Thread: Heat in garage - finally!

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Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Heat are our friend! The older we get the more important it seems.

I've got a 55k btu gas fired unit hanging from the ceiling, about 1500 sq.ft. of space. With overnight temps in the low 20s the shop gets down near 40, takes about 1 1/2 hr to bring it up to near 60. Depending on how much I expect to exert I find 55-60 comfy. Many moons ago used to use the torpedo (salamander) type, besides the fumes the noise was pretty annoying too.

Mr. Bob, what brand, place to get it etc.?

I'm using a Torpedo/Salamnder kerosene heater to take the chill off and then a double reflector Mr. Heat propane heater after about 5-10 minutes of running the kero heater.
Kero here is $35. per five gallons and propane $2. per.

Works not too bad, but only makes a 'pool' of warmth in the area you're working.
The garage does come up a few degrees on the other side of where the propane heater is, but it don't help a lot.

I don't mind wearing insulated clothes, but working in a 30-40* garage ain't a whole lot of fun.


As a side note, I just replaced the electric water heater in the house and really wish I had swapped to natural gas.
Trouble is, the gas meter is on one end of the house and the water heater on the other.
Over 200' of pipe to go round the house or maybe a 100' of pipe to go the other way, but there's 30' of cement to go under.

Anyhoo, looks like a touch over 50' would get me a gas line into the garage and a small ceiling hung heater would be great.

I could probably get er all done by summer....

Originally Posted by C9x

Mr. Bob, what brand, place to get it etc.?

Brother Jay, mine is a Hot Dawg unit made (or at least marketed) by Modine. Below is a picture of it installed, if you want to see how that relates to the rest of the garage on page 6 of my gallery there's another pic. Dimensionally it's pretty friendly, nominal 27" wide, 22 deep (16 for the cabinet, another 6 for the fan), 12 high. When we did our major remodel I had the HVAC guy supply and install so that won't help you there. I took a quick look on ebay and there are a variety of outputs listed, plus one 45k unit from a guy in MA that's new and almost half price (opening bid), though shipping cost to you would need to be factored too. A databose search might reveal others. Mine vents through the side wall and works fine. If your slab home is anything like mine in Vegas you may be able to get a shorter gas run from an existing line in the rafters, though if they went minimal on pipe size that wouldn't work.

Mine sez Reznor on it, same configuration but a size or two larger. Does an excellent job warming my 3 car garage to T-shirt working temp when it's zero outside!!!!! Put mine in about 10 years ago or so, bought it right from the gas company, think it was like $1,000.00 installed.....

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Mine sez Reznor on it, same configuration but a size or two larger. Does an excellent job warming my 3 car garage to T-shirt working temp when it's zero outside!!!!! Put mine in about 10 years ago or so, bought it right from the gas company, think it was like $1,000.00 installed.....

Yeah Dave, the Reznor is the commercial/industrial/whatever terminology one likes, standard. Had a couple big ones in the business back when. I wanted this one for the lower profile so it would clear the cabinet and not intrude too much on overhead space in the work area. Could have gone into a corner I suppose, but I feel I get better distribution of the heated air this way.

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Yeah Dave, the Reznor is the commercial/industrial/whatever terminology one likes, standard. Had a couple big ones in the business back when. I wanted this one for the lower profile so it would clear the cabinet and not intrude too much on overhead space in the work area. Could have gone into a corner I suppose, but I feel I get better distribution of the heated air this way.

Yup, mine hangs right up in the corner. I use one small oscillating fan in the other corner of the same wall. Temp remains very constant throughout the whole garage... Only banged my head on it a couple times, then built a bench and some storage underneath it!!!!!!

Hmmm...
It's 63 degrees here and I'm planning on adding a window airconditioner in there.

Damn, with all of these huge heaters I feel like I have an inferior system. I try to stay out of the garage between January and March 1, but when I need to be in there, I use a portable propane heater. Uses one of two small tanks or can be hooked to a 20 lb or 100 lb tank. Provides a comfortable temperature of about 50 degrees. Even though I am getting older and like to be warm, too warm ain't good. I had thought of putting in one of the 30k wall units, but figure in a couple of years I want to start using natural heat that's free in Florida.

