Electric garage heater

[js12278]

A question for everyone, I was always told that it was bad to heat a garage during winter(except when working on car) because the heat would activate salt and cause rust faster. Anyone have ideas on that.

Keep a nice coating of Woolwax or Fluid Film inside the frame rails and undercoat the truck 2x a year and you won’t even be thinking about salt on your vehicle ever again.

 

[Aircommuter]

I had a 10kw 3ph heater in my last home shop but I sold it with electricity rates climbing and now even higher at $.42 kwh. I don’t work in my garage since it’s for parking and kinda tight 25 x 46. It’s fully insulated including the doors and this morning it’s showing 54. Pretty much the floor temperature from the earth. My workshop is a different story since I like some heat, but when I am busy I don’t like too much. In the automotive section I have two Jotul wood stoves and four 60k btu overhead infrared units for spot heating. I have huge supply of oak firewood some on my property and my neighbor’s 380 acres with lots of trees brought down a few years ago by a snow storm. In the woodshop I have one big Jotul model wood stove and four more infrared units like the auto section. I need it warmer in there if I am applying finishes. The shop building is insulated with foam sandwiched panels steel on both sides R21 plus r30 ceiling. The auto side is 23’6” high so I have four fans to push the warm air down, but the wood shop side is only 12’ there is a 2000 sq’ mezzanine above. Two parking stalls on the back and a separate compressor/generator room. It has worked out really well. In the summer I open the two roll up doors and run a fan to pull the cold air in that comes down from the higher elevation. Run that for two hours then close it up. It will get to a maximum temperature of 76 on the hottest days.

 

[glengarryGR]

I went a different route. I installed a 12k BTU mini-split. Took 1 hours. "Mr Cool" units come with the lines pre-filled. The hardest part was drilling a 4" hole in garage for the (inside) head unit to run outside to the condenser. Super efficient and takes up no floor space. I also added a 36k BTU unit in our finished basement. This mean not having to run new ducting when we finished it. Worth looking into...

 

[Aircommuter]

I went a different route. I installed a 12k BTU mini-split. Took 1 hours. "Mr Cool" units come with the lines pre-filled. The hardest part was drilling a 4" hole in garage for the (inside) head unit to run outside to the condenser. Super efficient and takes up no floor space. I also added a 36k BTU unit in our finished basement. This mean not having to run new ducting when we finished it. Worth looking into...

I have 7 zones of mini splits in my house, they are pretty good for cooling but with our electric prices not for heating. Plus when it gets colder they lose efficiency.

 

[dhay13]

Ran it all day today too. Got a little warm so dropped it from 75 to 73. Don't want to let it run overnight unattended yet but yeah might be better off letting it run if I'll be in there the next day.
I have a mini-split in my house that I installed myself. Mine is a BlueRidge. I think it's 18,000 BTU but can't remember. We only use it in the summer for the cooling. We have a gas fireplace in our family room that heats the room much better and cheaper than the mini split would but I did think about installing that instead. Just didn't think it was cost efficient for all the more I'll use it. I spent about $1700 for the one in my family room. I still have my 1 car garage and may consider a mini split in there. The 1 car is my 'clean' side. No dirty work over there. I keep one of the Mustangs in there and only wash and clean cars in there. I have the walls and workbench all painted and will be drywalling the ceiling soon and epoxying the floor.

 

[Different Drummer]

I had a 10kw 3ph heater in my last home shop but I sold it with electricity rates climbing and now even higher at $.42 kwh. I don’t work in my garage since it’s for parking and kinda tight 25 x 46. It’s fully insulated including the doors and this morning it’s showing 54. Pretty much the floor temperature from the earth. My workshop is a different story since I like some heat, but when I am busy I don’t like too much. In the automotive section I have two Jotul wood stoves and four 60k btu overhead infrared units for spot heating. I have huge supply of oak firewood some on my property and my neighbor’s 380 acres with lots of trees brought down a few years ago by a snow storm. In the woodshop I have one big Jotul model wood stove and four more infrared units like the auto section. I need it warmer in there if I am applying finishes. The shop building is insulated with foam sandwiched panels steel on both sides R21 plus r30 ceiling. The auto side is 23’6” high so I have four fans to push the warm air down, but the wood shop side is only 12’ there is a 2000 sq’ mezzanine above. Two parking stalls on the back and a separate compressor/generator room. It has worked out really well. In the summer I open the two roll up doors and run a fan to pull the cold air in that comes down from the higher elevation. Run that for two hours then close it up. It will get to a maximum temperature of 76 on the hottest days.

