Shop Heat Redux

[Tim Daneliuk]

I know this has been discussed on- and off- over the years, but I'd like to get a current perspective from the collective wisdom of the 'wreck.

My 'shop' is also my garage wherein cars needs to live at night. The garage is unheated which is kind of a problem here in metro Chicago ... it essentially means no wood butchery in the cold months. Moreover, there is not much available in electricity. There is one circuit that serves the garage door opener + router + TS + vacuum cleaner ... and that's it. For a variety of reasons, adding another circuit out in the garage is impractical/expensive.

So ... what - if anything - can I use to heat a garage safely that is: a) Not electrically powered, b) Won't kill me of CO poisoning, and c) Won't ignite sawdust as it flies around in the air?

TIA,

[Chris Friesen]

Natural gas or propane devices, vented to the outside. You can get a unit heater (with a fan) or else a radiant heat device.

If the area isn't insulated you're going to waste a lot of energy.

Chris

[jo4hn]

Living in a cold/snow climate, I offer the following steps:

1. Insulate.
2. Insulate some more.
3. Insulate the garage door.
4. Get an externally exhausted gas heater (natural, if possible, propane otherwise)
5. Otherwise, wood stove (start by rubbing two boy scouts together).

I have a Reznor gas heater (45K BTU IIRC (wow, 3 acronyms in one phrase)). My dust/chip collection system is a Sears shop vac and I have never had any kind of problems with dust igniting. YMMV. mahalo, jo4hn

[Neillarson]

I am also in the Chicago Area, Crystal lake to be specific. I have my shop half insulated which supprisingly does not make my shop half warm. But, I and 2 brother-in-laws bought heaters at the big box for about 100 bucks that hangs on the wall, runs on propane and has a thermostate and fan, works well in one of their garages, ok in the other and bad in my shop, but I believe that is because of my insulation and loft.I bought a 60lb bottle for mine and as I am gone

14 hours a day during the week, I do not keep it on. When the Chicago cold hits, it can never fully catch up. The air will be comfortable (to me) at about 45 to 50, but the cast iron on the tools never seem to get much past the "skin sticking" stage. Someone else on the wreck from our area told me that we need a 2 pronged approach, a gas/propane for the air and an infra-red for the tools. I am going to give this a shot. Lowes has a nice one for about 100 bucks that I am going to install above my TS and see if it helps.

[Mike Marlow]

Almost any of the alternatives. Nothing has changed with respect to the various options, as they relate to your questions. Wood stoves work well and present no fire hazard with sawdust, propane heaters of all sorts and natures work, kerosene works but I personally hate kerosene heaters. None of them are going to present a CO problem for 99.99% of what you'd do or use them for.

[Greg O]

In my opinion spend the money to get more power out there, run a natural gas line and put up a Modine Hot Dawg, or a Reznor UDAP heater and be done with it. I went the portable propane, and the kerosene heater route for a while and after I installed my heating system I have now I would NEVER go back! You generally ask about safety, as far as I am concerned the portable heaters are only as safe as the user, and maybe not that safe! They generally stink, refueling is a hassle, and they are in the way! If you are pulling wire, add a +60 amp sub-panel and never worry about power again! Greg

[John B]

Check into pellet stoves. They duct right through side walls.

[asmurff]

I have one of the torpedo propane heaters warms the garage up quickly, but is loud and usually run it for about 30 minutes before I start working. Since I live in NM I can usually get away without running it again, unless the wind is blowing hard

[spaco]

If you still don't want to add power after seeing the other posts, here are my thoughts: Put 25 watt light bulbs inside the machines to keep them from rusting. They stay on ALL the time. (Remove them before using them). Use whatever you want to heat some of the air. Buy some electrically heated floor mats to stand on. I stand on one that is about 1 1/2 X 2 feet in size and it only takes 150 watts. Take all of the cars out of the garage when using it so your heater doesn't have to heat up tons of metal. Once upon a time, I had a similar problem and so I made a plastic "tent" to work in. It had a plastic tarp "roof" about 7 feet off the floor and it simply draped down to the floor on the side to enclose the area that I wanted warmed. This was easy to heat. Only problem was that I had to run support wires across the TOP of the "roof" because it wanted to pull upwards like a hot air ballon. If you go this route, you must certainly NOT use an unvented fossil fuel heater.

Grew up in Rockford, Pete Stanaitis

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Tim Daneliuk wrote: