I have a detached garage that is about 30? feet from the house. It is an older unit that is all brick and insulated.
I was looking into running a gas line and installing a gas heater.
Suggestions on digging depth and buying the correct gas line?
Suggestions on heaters? There is an older chimney from an older gas furnace. There is a gas line to the garage, but I think the house connection was lost when the house was added onto.
What is the size of the garage?
I will have to measure it for SQft but it is a 2-1/2 car type.
I would attempt to find the existing line if you can.
code will dictate depth etc
DONT use a chimney, buy a high efficency furnace that PVC vents thru the wall goodman furnaces are low cost and work fine
much more efficent
On Sat 11 Oct 2008 08:14:18a, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com told us...
I agree. When we had a heated garage in Ohio, we had a surface mounted gas heater that vented through the wall. It was a physically small unit, but had plenty of heat output.
We had considered this for our garage, but decided not to because the furnace wouldn't be used every day, and we were concerned that the condensate would freeze inside the furnace and possibly damage the furnace internally. I know that you can install heat tape and make other provisions to keep it from freezing, but the additional 10-15% efficiency over a standard vent furnace just didn't seem to be worth it.
JK
I don't see what the big deal is with using the chimney?
Regular 80% heaters use a chimney to blow 20% of your heat up and out
High efficiency heaters use only a small vent to get rid of waste and only a few % of the heat, the rest stays in the building.
There are at least 3 choices in the 20-30K Btu/h range, 1) a $2K condensing Mantis with 93% efficiency, 2) a $600? "high-efficiency" (80%?) direct vent heater (above), and 3) a $200 unvented heater with a dehumidifier or an $80 window AC inside the room with a $30 humidistat that runs it when the RH rises to 50%.
With natural gas at $2/therm and electricity at 10 cents/kWh, 1) can make
100K Btu for $2/0.93 = $2.15, 2) costs $2/0.8 = $2.50, and 3) costs $2 for 89K of sensible heat plus 11K of latent heat, ie water vapor, which the AC converts to sensible heat with 11K/3 = 3667 Btu (1.07 kWh) of electricity, which adds another 3667 Btu to the room, so 3) can provide 92.7K Btu for $2.107, or 100/92.7x2.107 = $2.27 for 100K Btu, with no chimney nor thru- the-wall vent, at less initial cost, with welcome winter humidification.Nick
Nick, it is not 1965 any more. Where are you getting those costs? Here in New England, gas is closer to $12 a therm and electricity is 18¢.
A non venting Ng-Propane gas heater would be cheapest amd most efficent at 99 % efficency, If you work out there and garage is sealed tight a condensing gas would be next best.
Natural gas is about $1.80/therm here. Maybe you should move.
BTW, I made a mistake in not adding 11K Btu back in...
Option 3) costs 100K/103667x2.107 = $2.03/therm (100K Btu, delivered), so it's a no-brainer.
Nick
Sounds good, if you want to work in a swamp (11% of the heat is latent :-)
Nick
snipped-for-privacy@ece.villanova.edu wrote: ...
...
That can't be right -- it's about $10 at the wellhead here in the middle of US production...I got it on the royalty check.
--
Check again.
Nick
$10 per _therm_ or per million BTU or per some quantity of cubic feet or what?
I have a detached garage that is about 30? feet from the house. It is an older unit that is all brick and insulated.
CY: Insulated is good.
I was looking into running a gas line and installing a gas heater.
CY: You want to work there once in a while, or make residence there? Or just keep your storage from getting too cold?
Suggestions on digging depth and buying the correct gas line?
CY: Check with the local code people. Building department. While you are trenching, you'd be wise to run another electric line, some phone wire, and maybe cable for TV or internet. Even if you don't presently have plans to use phone or internet. Best to have the wire available just in case.
Suggestions on heaters? There is an older chimney from an older gas furnace.
CY: If you want a residential furnace for cheap, look at Goodman. For occasional use, a vented or non vented wall heater "blue flame" or equivilant could work nicely. Does the building have electricity? If not, then you should run a line to power the furnace.
There is a gas line to the garage, but I think the house connection was lost when the house was added onto.
CY: That's worth checking. Might save you a LOT of work. You may be able to reconnect the gasline, and save yourself a lot of trenching.
if you trench run some empty conduit for future needs. costs so little nice for future use
In most places, you will have to keep electrical conduit a certain distance away from a gas line in a trench. I believe that 12" is common. Typically, you would dig the trench 36" deep, and put the gas line in the bottom, and the electrical conduit 12" above it.
JK
WOW 3 foot deep for gas line... I think I should try to find the original one. I have a metal detector coming in the mail.
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