Ok, difficult question, I just ordered the Hot Dawg HD45 45,000 heater for my garage. It's an oversized two car garage, soon to be dream workshop. I was planning on using a thermostat to keep the temp around 50 and then cranking it up when I'm in there. Can somebody tell me how they've done with fuel consumption? This is a LP type of heater and I'm concerned about the exorbitant prices of fuel and the nitwits I work with bragging about the efficiency of their wood burning stoves.
-Chris
A friend of mine owns the same unit, and uses it in the same manner. He is conservative and doesn't find the extra bill from cranking up noticeable..
Around here a therm is about $.90 and 45,000 would use one therm every
2 hours. If the heater ran full tilt for two hours you couldn't stand to be in the shop.He keeps his set for just above freezing, but keeping it in the upper
40's for woodworking tools to not condense I think would be wiser. If the heater is not ALL or nothing, you could dial it down to 5K btu's or something and that might be more managable as an ongoing heat level. AlanOn Wed 26 Jan 2005 03:10:02p, "sysadmin" wrote in news:MGTJd.3606$ snipped-for-privacy@fe63.usenetserver.com:
Guy at work has one. Two car garage, sounds like it's a little smaller than yours. We're in Wisconsin. Says he uses a couple hundred gallons a year.
Does just like you're planning to. Keeps it at 50 till he needs to use it then cranks it up. Used to have a woodburner in there. There's no smoke, no ashes, no condensation, the iron doesn't take forever to warm up, and the insurance guy is a whole lot happier. He's pretty sure that even with the initial cost it's only a little more than buying firewood after a couple years. He'd rather play in the shop than go cut wood.
He was ticked off about spending all that money and not being able to burn his scraps any more, but now that he's had it awhile he's really glad he got it.
Dan
If you don't mind me asking, how much did it run you? I've been looking at a Rianni direct-vent model for my unheated 2 car garage, which is looking to cost me around $1000.
-Keith
I ordered mine online for about $440. The shipping is like $50. I'm not sure what the final installation will cost since I have swallowed my pride and decided to have somebody else do the gas installation. There's something about explosions that I don't like.
were you already on LP service before this? I've been thinking of using the same system, but wasn't sure what is involved in getting a big tank installed. My house has an oil-fired boiler, so I'm considering running a hot water line to the garage and using a convection unit from that. No combustion at all in the shop seems like a good idea, and then I could have only one fuel to deal with. I just have no clue as to how efficient that would be, although my boiler man says it would work just fine - although he won't dig the trench for the line hehe.
Mike
I have the Hot Dawg 75,000 LP heater in my shop. I vented it thru the side of the shop (gabled area) to prevent any problem leak problems associated with going thru the roof. The shop is a 28' x 36' x w/14' walls. It has the normal 2" blanket insulation in the walls and roof area. I live in the pacific northwest 6 miles from the Canadian border. The occasional Noreaster out of British Columbia drop the temps into the teens for days at a time. Normal winter night time temps run in the high 20's to low 30's. Since I'm retired, I get to use the shop a lot. I set the thermostat at
65deg. for 10-12 hrs during the daytime. If I know it will drop into the 20's during the night, I leave the furnace at 45deg. If it's going to drop only into the lower 30's, I turn off the heat completely. I use 90-105 gallons of propane yearly. I have no problems with glue or finishes freezing. I have zero problems with machined surfaces rusting. I highly recommend this unit.
===================================== Fuel Consumption...? Just for you info on what mine has been Live in Western Maryland...not in the frozen North but the temp outside now as I type is 14... My shop is only 24x24... BUT is located on the second floor above one of my garages... so I am heating a 2 story building... Thermostat is located upstairs in the shop
Insulation is actually not that great...6 .single pane windows in the building... 2 regular non insulated cardboard thin garage doors with plenty of daylight visable around the edges...
I am in my second year of heating it .24/7 during the winter ... I also set the thermostat at 50 and crank it up only when I am down there...
My funrace is a 116,000 BTU natural gas furnace that my sons picked up and installed for me...converted it to propane since I do not have natural gas available...(Picked that size funrace because it was FREE..brand new never been run ..BUT was installed in error in a new home that the specs called fror a larger furnace..)
Anyway..
Last year I used 230 gallons of "pro-pain"...so far this year I have gone thru 125 gallons...and the tank was refilled last week (have not got the statement yet but it should have taken 100-150 or so gallons
Hope that what I now have will last the rest of the year... (fingers crossed) . BUT my use seems to indicate that I will be using about
300 gallons of propane a year and at close to 2 bucks a gallon I am looking at a heating bill of about $600 a year...That seems high...and is...BUT since I am retired and use the place a lot ...(usually a few hours every day...I am happy... if the building was insulated well I know my fuel use would drop big time... just not worth the bother so far...
Bob Griffiths.
.This is a detached garage with nothing. I have oil heat in the house. I called my oil company and they are taking care of everything for the LP service. They provide the tank, the hookup, etc for $69. I just have to pay for the propane.
sysadmin,
I just had the installer stop by. Got quoted $2,500 for running the gas pipe (35'), vent through a brick wall and full installation of the heater (Hot Dawg 45,000btu). By the way, he said that if _I_ had bought the heater instead of him/his company, they wouldn't install it due to liability concerns. Something to think about.
Joe C.
I recently bought a 60K but unit from these folks:
I don't have LP consumption figures yet.
Standard disclaimers - no affiliation, etc.
Tom Veatch Wichita, KS USA
======================== LOl.. This happens all the time...
BUT I bet you would not have a hard time getting the actual installer ( an employee of the company you got the quote from) to do the work "on the side" for 1/2 the price (cash) ..after you got the permits
Side jobs are a major source of income for a lot of tradesmen..found out that a long long time ago...
Bob
That sounds a bit steep.... My preliminary quote is $98 an hour for labor and $15 a foot for the pipe. Considering the price of black pipe at Home Depot or Lowes, I think I would have done it myself instead of that price. The vent can be purchased all ready to go online for about $125.
Sys,
Sounded steep to me too... Have had 4 guys come in now and the range has been 2100 to 3400. Talked to all of them to get enough information to make me realize that I'll be able to do this myself and get a contractor to sign off on it afterwards.
Right now, I've got a 3/4 to 1/2 reducer just inside the house, going to remove it, run 3/4 all the way to the heater, then reduce to 1/2 so as not to lose gas pressure/BTUs. According to one guy, given the length of the run I have/would have and the number of bends, it would reduce the output of the heater down to about 20k btu (instead of 45K).
Maybe this will be a summer project. ;-)
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