Up here the monitor and toyo are about split evenly. I have heard that monitor has gotten a little "Cheaper" on their parts but they still are a good stove. Either way you cant go wrong. My biggest problem is that we want to build an enclosed breezeway between the house and garage. Not sure if the heat would make it back there. Quiteside make an wall vented boiler that is arund 1200. Thats another consideration but not sure how efficient it is. We had the medium moniitor, 24,000 btu's and it burned about 50 gallons a month in fuel.

Back to the kerosun question. Is that the new name or are you talking about the fuel they burn. Both burn #1 diesel. If its a name change they are still advertise as Toyo up here.

Another consideration is a use oil heater. Expensive at the get go, say 3000 but if you have access to used oil it should pay for its self in a few years. If you go that route use mutile filters before the tank, including a sock then another good filter post tank.

 

I went to that link. AL's site has been on the internet for years badgering Monitor. Yes there might be some validity to his complaints but they are still a good stove.

 

I'm coming in late in the thread, but I did want to put in a good word for the "Hot Dawg". My wife got me the 75K BTU natural gas unit for my garage for our last anniversary (#14). I did the entire install myself in one long day. Although I have done a fair bit of electrical work in the past, this was my first gas pipe job. Everything looks neat and clean and it really works well. During the cold winter days, I can bring the three car garage from near freezing to 65 deg F in about 30 minutes. Not only that, I don't need any additional circulation beyond what the unit provides. If I recall, all of the hardware to install (including tools like gas pipe cutters and dies) was about $150. So the whole thing was quite reasonable. I'd post pictures, but it seems I am not quite trusted enough...


Don

 

Man I wish we had natural gas. Fuel oil is so darn expensive. Home fuel oil is basically the same as fuel for the truck. Propane is just scary, price wise.

 

Why not build your own waste oil burner. I've got one in my UNINSULATED 50x50 shop and it will drive you OUT! FABMANDELUX.

 

The torpedo (kerosene) heaters will get the temp up fast...so fast sometimes that the walls will sweat. BUT they are noisy and smelly.. I have one sitting in the shed for emergencies.

Radiant is cool (well you know what I mean) it does heat a specific area, but when you step away...it's chilly... we use these at work and they're mounted above work areas 10-12' .... they tend to blister my bald head... I don't like working under them.

My garage is 24x24 finished inside and insulated overhead (6") and walls (3.5"). I found a 50,000 btu Reznor ceiling hung nat gas heater at a salvage place... this is a standard combustion chamber type heater with fan blowing over the heated chamber and vents thru the roof.. heater is mounted high in one corner out of the way and the thermostat is in the opposite corner. I keep the therm. on about 55° all winter and i got to say it is so nice to walk into a warm shop and pick up warm tools and work in shirt sleeves when it's 20 degrees outside... you don't have to worry about your liquids or bondo or paint freezing...

I've had it in two winters now and honestly can't see it on my bill. Now granted... Alabama isn't known for snow shoveling but we can go weeks with the temps in the freezing range or below... there is nothing I can find to compare with a warm shop !!! and EVERYTHING is warm !!!

I hear all the horror stories about Nat Gas prices being out of the park this year.... but I don't think this heater runs an hour total in a day... the insulation is the key and if I was starting from scratch... I'd invest there first...

later
john (cool... but warm and toasty too)

 

A word of caution on garage heat make sure its a vented type and it either hangs from the ceiling or is in another room off the garage floor(oil fired).
Gasoline fumes or flamable fumes hug near the ground and anything that is on the ground will ignite the fumes quicker.
Just be smart

I have 80,000 btu Modines(propane) in my shop.
Rich

 

Gota ask how and what did it cost?

 

I thought he came on a more than a little strong for just pointing out defects in a product; it seemed more like a personal vendetta. Makes me a little cautious.

I have read through the literature for both the Monitor and the Toyo and am still a little confused. (I thought I read someplace that Toyo was owned by Kerosun, may not be correct). They mention both a thermostat control and three levels of BTU output. Does the heater switch on and off like a normal thermostatically controlled system, except at the selected heat output?

