Is there a good way to heat an insulated two car attached garage with 120v electric? Or is there a good way to heat a garage without dealing with the fumes from a kerosene or propane heater?
Is there a good way to heat an insulated two car attached garage with 120v electric? Or is there a good way to heat a garage without dealing with the fumes from a kerosene or propane heater?
If it makes a difference the garage only has two walls that would be considered outside walls. The other two walls and ceiling have rooms on the other sides. Also the garage door is insulated and seals very well on all sides.
I believe they make window ac units that can also heat....however you'd have to buy a fairly beefy one to generate enough heating power for the garage and it won't be cheap.
My 2-car is about 400sq ft and the appropriate sized ac unit was barely enough to get it cooled. I'm sure heat would be more
Blunder said:If it makes a difference the garage only has two walls that would be considered outside walls. The other two walls and ceiling have rooms on the other sides. Also the garage door is insulated and seals very well on all sides.
I have a similar situation, really only like 1.5 exposed walls but the doors don't seal very well. I leave the door into the basement open to let the heat/ a/c in and the garage rarely gets below about 50 in the coldest parts of winter, most of the year it's within ten degrees or so of the rest of the house. That's probably technically a fire hazard or something but hey it works.
How warm do you want it? Personally, I would just try one with a strong fan to circulate the air as much as possible. Give it time, and you should be reasonably comfortable.
AND use halogen lights- they really help you keep warm. Put them behind you to light whatever you have, and it's a nice radiant heat on you.
In reply to alfadriver :
Warm enough to wash cars in an Ohio winter. With the kerosene heater it was obviously no problem to get it up in the 70s.
The lighting in the garage is already led so no additional heat from halogens.
I have Mr. Buddy Propane heater that is intended to be safe for interior use and doesn't smell. My garage is tall, detached, and uninsulated, and it will probably still get me up to the 40s on a day in the 20s.
Blunder said:In reply to alfadriver :
Warm enough to wash cars in an Ohio winter. With the kerosene heater it was obviously no problem to get it up in the 70s.
The lighting in the garage is already led so no additional heat from halogens.
How cold does it get now? I'd think it would have no problem staying above 40 without any extra heat, unless you're leaving the doors open for long periods of time or something.
The most you'll get out of a electric heater that plugs into a standard outlet is 1500 watts, which will struggle to make much difference in a two car garage. It will also max out a typical 15 amp circuit. If you have more than one circuit out there you could plug in a second heater which will help but it's still going to be minimal. If you have the option of a 240vac circuit, larger heaters are available of course.
I have a bigger totally uninsulated garage, propane has been the only successful heat medium for decades. A torpedo with a fan to heat the air space works but is noisy. A radiant does a decent job of maintaining the temp. If I am sitting on the floor for a while I found a neat way to heat the cement. A radiant with an extension hose bolted to an old axle stand can be focused down. After an hour of that the floor is comfy to sit on for quite a while. Propane doesn't smell like kero but it does create moisture but in my garage that is not a problem.
Long story short:
No, there is no good way to heat a garage with 120VAC
93gsxturbo said:Long story short:
No, there is no good way to heat a garage with 120VAC
Pretty much. When I used a 120V heater in my garage in Ohio, I'd switch it on an hour or so before I went out to work. It did manage to get the temps up by 15-20 degrees above ambient, so I could still work in not-as-heavy clothing as I would have otherwise.
Use lights that put off a lot of heat. You can really warm up a space and light it up using a few well placed halogen lights. I pulled a transmission in VolvoClearingHouse's driveway one winter night with a lightbulb to keep warm and it kept the area under the car warmer than ambient.
In reply to 93gsxturbo :
Agreed, you need 240V and enough amperage (probably at least 30A) to get any real results.
That said, if you really want to get some heat in there and natural gas isn't available then why not go ahead and run a good 30A 240V circuit out there - you can use it for a welder too for example. Also, if you have a nearby laundry room with a circuit for a dryer - you can use it. I have a gas dryer, so I removed the 240V receptacle from there and used that breaker in the box to supply a circuit for my shop.
I heated my (insulated, insulated door, attached) 2.5 car garage with one of those 5000 BTU electric milkhouse heaters at my old house. Would get it to a comfy 55-60 degrees in about an hour. 240V.
They *do* work, but the makeup sucks so you need to leave them run all the time and they drink the power like its their job. But fast and easy install, no gas, no exhaust.
When I moved I put it in my small (insulated, uninsulated door, attached) 1.5 car garage and its enough to bring it up 40-50 degrees above ambient but if you are trying to warm a 0 degree car in there it takes all damn day.
I put a Modine 60k BTU Hot Dog in my 24x30, insulated, high ceiling detached garage and its the cat's pajamas. Its on a Nest thermostat so I can crank it up when I am at work or snoozing in bed, and in an hour its shorts and T shirt weather in there.
Yes. Insulate it as well as your house and install a minisplit.
In reply to classicJackets (FS) :
I'm interested in that - might check it out.
Also I have a little portable heater that warms you up when it's 4" from you - it's a pain in the butt to use. It'll melt an extension cord.....
it's a little noisy, but it warms up my uninsulated 2-car garage pretty quickly, and i shut it off til i get cold again. it doesn't stink.
Minisplit.
/thread
Air in the summer, heat in the winter, and is easy to install. Downisde is you need more than 120v. Its more expensive than a space heater, but you wont regret it if you plan to spend time out there. Deals can be found pretty frequently - try the scratch and dent section of your local appliance store not named Lowes/Home Depot/Menards. I got a unit with a minor scuff/dent on the housing for the outdoor condenser for about 35% off - no damage to function of the unit itself, just cosmetic. Still wasnt on the same cash level as a window unit or convection heater, but handles both heat and air with ease and will get my oversize 2 car up/down to temp in about 15 minutes.
Minisplits are awesome in some environments and not great in others.
My calcs put me at needing 40k BTU to heat my garage, based on footprint, ceiling height, exposure, and climate. A 40K BTU mini split costs real money and most were not single-zone when they got big. The good ones like LGRed only run down to 5°F at 100% efficiency and only run at all to -13°F. I also value recovery time, since I want to be able to bring in vehicles and work on them, and hold temp at 45 Degrees then crank it to 70 when I want to go work on something.
A 42k LG Minisplit is over $6k. The 60K BTU Modine Hot Dog I installed was around $1100 all-in. To me, not going mini-split was an easy decision.
If you want to stick to electric heat, the 120v supply is going to hold you to 5100 BTU unless you go with a heat pump. A heat pump will get you to 9000 BTU. At those ratings, you aren't going to have much power left over to do anything else.
From there you are going to be burning fossil fuels or running wire.
My dad used a gas heater that was converted from propane to use a gas line from the house. It was tropical level heat even in negative degree weather. 120 will not be enough for a heater unless you live in Las Vegas or something.
If you have the 240V 30A circuit run, you could go even simpler and just install a big window A/C with a heat strip.....I live in KC and it gets plenty cold here in the winters, and damn hot and humid in summer so other than doing a Minisplit, that was the easy button and it works well. On really cold days when it's down in the 30's in the shop I have to have it run about an hour before it's comfy, but that gets it into the 60's, which is a good working temp for me.
Even with a lot of usage, it only seems to add about $20/month to the electric bill......which I don't mind in winter as we're not using much electricity then.
Remember, you're not just warming up the air, but everything else inside the shop, all those metal tools and parts, and those giant heat/cold sinks - the cars!
Easiest/most cost effective is the propane heater, but I've never been around one of those that didn't stink, and in the process of combustion it uses oxygen and makes CO2, so you need a source of fresh makeup air if you're going to run it very long.
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