Heat for the Shop
#31
Tony, I have what is known as a gas forced air unit heater, in my garage.  I installed this myself when I worked in the heating and air-conditioning business.  While I don't have my shop in the garage, I now am able to wash my car there in all but the coldest Chicago weather.  It is my opinion that nothing works as well as forced air heating for overall comfort.  Radiant heat will keep you warm but all of the inanimate objects (tools) will stay unheated, so your tools will be cold.  If you go into most commercial shop and warehouse spaces, they will have hanging unit heaters that are just bigger versions of mine.  Another great solution are gas heaters that heat long tubes that hang from the ceiling.  This is also radiant heat but much more even heat than the radiant heaters like in the picture above.  These are often used in car dealership service bays.  They are expensive to buy and install.  Units heaters like I have are much more modestly priced.

To install a heater, you need to install black iron gas piping (3/4"), tap into some 115V electric, and have a way of running some double wall vent duct (probably 4") through the garage roof above the heater, to a couple of feet above the shingles.  The heater can easily blower hot air throughout the garage with its internal fan.  You will have a regular thermostat on the wall to set the temp.

The only part I am unsure of is the cost of running it and your budget limitation.  I run mine only for a few hours each month, so I can't give any relatable experience with the cost of operation.  The other caution is that there is fan noise when it runs...it is a little furnace just like the one in your house...it just doesn't have ductwork to muffle the air noise.  I usually have a radio going to cover the air noise.  That's it.
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#32
An option may be to have your heater added to a zone on your home furnace system; it is worth calling your furnace repair person for advice and an estimate..  My Modine hot water heater was added that way.  It is important to size the heater to the shop.  I know someone that has a Modine heater that blasts them out of the shop when heating-improperly sized.
Paul from the beautiful mid-coast of Maine (USA)
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#33
Consider a unit that can heat and cool. A swealtering garage is no fun either. Your retired now so you will spend more time year round.

+1 on the insulation. Do the whole garage so you can move the car out and use the whole space.
Don
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#34
Use one of the new kerosene heaters for my shop, no smell and indoor approved, does a great job.....


-- mos maiorum
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#35
How effectively can a garage be insulated?  (isn't there some code requirement for there to be vents?)


Is there any issue with radiant heaters being used in garages?  (concerns about flammables?)

From what I've read, seems like a bad idea to put the garage on your main system HVAC -- you'll have an imbalance in the air intake/output.


Matt
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#36
Have a Modine Hot Dawg gas heater in a two car garage in Vermont. Walls and ceiling are insulated but the doors are 50-year-old wood and not at all tight. The heater does fine if it's over about 20 out. Has a harder time keeping up on colder days.
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#37
I have an electric radiant heater mounted to the ceiling of the garage, but there is no place to plug it in.  Minor oversight.

I was thinking about getting one of those poly curtains, for some reason I always want to do projects out there when it is bitterly cold.
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#38
+1 to DFJarvie’s note to consider a unit that can both heat and cool.  I responded to the OP a few weeks ago (a couple pages back) about the mini-split heat pump/inverter I added to the gas furnace in my shop when I decided to add AC.  I now run most of the year with the mini-split for both heating and cooling.  It will also dry the air in summer.

I kept the gas furnace - a wall-unit mounted between the studs - because the outside temperature minimum for my Samsung mini-split was specified to be 5F, and we still get temperatures colder than that here.  

I see Samsung has added a “Max Heat” series that goes down to -13F.
https://samsunghvac.com/products.php?app...esidential
That still might not do it for me.  Yesterday it was -20F here when I got up.  But I think it might be suitable for most of the rest of the country.  -5F would be suitable many places.

The seamless heating and cooling with the mini-split works really well.   It’s also nice to be able to remove summer humidity.  It is a slick product.  And I like having the shop separate from the home HVAC to keep dust in the shop and out of the house.  My wife likes that too.

A unit that both heats and cools is worth considering.
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#39
I have not read the responses in this thread yet but here is my .02....I started out with  a wood stove.....I loved the wood heat and fed it scraps and saw dust too. ( now I throw that stuff away)....I am too darn old to haul cordwood around anymore so this year I replaced the wood stove with a Hot Dawg heater. It was pricey (for me anyway) $650 for the heater and $750 to get it installed but it heats the free-standing one car garage shop I have pretty well.....but not as nice as the wood stove did. HTH
I cut it three times & it's still too short!
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#40
Up over the work bench hanging from the ceiling is an old 42" flat screen TV we had replaced with a larger one since the picture is not that great. It uses and puts off 600 watts of good heat when it is on. I benefit from playing old shows of Home Improvement and The Big Bang Theory as well as some good old shows I have on DVD. I rarely actually watch the shows but the sounds do keep me company and I do laugh out at the occasional funny parts.
The benefit of not having cold winters as compared to northern states is that after a while, the shop is nice and comfortable. The bad part is, it makes the shop too hot in the 100 degree summers, then I must run the a/c to compensate, that then gets makes it "uncostworthy".
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