undecided on heating garage

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: KenO
Is it not possible to add a heating duct from your household heater?


I have hot water heat and could add a zone into the garage but then I would need to keep that zone somewhat heated so the hot water heat pipes did not freeze. Not sure they would freeze but if they did that would not be good.

 

[Donald]

I should say I am not interesting in spending money to heat it all the time. When I decide to work in the garage I want to quickly (less than 1 hour) blast heat into the garage and then maintain it at maybe 60.

I am paying for 800 gallons of oil for the house, do not want to spend much more on heat for the garage.

 

[Cujet]

http://www.mrheater.com/upload/10-27-08 MH 2008 NT Heat Guide.pdf

Growing up in Rural CT, we heated with wood, kero, elec, oil and everything else we could find.

The easiest is electric resistance heating with a blower. It's nearly instant on. Expensive to operate on a long term basis. But, not horrible for short term use.

A very easy and capable example: http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_595_595

In general, at 15c/KWH, a 5000 watt electric heater will cost about 75c per hour to operate "IF" it's on 100% of the time. Generally, they cycle on/off once the room is warm enough and you can expect about 25-35c per hour operational costs. Don't know what your elec rate is, so YMMV.

My second favorite is the classic kerosene heater. Stick it in the corner, crank it up and let it go. A quality one will have plenty of BTU's to heat a small room, and are very inexpensive to operate over the longer term. CO and smell can be easily managed by some form of small airflow. Leaks around the garage door are generally more than enough. Pawn shops generally have them CHEAP.

 

[SHOZ]

There are ventless wall gas heaters that come in both open flame and infrared. Cheap way to heat if you have gas. Small and no electricity needed if you don't want a blower. The blower though really helps keep the temp steady over a much bigger area and doesn't use but 15 watts.

 

[supton]

Dumb question. Would throwing down some cheap plywood help on the floor? Concrete usually is cold, and I wonder if some sheets of plywood would better reflect heat. That or mats of some sort. I wonder if draping plastic in front of the door might help too, not sure how well insulated or sealed the typical garage door is.

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: supton
Dumb question. Would throwing down some cheap plywood help on the floor? Concrete usually is cold, and I wonder if some sheets of plywood would better reflect heat. That or mats of some sort. I wonder if draping plastic in front of the door might help too, not sure how well insulated or sealed the typical garage door is.


I have considered insulating the garage door. The garage floor is 33% oil dry and hydraulic fluid and the rest clean concrete. If I could heat the garage, I could maybe fix the hydraulic fluid leaks.