of heat. Sometimes 2 are required.

Don
Click to expand...

Refrigerators or beers? :grin:

Bryan
 
I have a very similar situation to the OP. Live in SW Ohio, have a 25 X 25 garage, but all walls are insulated. I have the same heater you showed, just a different manufacturer. If I know I will be working in the garage that day, I turn the heater on first thing in the morning. About two hours later the garage is comfortable. I can get about a 35 degree temperature rise in the front half of the garage where I work. So, when it's 20 degrees outside, I can get the work area up to 55 degrees which is comfortable for me. It definitely affects my electric bill, but I don't work out there every day, so It's not operating every day. Figure the cost as an example as 5 kW X 8 hours X $0.10/ kWh = $4 / day to operate.
Having uinsulated walls will probably drive your cost up considerably. But you could probably insulate the walls very easily and cheaply. It's a DIY job.
 
About 10 years ago I was after a similar situation as you - wanted to keep my 2-car garage "comfortable", but not necessarily "warm". The first I did was insulate the cold walls and attic space when I had the rest of the house re-insulated. For any of your walls and/or roof that share living space, heating your garage should help to lessen how much your home heating system has to work, as well.

I then got a propane fired, ventless heater (at the time, I think I spent about $200 dollars and I believe it's somewhere in the 35K BTU range. I had a propane company drop off a large tank (125 gallon) as I also had them run lines for my gas grill and eventually a propane genny. The upfront cost for the tank and lines was very minimal as they did it as part of a "new customer" deal. I'm still using that heater today, and while I can't say exactly how much propane the heater uses, it's not that much and is WELL WORTH it to have a comfy garage all Winter long. I set the heater on the lowest setting it has and it keeps my garage at about 55*. If I turn it up just a bit (still very low, though), it'll get it to 60-65* quite easily. I would install that heater again in a heartbeat, knowing how nicely it works. I did contemplate electric heat, but figured it would just cost too much to run.

A simple kerosene heater would work very well in a garage, but it's not as convenient to run that all the time. I did use one of those before I put in the propane heater. If the garage was around the freezing mark, it would heat it up to about 70* in a couple hours. Not nearly as fast as a forced air type (but also no noise). 2 hours would use less than a quart of kerosene. I actually use that kerosene heater (it's about 30 years old) to supplement (and sometime completely heat) our house heat sometimes. It's actually quite amazing how well it works.
 
I have a similar sized garage in NY and I am planning to purchase a Fahrenheat FUH5-4 Ceiling-Mount 5000 Watt Electric Heater*at Home Depot. It got very good reviews and I believe it has a stronger fan than the heater the OP is thinking of buying. It costs $261.
 
I’d insulate the garage. My garage is 30 X 36 with 11’ sidewalls and insulated OH doors. I covered the ceiling with 1” of Thermax insulation with shiny foil surface and put fiberglass batts on top of that. I also did the walls with glass batts. Unheated, most days in the winter inside temps rarely go below 10F. The lights, and a 30K BTU infrared heater on a 20# tank are my heat. I warm it to 50+F. Once warmed up the little heater is usually on the lowest setting and I could get several days out of it.
 
thanks for the help so far. Insulation is not out of the question but I store a lot of things in the trusses overhead. Don't think I could insulate like some have. Wonder if I could get the spray foam guys to spray on the backside of the roof?

Insulation would also help with the heat transfer in the summer.
 
wish2fish said:
thanks for the help so far. Insulation is not out of the question but I store a lot of things in the trusses overhead. Don't think I could insulate like some have. Wonder if I could get the spray foam guys to spray on the backside of the roof?

Insulation would also help with the heat transfer in the summer.
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I store stuff in the overhead "attic" of the garage, too. But my garage has a ceiling. Are you saying that your ceiling is open to the "attic"? That's going to be a lot more area to heat. What about just throwing up some drywall to make a true ceiling? You'd end up heating about the half the area.
 
