Well, winter has come and my shop temp hovers around 0 (that’s Celsius) because it happens to be located in a garage which is not very well insulated. I have two heaters as of the moment, one is a radiant heater that lee valley sells, and it does little to warm up the shop. I also have a portable kerosene heater. I previously stayed out of the shop for the most part in the winter, but now I have so many things that need to be worked on that I’d like to have a warm shop to work in. even with both of my heaters running full blast, I can’t get the shop much over 10*, and all the cold iron in there makes work very difficult.
what I’d like to do is buy a nice heater for my shop, however, I will not be in this shop for much longer as I will be off to college next year, so a permanent heater is not practical. I also don’t have much time to work in the shop for long periods, so I need a heater that can warm the shop up quickly. also, because I won’t be in the shop much longer I don’t want to bother re-insulating it. with this said, can any of you recommend an ideal heater?
thanks in advance
andrew
PS: the shop is a 2 car garage
Replies
Given the limitations you mentioned the only solution that comes to my mind is a kerosene "Salamander"; I believe some of them go by a brand name such as Reddy-heater, Essentially is a cylinder that sits on top of a kerosene tank. You plug it and within 15-20 minutes a room goes from 0 Celsius to 20 degrees. The drabacks are the noise and the smell of Kerosene. They cost between 150 to 250 Us Dollars.
See if you can try one before you buy.
Best wishes for your college career.
John Cabot
Edited 12/9/2002 11:51:25 PM ET by JOHNCABOT
I received a christmas present from my father a few years back.. its a ceiling mounted electric Dayton heater... I believe this is the unit I have http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/productdetail.jsp?xi=xi&ItemId=1611766853
it works great... you will need to buy an additional thermostat(bout $70.00).... its kinda expensive but it does exactly what you are talking about... my last garage was bare stud walls(now THATS bad insulation) and I could smoke(via the garage getting too hot to stay in) myself out of the garage if I wanted to within 20 minutes.... hows that for fast heating.. hehe
I generally buy homes, redo them, and sell them at the 2 year mark(to beat capital gains).. this current heater has been with me at 2 homes so far... its not a HUGE deal to move with you from home to home.... I originally hired an electrician to wire it up the first time for me.. but since then I have moved it myself...
thats what I recommend.. its definitely a nice unit... I currently keep my garage at about 60 degrees during the winter(indiana), and have yet to hear my wife complain(electric bill wise)... It runs 240 so its pretty economical to run... if I get cold I kick it up to about 65 to 70... but it will really heat the garage up quick....
It does seem expensive. While your wife doesn't complain about the
monthly electric bill, do you know what approximately it's costing you?
I'm in the market for a heater too, but haven't considered an electric
one. But I suppose I should keep my options open.
Let me know if you know the montly cost.
Matt
According to the Grainger page, it draws 3.0 kW at 240V, so multiply 3.0 x .xx/kW-hr electric rate for an hourly run cost. I was paying about $0.13/kW-hr in NJ, so a similar heater I had there cost me about $0.39 per hour to use.
If you want to try a salamander, rent one for the shortest time you can, just as a test. Run it first thing in the morning, then use electric heaters to maintain the temp. Salamanders do smell the place up while they're running, but even a small one will belch a huge amount of heat into a closed space in a small amount of time. I think I've seen small ones for sale in the big box stores. Be seeing you...
another thing to consider is that you can turn the heater off if you arent going to be in the room/garage... I used to come home from work and turn on the garage heater.. then go change into my grubbies, and visit with the wiff.. and by the time I was done with all that the garage was nice and cozy...
I have a 4000 sq ft house currently, its all electric.. I currently spend around $150.00 during the winter months on electricity... being that I have only been in this home for 1 year so far, i dont have a good cost comparison, and being that I have always had the heater in the garage I REALLY dont have a good cost comparison.. hehe plus I hate messing with the kerosene all the time... been there done that..
I grew up in a family owned True Value Hardware store.. I used to DREAD people coming in with kerosene cans for those GD kerosene heaters.. I even shudder now when I remember pushing the cart to the back of the store to fill up 1-4 five gallon cans of kerosene.....having to wash my hands multiple bazillion times a day to try and get rid of the kerosene smell...... /shudder.....
I know kerosene heaters work good, and have used them in the past for supplemental heating.. but MAN does it get old filling up tanks and stopping to get fuel... I guess I am just lazy like that...
That's why I suggested using one to rapidly warm the chill, then shutting it off (to save fuel). The exhaust smell isn't that bad, and it goes away quickly once it's shut off, but given my druthers I'd druther use natural gas or propane, anyway. Maybe propane heaters would be cost effective. I've never looked into it, but I think I've seen such heaters at big box stores also. Perhaps tanks larger than BBQ types can be rented, like welding tanks. But, if it's only for one winter, a few more electric heaters may be the cheapest way to go, assuming he has enough electric capacity. I used to warm up a 2.5 car garage in no time using a 3kW wall heater along with 2 oil-filled 120V freestanders, to the point that I'd shut off all but one oil-filled unit after about an hour. 55-60F was fine for working in a long-sleeve flannel shirt.