I would like to have my garage heater as a backup to my house furnace (attached garage). Is there any disadvantage, other than original cost, to oversizing the heater for its main purpose of heating the garage?

TIA, Brady

 

Great thread everyone, 8 months old, and still productive, lots of good information in here.

For those of you looking to stay electric, This company in my experience makes some pretty well built stuff, going on 2 years now.....

http://www.king-electric.com/

 

Did'nt cost anything but time! Used "stuff" from my boneyard, Fired it with a "TURK" burner I made myself. I first used homemade Biodiesel, now i'm using glycerol, so no cost for fuel at all! You can google "TURK" and find several styles of turk burner's. If anyone want's I'll post pic's of mine. FABMANDELUX

 

Pellet stove here, Garage in basement so it heats the house some as well?!

 

in the spring will be building a 60 x 80 shop living quarters. Living quarters 24x60 shop rest of area. Thinking of going floor heat with boiler or geo-thermal, for the benefit of air-con. The building is going to be stick built 10 foot walls, insulated and no windows. Building on 4 acre lot in woods. Ideas would be appreciated.

 

Air conditioning will require ductwork. Floor heating requires plumbing and a circulating pump. So you are faced with extra costs to do both. Don't be thinking you can "cool the floor" for summer air conditioning -- Iowa has too much humidity and the floor would sweat if you tried it.

Most geothermal units (aka ground source heat pumps) are set up to heat and cool using forced air. There is a limited selection of units which can work with in-floor radiant heat. It is difficult to get the working fluid temperature up to where it is needed using geothermal, but I have seen at least some that can do it.

I don't even know if there are ANY geothernal units that can do both in-floor radiant heat AND forced air AC using the same compressor and water loop heat exchanger. (Obviously, you can share the same water loop or well across two separate units, but you probably don't want to buy two otherwise separate systems).

When faced with this choice for my house, I decided to skip the in-floor heat and instead spent a little extra on a two-stage heat pump with a variable speed air handler. This eliminates the "cold drafts from heat pump registers" syndrome, and the overall system is very, very efficient.

A radiant floor system buried in concrete will have considerable thermal mass. It is difficult(with any equipment) to heat up such a space quickly (say from 50 degrees to 65 degrees). If you don't plan to use your shop space more than 8 hours per day, you might consider the impact of this on your overall heating costs. A boiler system can be designed with enough overcapacity to mitigate this issue, but geothermal systems, by their nature, have little overcapacity and it is pretty much impossible for a geothermal system to heat up a big lump of concrete in less than several hours.

 

Thermostat control consist of a small temp probe that is attached to the rear of the units via a approximately 6' wire. Both units usually start out low, get warmed up and will then kick it up to the desired level to warm up to 2-degrees above then will kick back down to low for a few minutes, shut off the burner, then run the fan for a few minutes until the burner is cooled down. The monitor has an economy mode were it will allow the room to cool down to 12-degrees below preset. It will then fire up and warm the room to 4-degrees above and continue that process. I have had both stoves over the past 15 years and do like the Monitor brand over the Toyo brand. They both are pretty fuel efficient. I had the large Monitor 45,000 model in my living room while I was building my house. Kept it comfortable during the winter. As for oversizing I would get the 25,000 btu model if I was only heating a few rooms or a small garage. Anything larger go bigger. They also make a one room heater that is actually a pretty nice unit just for that application.

I do like the in-floor heating. The only draw back is the additional cost. Actually its not to bad. Been considering placing heating tubes in the floor of my house and getting rid of the baseboards. I already have a boiler and circ pump so it would be a matter of new PEX. Slab is already in the garage so I cannot go that route.

As for Electric heat. At $0.23 a kilowatt forget it. Just not economical up here. Pelet stoves are nice but the shipping for the pellets to get them up here also make it expensive.

I'll try to take a look at the TURK burner to get an idea on what it would take.

Right now I have been running a barrell stove and only heating it when I need to. Takes an hour or so to get it at a comfortable temp to work. Been the cheapest route for now. Still would like to have full time heat but that will probley have to wait till next summer.