garage heating

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cudaj380

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Jerseyville, Il.
I have a 25x40 detatched garage/work shop
with electrical hook-ups. I was wondering
if anyone uses the portable propane
heaters?
If you use the propane type heater,
is there any concern for gas fumes from the
cars in the garage causing a fire?
I would not have any flammables stored in the garage.
 
When I lived in michigan, I tried propane heaters a few times, they basically spew carbon monoxide, we always got sick when we used these. Ideally you want radiational heat, like an electrical element heater, or the safest, oil filled radiators. They are also the slowest to heat up the space, but they retain heat really well. You can put a small fan on low blowing through the radiator to heat the space a little quicker. I have one on in my garage all the time since I am doing a lot of painting and need to keep the space above 65F. Also, try to avoid opening the main garage door, use a side door if possible.
 
flyboy01 said:
When I lived in michigan, I tried propane heaters a few times, they basically spew carbon monoxide, we always got sick when we used these. Ideally you want radiational heat, like an electrical element heater, or the safest, oil filled radiators. They are also the slowest to heat up the space, but they retain heat really well. You can put a small fan on low blowing through the radiator to heat the space a little quicker. I have one on in my garage all the time since I am doing a lot of painting and need to keep the space above 65F. Also, try to avoid opening the main garage door, use a side door if possible.
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I agree, DONT USE A PROPANE HEATER INDOORS ! (Carbon Monoxide=Death)

Use a small fan blowing thru an oil filled radiator.
 
I have a 30x40 shop. It is heated with a wood stove....safe, simple, and inexepnsive heat (at least for me, I have 7 acres of woods)......If you really want to localize the heat and not invest in a major heating sytem, go with electric radiant heat. I have also used the propane gas heaters, work ok, but the fumes are not good......Could also use a kerosene heater, but run it HOT, helps to eliminate the odor and the dnagerous fumes, so I hear.....

If you have the extra cash, just install a central heating system....safe, economical and trouble free....
 
Get electric baseboard heaters installed. Not only will it allow you to have a heated garage that you can set temp at what you want and keep it there at a reasonable cost, it also helps keep it dry and if you have any gas fumes or paint fumes you don't have to worry about it exploding. A wood stove in a garage is ok, so long as there are no sources of gasoline vapor and definatly DO NOT PAINT, spray or otherwise, around a wood stove, one small back draft and they will be cleaning pieces of you and your garage up from the surrounding counties.

I have electric baseboard heat in my garage and a ceiling fan to help circulate the heat around the garage evenly, also helps keep the floor at the same temp. It's so dry out there I can have a piece of bare steel out there for ten years without surface rust forming on it (I know this because I had a car that I had done some sanding on, down to bare steel, that sat out there for ten years that way, no surface rust.) I also do not open or close the main door very often, especially in the winter. It's my shop, not a garage, LOL :shaking2:

Propane heaters also put out corrosive by products along with the carbon monoxide problem. Bad deal for both you and the cars.
 
Yeah propane heaters aren't good for a working area. I had one gave to me. It was a real nice one. 50,000 btu. Heated the garage great. Kept getting headaches when I worked out there. After I had about 3 headaches in a row from working out there I got a carbon monoxide tester to see if that was it and sure enough it pegged it in no time.

I switched to the baseboard electric type like Kraby mentioned and they do have real good points like he said. The only thing is I cheaped out and bought some old used ones from a resturant that went out of business and they don't seem to work very well. I'm going to have to dig deep in the pocketbook and buy some new more efficient ones.
 
there is nothing wrong with the proper propane heater at all . If you get the type that bolt up to your roof and vent outside through b-vent and use a heat exchanger. Same as a natural gas heater,,just uses propane (different orfice size). Reznor makes a perfect little 0 clearence 50,000 btu heater that would be perfect for ya,,,,about 550.00 canadain not installed
 
Check around for used copper hot water baseboards as well. A regular domestic hot water heater can heat a fair sized run. A system with used everything can be built pretty cheap. A system with free everything can be a whole lot cheaper. A recycled hot air furnace will heat a shop pretty well and the blower only can be used as a fan in the summer. Heck, you could add a/c as well. Look for a house that is about to get torn down and see if you can salvage the heating system, scrap what you dont need.
 
I have been using a ventless propane garage heater for about 4 years now, works great and I couldn't be happier with it. Propane is very clean burning and there is no danger as long as you mount it up on the wall, gas fumes are heavier than air. The unit I have has an O2 depletion sensor and will shut it self off if the O2 level drops below a safe level.

If anyone has one that is "spewing carbon monoxide" there is soemthing drastically wrong with it. They even heat houses with ventless propane heaters.
 
Guys, lots of good info here I will work on one of the
options beside the propane heater. I have two oil fuild
heaters now which are portable and they were not getting
the temp. more then 2* warmer then the outside temp.
I will try the fan trick and see if that helps.

The electric base type heaters with a thermostat is a
good idea to look into.

The hot water system seems like a good idea also as my
house is heated that way now with a boiler and it works
great. If it was not for the garage being detatched quite
a ways from the house I would be running it out to the
garage.
Thanks for all the responses and have a
Happy Holidays.
 
Something nobody else mentioned, insulaton is VERY important! If you insulate your walls, ceiling and glue some styrofoam to the garage door panels, you will be able to heat the space better. Just remember, it a few days to heat the garage to 65f from 20f, the less drafts and times the door opens, the better. Here in texas, a single 1500 watt oil/electric radiator keep the garage 70f at night. It is important to me because I am doing a lot of painting lately so I need to keep the temp up and air dry.
 
C130 Chief said:
Check around for used copper hot water baseboards as well. A regular domestic hot water heater can heat a fair sized run. A system with used everything can be built pretty cheap. A system with free everything can be a whole lot cheaper. A recycled hot air furnace will heat a shop pretty well and the blower only can be used as a fan in the summer. Heck, you could add a/c as well. Look for a house that is about to get torn down and see if you can salvage the heating system, scrap what you dont need.
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maybe that would be an option a while back, but with todays cost of copper, you can bet that anything with copper in it is the first thing spirited off a job site.
the rats here are swiping copper gutters, plumbing, even street light wiring, leaving more than a mile of freeway unlit, just because copper is so high right now.
 
I wish I still had my 24x30 with 11ft cieling and insulated. I heated that with a pellet stove, worked very well. always had a couple of bags of pellets on hand, it worked out very well.
 
dgc333 said:
I have been using a ventless propane garage heater for about 4 years now, works great and I couldn't be happier with it. Propane is very clean burning and there is no danger as long as you mount it up on the wall, gas fumes are heavier than air. The unit I have has an O2 depletion sensor and will shut it self off if the O2 level drops below a safe level.

If anyone has one that is "spewing carbon monoxide" there is soemthing drastically wrong with it. They even heat houses with ventless propane heaters.
Click to expand...

Glad to hear your happy with what you use. As you stated though, the fumes (carbon monoxide, the by product of the combustion of any fuel) are heavier than air, and if your laying on a creeper under your car working, by the time you may realize what is happening, it's to late. Many people die every year from fuel fired ventless heaters, propane, kerosene or otherwise. It may not be a huge number, but it is dead none-the-less and a sad case when there are other, better options. I almost lost an uncle to carbon monoxide once (he only had to make it 15' to get outside, passed out in the doorway was seen by my aunt from the house and had to be rushed to the hospital), have used the kerosene/diesel nipco heaters myself, had a gas fired forced air furnace in my garage in the past. I choose to use none of those anymore because I would like to be around when my kids graduate and get married. Paint fumes or gasoline fumes do not mix with ANY open flame, I dont care what kind of heater it is.

If you have wife and kids or family you love and, that would like to see you around for the next few years, I would strongly urge you to consider a different means of heating your garage. We may not agree on all things or see eye to eye on some matters but I would hate to come here and see a post proclaiming any member of this A body mopar family had died accidently because of a heater in their garage. :sad1:

Also as mention, insulation is key to keeping warm. At the very very least, you can staple plastic sheeting up on the cielings and walls, that will help retain the heat some, properly insulated with fiberglass batting then poly sheeting and finaly sheetrocking, will help keep your heating expense to a bare minimum. Happy New Year all.
 
What about natural gas ? I bought a used 60,000 BTU furnace from a house that was being torn down for 100$ along with all the plumbing and vent pipe I wanted. Furnace was 2 years old. Trenched the yard from the house to garage, laid the pipe, installed the furnace and never looked back. I also insulated the heated portion of the garage. I can raise the temp from 50 F to more than 70F in a matter of minutes. I keep the garage at the min temp level just to keep condensation etc down on my cars, helps keep the polished metals nice and corrosion free.