As an aside, my sister used a kerosene heater back in the days when they were the rage (20 years ago?). The thing wouldn't shut off for her, and she had to go to work, so she called the fire department to ask them what she was doing wrong. All she wanted was advice, but instead she got a truck or two, lights and sirens, full turn-out gear, clumping up the stairs with axes and extinquishers, four firefighters huddled around the thing also trying to turn it off... She never used it again. I don't care for kerosene myself, but in the drafty, leaky, uninsulated old industrial buildings where I work, salamanders are the only way to keep fingers working when doing detail stuff.Be seeing you...
If you go w/ a propane heater, which I much prefer to kerosene personally, you can sometimes pick up old propane tanks cheap at thrift stores. I got some for $2-3 ea. It is now illegal to fill the old style propane tanks, the ones w/ only an internal female thread. You can still exchange them for the new style tanks that have both the internal thread plus a larger external thread. I just exchanged 3 tanks at a local grocery store. Cost me $16 ea., and the new tanks were full. Costs $7-8 to fill a tank, and about $30 to buy a new, empty, tank in the store. Not sure if they'll keep taking the old tanks in exchange. I'm sure they just replace the valve. Oh, the new tanks have a triangular shaped valve handle on top. Any other shape, and it's an old style tank.
The propane torpedo style heaters work great. Don't smell as bad as kerosene. But, they're loud. With any combustion type heat, use a CO detector in your shop.
wow. yeah.. it has been 15-20 years since they were the rage... that makes me feel older than I needed to feel..... most of those kerosene heaters that we sold at the time(and they dont appear to have changed much in the years, looks wise) had safety shutoffs so if you banged it real hard it would shut itself off.... they worked pretty good if you put em in a room to keep the temperature up... some of the really nice cleaner ones kicked out less carbon dioxide/monoxide(whichever hehe) than a cigarette in 8 hours of burning... some had forced air to carry the heat out even more.... they were pretty nice units..
and by enlarge they werent really a fire hazard, not like the old OLD ones..... We used to sell em in our hardware store, and got to hear all the horror stories of people burning down their house with the old ones... but at that time the ones we were selling had automatic shutoffs if they tipped over, or were jarred very hard... most you could get was a burn mark.... although i do remember one woman coming in and being overly confident(stupid) and putting her hand on the top of the heater... I can tell you she lost the top layer of skin, and that heater had her hand imprint on it forever.. hehehe
oh well.. sorry for taking over the thread... I love my dayton heater...My new garage is very well insulated so I leave the heater on most all the time... my old house I turned it off when I wasnt going to be working out there...
I too bought a Dayton heater and love it! Mine's the 25,000 BTU/1 phase unit with the external thermostat. I'm keeping my shop (27x24) at 50 degrees during the day and 60-70 (depending on whether I'm finishing something or not) when I'm in the shop. I've only had it for about 2 months, but I figure that it cost me about 30 bucks to run each month. Granted, I live in Central Indiana (doesn't get below 20 degrees much), but it beat the alternative of spending $1000 to tie into my natural gas line."He who is not busy being born, is busy dying." Bob Dylan
Doesn't anyone use a wood heater with all the scraps you create in your mill room?
I would think that there is some argument for using the scrap so that there is no waste in this business of working with wood.
I use a radiant heater mounted on my ceiling-it doesn't do much except for my head when I get directly under it. I have two entry doors from the garage into my house, so in coldest days, I open the doors and let some of the house heat into the garage (shop).
I am happiest in warmer weather, I open the garage door, roll the tools out on the driveway and cut out in the fresh air. Have decided to build my shop next to a double carport so that I can expand my workspace out side the shop and still be under cover in the more temperate months of the year.
Good luck!
Ted
Better have a generous supply of wax on hand. Raising the temp from freezing to toasty that fast is gonna create major condensation problems...and that means rusty tools.
Andrew try to find Colman. They make great Camp kerosene & propane lanterns, & rediant Heaters. I have one of their 45,000 BTU propane heaters. It attaches to a 5 or 10 gal. propane bottle. You will have heat even in a drafty shop. Do not use it in a room with out ventelation. - Bohiemian
One caution, though, watch for condensation due to combustion products blowing around cold machines and tools, at least until they warm up. It's not much of a problem in the meatball steel fabrication shops I frequent, but I suppose it could cause a little grief with fine tooling.
Be seeing you...
Propane cigar style heater with CO detector. And insulate the building with fiberglass batts. If its that tough to heat this will pay for its self in no time. Keep the heat gain down in the summer too.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled