Garage heater for Vette (and my old bones)

[Raidervette]

Morning all,
I'm looking for an inexspensive way to heat the garage. It is detached from the house,two car,and no natural gas. So I am looking for electric or propane with thermostat to keep it around 40-50 degrees. Any ideas from somebody else who has done this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Yoda]

Ed,

Let's try here for a response. If this fails to produce good results we'll find another place to help ya out

Bud

 

[Dave L.]

I've also been looking into this for my garage. So far,the best option looks like this...http://www.heatersunlimited.com/item29040.ctlg
I have natural gas at my house but a 50 or 100lb propane tank would work too. I'd probably go with 2 of these mounted on either side of my garage since I have a 750 sq ft garage.

Dave

 

[Raidervette]

Thanks Bud, I wasn't sure were I should post this. I figured someone would move it to the right spot.

Dave that does sound good I am not sure if I want a gas bottle in the yard was thinking maybe electric.

 

[elseyj]

Raider,
I put in a thermostat and 4000 watt wall mounted electric heater. (220 volt) The garage and door are insulated. It does fine even when it is very cold out.
good luck'
Jim

 

[mike weyman]

I live in eastern canada,It seem humourous to me to hear you guys not really knowing what to use for heat. around here , if you dont have heat, you have cold,very very cold.brrrrr.you could hang meat to cure.even if the garage is heated while your there,the concrete never gets warm.you still need cardboard to lay on the floor.
I am building a new garage now, it will be 24x28 with a 10x12 tool /furnace room on the side.
we dont have natural gas(propane only) electric heat is cost prohibitive,so oil is the way to go (wood is slow and messy).
hot air oil will blow dust around ,so you cant paint with it.
my solution is in floor radiant heat.you take an oil fired domestic hot water heater(direct vent),a thermostat, a circulating pump,and i have installed 500 feet of 1/2" high pressure plastic tubing wired to the steel mat under the concrete.
this set up is ideal for any garage /paint shop.
with the oil tank outside , the furnace in total only takes up about three feet square.the floor is warm and is great to melt ice and snow off the bottom of the car.the water on the floor dries quickly.and best of all there is no airborne dust being circulated around the fresh paint.
I have spent conciderable time researching this,and its the best solution i can find for my needs,and probably many others.
someone spoke of propane,this must be vented outside,and only the heat circulated inside, as propane produces vast amounts of moisture as a result of the really clean burn.it doesnt produce hydrocarbons like oil,but it does produce water and carbon dioxide.this will surely be detromental to any metal inside the garage.
sorry for the verbal diarhea,but you spoke of what i am interested. mike. hope this info is usefull.

 

[Rowdy1]

My $.02

I have a 12 X 28 wooden garage with a barn style roof. I'm using insulation between every rafter and will have 8' 2" ceiling after sheet rock. I'm installing a 35,000 BTU propane fired forced hot air heater. It's made by Modine and is called a Hot Dawg. It's 12" X 18" X 32" about the size of a window air conditioner and runs on 110 Volts. It hangs from the rafters in the corner still giving me a 7' ceiling in that corner. Two 100 lb. tanks will feed it which I will buy so I don't pay a rental on them and I can either have them filled here or take them myself for a cheaper price.

 

[Raidervette]

Thanks Lou,
After a little research I think electric would be to costly. I saw those gas heaters on the net and I think your right. Thanks again for the info.

Ed

 

[Dave65]

I have a 75,000 btu Hotdawg heating a 35 x 40 garage with block walls and a 1" insulated sheathing ceiling. It worked well even with the very cold winter we had last year. It is run from a 500 gallon tank that is also used for the house furnace (it is a farm).

The best price I could find was at:

=http://www.qcsupply.com/

I installed the heater and ran the electric and the thermostat and had a Heating & Air Conditioning company hook up the gas.

Good luck.

Dave

 

[JLMvette73]

I just had a new high efficiency electric furnace and heat pump installed in our house, so the old furnace and A/C unit from the house found it's way to my new garage. Good used units can be picked up relatively cheap from HVAC contractors.

 

[Rowdy1]

Me Too

That's who I bought from also Dave, QC Supply. I'll try to post a picture or two of the heater, I just hung it yesterday. I'm going to Lowe's for my tanks, I'm leaning towards two 100 gallon tanks. I can do the hook up myself all in accordance with the local building codes.

 

[Dave65]

Lou,

For what it is worth, my concern with doing the gas was making certain the pressure was correct. The pressure going into the heater should be 9" to 10" water column. Before I saw the installer set it I had no idea what this meant. It literally means the pressure necessary to lift a column of water 9" to 10" (if anyone knows better please correct me) and the gage he used was a plastic tube he filled with water. I believe this is less than 1 psi. Too little and it does not put out its rated heat, too much and it will burn the burners up or worst.

The gage and knowledge necessary to measure this why I had a pro with the correct equipment do it (even though I was bent over the table and could not sit for a couple of days).

I was frankly concerned about buring down a garage with a very expensive Corvette (or atleast parts) in it.

My 2 cents.

Dave

 

[Rowdy1]

Let Me Clarify!!!

You are 110% correct Sir. I will definately have the gas supplier do that part of the hook up. I also DO NOT want to see my vette or anything else for that matter EVER burn. I was talking about the actual placing of the tanks and manual type labor. There are certain things best left to the people that know what they're doing. Below is a picture of my set up, it'll give you an idea of how efficient these things are in comparison to the size they used to be. This one is 35,000 BTU out put.

 

[Dave L.]

Lou - does that type of heater need to be externally vented?

Dave

 

[bossvette]

I use a pair of portable propane heaters one is rated at 30,000 btu and the other is 50,000 on high, I have had the smaller one for 15 years or so it is designed to pull the air through the combustion chamber so it can be used in an garage or shop environment when I moved I bought a larger model (torpedo style) because the one wasn't big enough to heat my barn (30x48) on cold days I go out and fire them up 1/2 hour before I want to work out there and it is comfortable until I pick up a wrench:L they never seem to get warm.

 

[Rowdy1]

Yes It Does

It uses a 3" double wall vent pipe. It's very simple actually, it can go out horrizontally with 1/4" pitch and only needs to extend 11" from the siding with a cap on it. As I progress on this I'll post more pictures. My initial cost of the heater was $435 door to door. I used the torpedo style last year which is ok, but the fuel and fumes get old after a while so I opted for this unit. I'm also going to go with about an 8,000 BTU A/C wall unit. Lots of plans, just need the $$$, the transmission ordeal is taking all the play dough right now