Small world, I have a niece that lives up where that cold air that you use to stay cool comes from.
Greely Hill road.

 

[Aircommuter]

Small world, I have a niece that lives up where that cold air that you use to stay cool comes from.
Greely Hill road.

My road comes off Greeley Hill road. The zip code is still Coulterville. The cold air comes from much higher near Yosemite. We are actually in Greeley Hill. This county doesn’t have any cities. Just places. Known as CDA’s

 

[platinumrocker]

Just bought and installed a Turbro 10,000 watt garage heater. 240v so had to run another line. Reviews sound good. I fired it up last night. I paid $350 for the heater from Home Depot online. Shipped to my door. Also had to buy 50' of 6/2 wire and a 60A double pull breaker, as well as some conduit and fittings. Did all the work myself. Anyone have anything similar and are you happy with it?
I turned it on this morning at 8:00AM. Outside temp was 22*. Inside was 33*. I set it to 67* and it was slowly but steadily climbing until maybe 10:00-10:30. I have the app installed so kept watching the temp. It climbed to about 60* then must have shut off as when I checked it it was at about 55*. I turned it back on and it went to 67* then turned off as expected. At that point I turned it down to 50* as I wasn't working out there.
A couple of things to note...the garage is 34x21 cement block with a 2 car OH door and a man door. Front wall connects to my basement wall. Ceiling is a slight slope using engineered i-joists with a sheetmetal roof and absolutely no insulation anywhere so I know that needs addressed. Low end of the ceiling is about 10' and higher end is about 12'. I think down the road I may put a thin layer of spray foam in the i-joists. Thin layer because I want to be able to access it for wiring and storage purposes.
My plan is to only turn it on when I am out there working. I'll have to turn it on about 1 hour before I go down there. I'll also run it at about 45* when temps are to drop really low for an extended period so my water lines don't freeze.
App says it's 42* in there right now and 34* outside.
One thing I don't like and it's minor is that when you turn it on it defaults to 80* so I have to set the temp each time. I'd like to change the default to maybe 70* but I don't think I can change that.

running 6/2 for 10kw was smart and gives you a solid safety marginuninsulated blocks and metal are heat sinks sucking the energy out of the roomcheck the app for scenes or automations to bypass the 80 degree startup defaultuse 2 inch rigid foam board between i-joists for insulation while keeping wiring access

 

[MacAttack_14]

Since it's still winter, and we're just coming out of another deep-freeze in central Il, I'll chime-in

When we bought our house, all it had was this old pole-barn, a small two-car size.



I figured it was at least something I could work with temporarily (yeah, right), so I covered the tin with 3/4" foam board, including the ceiling, framed-up walls, drywalled, built a loft for storage (in for a penny...) painted the floor, and painted the roof with that reflective silver paint. This was all so it could function as my art studio.



But when I got tenure at school, I bought myself a little gift so now it's half art studio, half mechanic's shop.



I can get my '17 quad cab in there but it's tight. Heck, it's tight with Olds, but not Ram-tight.

I've since installed a much larger air conditioner but I'm still on electric heat; one oil/radiator style space heater on each of two circuits, and it's just not enough, and too expensive! In weather like we're having (sub-zero at night for a couple weeks now) I just shut it all down and bring in anything that can freeze.

I tried a bullet-style propane heater (unvented) and spent the next week de-rusting my table saw and all my tools. I now have a line running from our main propane tank to the shop/studio but finding a space for a vented (direct vent?) heater has been a challenge. Maybe if I disassembled the cherry-picker and took it up to the loft I could install one on that wall. But you know what that would mean.....I'll need the picker as soon as I do that, lol.

Honestly, right now I'm saving up to build a small observatory for my 16" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. I'm just getting too old to lug this thing out to the back yard. Maybe I could add-on to that for some additional storage. Time will tell.