It got pretty cold in my garage this weekend but I want to keep working on my truck through the winter. It's an uninsulated 2 1/2 bay detached building (about 720 sq.ft.). I want something that won't take up too much space and is portable so I've ruled out a wood stove. I've been looking at the propane and kerosene heaters at Northern Tool. Does anyone have any experience with them or suggestions for something else that might do the job?

 

I have used the small infared heaters hooked up to a gas grill bottle that worked fair. But it doesn't get as cold here as it does where your at. I never was completely warm if it got down into the 30's. I have a 1200 sq.ft. shop with 10 ft ceilings. I just purchased a Hired Hand propane heater 225K btu that mounts outside and ducts in through the wall. I know that is oversized for my shop but I picked it up for a hundred dollars and it works great. Since the heater is outside I don't have to worry with fumes from the heater or if I use solvent or paint in the shop I don't worry about the fumes getting to the heater and causing an explosion.

 

ct50f1, welcome to the site! Glad to have another states man here! I too have been thinking about heat my garage. I now run a kerosene heater now. I just bought some this weekend and it was 4.29 a gallon! Ouch!! Im looking to talk to a guy on a heating system for the garage this week.

 

I have a 40000 btu torpedo heater in a 30x30 shop with 12ft ceilings. It will warm enough to be bearable

 

I have a 28x36x10 pole barn with only a partial ceiling. I heat it with a 155,000 BTU torpedo heater and it does a right fine job. It hovered around 30 degrees outside today and the heater had no trouble at all keeping it at 70 degrees in the shop. I run it on a thermostat, so it doesn't run nonstop. If it get's below 20 degrees outside, it's hard to keep it at a tolerable temperature for just a short work session, though. It takes several hours when it's that cold to heat the air in the building and also all of its contents.

I used to run kerosene in it all the time, but when it got over $3 a gallon, I switched to diesel. Diesel works OK, but it stinks the place up and I don't think that it burns as hot as K-1. The heater seems to run longer and more frequently and uses more fuel, too. I've since done some research and experimenting and found that diesel thinned with the right proportion of gasoline burns as hot as kerosene or just a bit hotter and doesn't stink at all. My heater has a 12 gallon tank, so I always run it empty and then add 1 1/2 gallons of gasoline first and follow it with 10 gallons of diesel. Obviously, this isn't the recommended fuel and I'm not sure how any heater other than mine will react. All manufacturers state to NEVER use gasoline, so if you do this and burn your garage down, don't blame me! If you do try it, do what I did when I was playing with the mixture and run the thing outside on a long extension cord until your sure that it's not going to go into meltdown.

Woo hoo! 1,000 posts! That only took about 9 years!

 

BlueOvalRage, looks like your avatar could go a long way towards heating your garage. LOL

 

I found a good used oil furnace for $150 bucks works great.

 

I found a really small (about 14X12X12 +- ) electric shop heater 220V with a fan on the local classifieds for less than $100. I have a 3 car garage, doors are only thing not insualted, I have one bay somewhat sealed off with plastic sheating to minimize dust and paint etc from traveling and it heats that one bay up pretty quick, of course it's not super cold here either. I think it' only about 15 amps definitly makes it easier to go out and work when it's not 30Deg..

 

I have a Dayton 220V electric heater that I use in my 20 x 20. Works fine & keeps temp around 60.

 

I have a 30 x 30 uninsulated , lots of cracks , old converted dary barn I use as a shop. Being in the construction trade, I was able to salvage an electric furnace from a house we remodeled and converted to gas. It works great, just don't like the power bill, so I just run it about a half an hour to get the chill off. Then with me moving around it's okay as long as I want to work. [ A word of caution ], Anything that consumes oxygen from the room and puts out fumes can be deadly in any closed area , we allways had that problem with workers inside doing construction. We made sure there was never just one person on the job.

 

small electric heater 2 car garage. warm enough to work by the time the first cup of coffee is done!

 

I use a three element propane radiant heater. I work in a 20' X 30' uninsulated space and open on one end. It rarely gets down to freezing here but it does get to 40° and dense fog. The propane heater heats my backside and my woirkbench. The nice thing about radient heaters is that it heats objects directly. It does not heat the air. Pretty soon all the objects around you are radiating heat also.

 

Go see someone in the HVAC business. They are starting to cgange out the older forced air units for higher effeincy units. You can usally change the orfice in them for propane or to nat. gas. Put cord on them for blower motor power [110]. I have picked them up for free. Hope this helps.

 

If you have an attached garage, and the hot water heater is out there, you can pipe up a hot water unit heater pretty cheaply. You need the heater, a small circulating pump, and connections to the inlet and outlet of the water heater. Just make sure the little woman isn't planning on a shower!

 

My garage is 24x40x16 high and I insultated walls and ceiling with R19 and covered the walls with the vinyl you see on outside bellboards, my neighbor is in the bellboard business so when he took them down he gave them to me, really is easier than drywall or 4x8 sheeting and has good insultating value. Another friend gave me a 75000 btu Rheem-90+ gas furnace, 16 the other nite here in Ky. and only 46 in garage with no heat on so it only takes about ten minutes to warm up to 55 to 60 which is my working temp since I wear sweat shirts all the time. I'm really satisfied so far and love the new garage,Put the furnace and air compressor on the loft and that makes it nice also, sorry for rambling but I'm really enjoying this winter----MERRY CHRISTmas ALL---- Garry