I built a shop for oil field site and put in electric heaters in the garage area. You could park two 1 ton service trucks in the area plus there was 15 feet in front of them. The area was insulated and I put in electric heat. I put in two 240 volt heaters like the ones you had. Think they were more than 5000 watts. They were mounted to blow air in the work area and on the truck. Electrical cost were not a concern as the heaters were a very small portion of the electric costs on a main line station. For a garage I would be concerned about costs. Heating an uninsulated garage is like heating a tent.
They did a good job of heating the area.
Think I would look at an oil or natural gas heating system as your electric cost will be high.
 
Dennis,
its your typical 2 1/2 car detached garage with 2x4 trusses. I store pipes, other wood in the trusses. I'm not even sure how tall the walls are. probably only 9 feet.

Honestly, hanging plastic over the joist would keep the heat in better than nothing.
 
In my opinion, heating an uninsulated space in your part of the country is tough enough. Add to it that the garage has no ceiling & you are pissing away money & you are still not warm enough. But I guess you already know that.

I would spend a couple hundred dollars on some rigid foam 4'X8' insulation sheets & create a ceiling. After that any heat source you choose will only have to work 1/3 as hard. You'll have to create a way to access your storage, but the investment will be returned very quickly in reduced heating costs.

EDIT - "-Honestly, hanging plastic over the joist would keep the heat in better than nothing."
This would be my second option/suggestion.
 
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Plastic is better than nothing, but not by much.

If you can do the work yourself, it would be a relatively quick job to throw up some drywall (rent a drywall lift) and then laydown some insulation in the attic. It'll make a world of difference.

Depending on where you put the pull-down stair access, you may or may not be able to easily store long things up there, anymore. It all depends on the layout. BUT, you can make an easy and cheap hanging storage (whatever height you want) setup that drops down/hangs from the ceiling for your long things.

If you want to do any type of heating, I think it's important to insulate as best you can, first. Otherwise, it's sort of like putting the cart before the horse.
 
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I have a two car garage with 9 ft ceilings,i added cheap R-13 insulation and drywall to the exterior walls and just dry walled the ceiling,i also added insulating panels to the door.I heat with propane and on old monkey wards wall furnace from a cabin up north,35-45,000 btu.@0 lbs tank will last me three days if i keep it at 65 degrees and dont run it at night.And i am talking it was cold here last year.I do preheat with a 100,000 btu propane salamander for about 10 minutes in the morning that gets me to about 60 degrees or more.
 
Lazy Daze said:
Plastic is better than nothing, but not by much.

If you can do the work yourself, it would be a relatively quick job to throw up some drywall (rent a drywall lift) and then laydown some insulation in the attic. It'll make a world of difference.

Depending on where you put the pull-down stair access, you may or may not be able to easily store long things up there, anymore. It all depends on the layout. BUT, you can make an easy and cheap hanging storage (whatever height you want) setup that drops down/hangs from the ceiling for your long things.

If you want to do any type of heating, I think it's important to insulate as best you can, first. Otherwise, it's sort of like putting the cart before the horse.
Click to expand...

Unless truss loading was specifically designed for attic and storage use I would caution against installing stairs that might encourage use and overloading.

While a sheet of plastic itself has virtually no value as insulation, putting it up would get large gains simply because it prevents the heat from freely rising away from where it’s wanted, especially if the roof is vented in some way(soffit, ridge, turbines,….).

Setting the issue of any codes aside, I wouldn’t put sheetrock on the ceiling in the garage unless I specifically wanted it for it’s fire rating. I’d go with a rigid insulation/foil surface instead. Along with the radiant barrier you also get a much brighter room due to the foil surface. If it’s on both sides it will also help to keep cooler during the summer.

At the least I’d put something like this up instead of just a sheet of poly http://www.homedepot.com/p/Reflecti...ive-Insulation-BP48100/202092205?N=5yc1vZbedf
 
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