If natural gas isnt an option and you dont intend to maintain heat at a minimal level, then I would strongly consider a wood burning stove, set a fan near it to circulate the heat and it should work pretty well. Depends on how cold it gets by you.

Insulation is the biggest thing you can do to improve the heating, along with making the space as tight as possible to un heated air.

Propane would be good too, if you can use a vented type heater, and not one of those torpedo things. The torpedo heaters are mainly for construction work sites where theres lots of cold air entering the space intended to be heated.
 
krabysniper said:
If you have wife and kids or family you love and, that would like to see you around for the next few years, I would strongly urge you to consider a different means of heating your garage. We may not agree on all things or see eye to eye on some matters but I would hate to come here and see a post proclaiming any member of this A body mopar family had died accidently because of a heater in their garage. :sad1:
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Kind of over reacting there aren't you

Ventless Heaters have been around for years and there is virtually no reported cases where they have resulted in CO poisoning.

These heaters have efficiency ratings of 99% so to say they spew out CO is a gross exaggeration, yes there is CO but it's so small that unless you install the heater in a sealed room there is no danger. Considering that building codes in many areas allow this type of heater to be installed as the primary heat source the chances of CO poisioning is no greater than from any other type of heating system that uses an open flame. Factor in the fact that garages are not typically very well sealed the danger is reduced even further.

If I followed your recomendations I wouldn't have had a turkey dinner yesterday for fear of CO poisioning from the gas stove in the kitchen which is not vented either.

If you follow the manufacturers directions for installation and use they are a safe and economical way to heat your garage.
 
CO emissions are a function of burning fuel, not unit efficiency. A more efficient unit will only produce less emissions by virtue of its lower fuel consumption. I do have a "ventless" torpedo-heater and there is no way you are going to run that in an enclosed area.

If you are determined to use one of the ventless types do yourself a favor and ask the local fire department which ones the would or more likely would not recommend (Fire Chief will probably recommend you not use any of these, possibly equating their safety to Russian Roulette). Next call your insurance agent and see if use of such a device will void your policy (although UL approved, many policies exclude portable heating devices). Something to think about.
 
The unit I have is not one of the torpedo units nor is it one of the units that attaches to the top of a propane bottle. It is a permanently mounted wall unit specifically for use in a garage. When I built my garage I asked the building inspector about inexpensive heaters I could use when I am out in the garage working.

The code requirements required any type heater that had an ignition source whether it was vented or not or used electricity, propane, natural gas, oil or wood had to be mounted a minimum of 2 feet off the floor of the garage.

The fire chief, especially in a small town, is the last person I would ask. They tend to make rulings based on personal preferences and not code requirements, go see the building inspector, those guys at least know the code requirements. Had to get the state fire marshalls office to over rule the local fire chief regarding the installation of a piant both once. If we had done it the way the fire chief wanted it would not have meet NFPA code requirements and would have likely not extinguished a fire if we had had one.
 
I would definatley stick with elecric heat since he already has powert in the detatched garage, I doubt he has a gas line, or wants to keep buying propane. And yes MANY people die each year from prpane and kerosene heating units when they use them in place of home heating. Watch the news and you will see.
 
My garage is 14'x28' and last winter i decided on a $70 electric furnace with a fan. It will heat the garage to room temperature on "2" it goes up to 6. I did have to run a wire to my panel because it is 220 volt. i like it because of the fan and i can point it anywhere i want heat.
 
as the fellow said the heater has to be a min. 2 feet off the ground,,that seems to be code almost everywhere, so an old house furnace dos not meet code,or insurance requirements. propane heaters can be used here with out an outside vent but not hooked up permanent and only for temperary heat during construction. They will cause a headache but as a rule not kill you, but hey,,,,always exeptions to the rule,right. I know the propane rules because I was the shop foreman at a huge rental shop for 9 years.
 
I dunno...growing up in New York my family always used a Kerosene jet heater (150,000 BTU) to keep our 26x54 shop warm. Never had any issues with it....but granted, you still can't use it when painting or using flammables.

I have a small garage now, and just use a window mount heater/AC unit. Works great..especially on our hot summer days.
 
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