I used a little heater about the size of a trash can, that ran on propane, for a couple years. I was able to get up to 80 degrees if I left it on high for several hours. This year I installed a little wood burning, pot-bellied stove. It's quieter, cheaper [propane went up this year], and gets up in the high 60's.

I can live with that.

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Brother Jay, mine is a Hot Dawg unit made (or at least marketed) by Modine. Below is a picture of it installed, if you want to see how that relates to the rest of the garage on page 6 of my gallery there's another pic. Dimensionally it's pretty friendly, nominal 27" wide, 22 deep (16 for the cabinet, another 6 for the fan), 12 high. When we did our major remodel I had the HVAC guy supply and install so that won't help you there. I took a quick look on ebay and there are a variety of outputs listed, plus one 45k unit from a guy in MA that's new and almost half price (opening bid), though shipping cost to you would need to be factored too. A databose search might reveal others. Mine vents through the side wall and works fine. If your slab home is anything like mine in Vegas you may be able to get a shorter gas run from an existing line in the rafters, though if they went minimal on pipe size that wouldn't work.

we had them hot dawg heaters at a dealership detail shop i worked at they work good and the maintnence is easy to just pull out the ignitor and clean it with sandpaper

i want to build a 40'W x 60'L x (20'H at peak) garage with a heated slab and 2 hot dawg heaters in the corners across from each other. have the heat around 66-70 i like to work in a t-shirt and be warm have it at 66 if your working hard or at 70 if your hardly working LOL I would want my garage an actual shop with plumbing and a upstairs loft to pretty much live in LOL

Originally Posted by speedy55779

i want to build a 40'W x 60'L x (20'H at peak) garage with a heated slab and 2 hot dawg heaters in the corners across from each other. have the heat around 66-70 i like to work in a t-shirt and be warm have it at 66 if your working hard or at 70 if your hardly working LOL I would want my garage an actual shop with plumbing and a upstairs loft to pretty much live in LOL

If you are going to build from the ground up, and got some extra $$$, The only way to go is radiant floor heat in the concrete. Add some glycol (anti freeze) to it and set the temp of the return water to about 105 degrees F. and run the pump on the hot water boiler doing heating continuously and knock the burner off when the return water reaches its set point. Most heatings vendors will spec out your plans, for material needed. If not contact me.

I'd love to have heat out in the garage, but at almost $4 a gallon, I'm having all the fun I can stand trying to keep my house warm. Hank

I have some fiberglass supplies and acetone for cleanup along with other flammables in my 24'x12' frame garage and having been a chemist I have seen a fair number of lab fires over the years so I avoid any open-flame heaters. I tried using two of the enclosed oil electric heaters on wheels moving them close to the place where I was working. Last year I got a very nasty head cold working down low under the car on a cold dusty floor but so far this year I am doing pretty good working inside my heated attic (computer project). Even with two of these small standup units it takes at least two hours for them to warm up and then it is not much help. The first hint to hang up the wrenches is when my favorite trick of touch up with black rattle can paint fails and produces a wrinkled mess. Rattle can paint just makes a mess below about 55 degrees F so I just gave up for a few months and moved one of the heaters to my attic electronics lab for my computer project. With insulation one of these small heaters is fine and can go up to 80 degrees easily in a 9'x12' room so I guess this means that if I put some R19 in the walls of the garage two of those small heaters might work for next winter but the hard part would be to insulate the interior of the peaked roof. Thanks for the suggestion of running the engine for heat! If I can just get the roadster running by next Fall I will use that for heat next Winter rather than mess around with insulating the garage. Bob, you seem to do everything well, thanks for the pictures!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Re: Denny's heat exchanger

Denny's 55 gallon drum heat exchanger OVER a drum type kerosene heater, like the attached picture, (with allowances to draw enough O2 to burn) will eliminate fumes and still exchange heat effectively. Cut slots in the bottom of the drum and vent the fumes outside.

We used a similar setup in a hunting camp and it worked well.