Garage Heat!

[rogue_ryder]

After years of freezing my arse off in the garage, or sucking on propane fumes. I finally broke down and bought a Farenheat 5000w electric heater off of Amazon for $257 plus about another ~$50 in material (10/2 romex, appliance whip, boxes, 30a breaker).

For this project if you’ve got a little Electric experience it’s definitely an Easy DIY and there’s plenty of install articles and videos out there; the most important thing is sizing your breaker and wire gauge correctly. Electrical Safety is a big part of my day job and I’ve got some training so I felt comfortable doing this myself. An Electrician would probably cost more than the heater.

It probably took me about 6hrs to wire and install everything, but I was going slow and taking my time. If you don’t have to deal with crawl space attics and drywall enclosed walls it’s a much faster job. It took a couple hours but the temp went from 50* to 70*F and climbing with the unit on high. This is going to make working out there in January and February pleasant instead of miserable! I don’t know why I didn’t do this project years ago!

 

[Supercharged111]

After years of freezing my arse off in the garage, or sucking on propane fumes. I finally broke down and bought a Farenheat 5000w electric heater off of Amazon for $257 plus about another ~$50 in material (10/2 romex, appliance whip, boxes, 30a breaker).

For this project if you’ve got a little Electric experience it’s definitely an Easy DIY and there’s plenty of install articles and videos out there; the most important thing is sizing your breaker and wire gauge correctly. Electrical Safety is a big part of my day job and I’ve got some training so I felt comfortable doing this myself. An Electrician would probably cost more than the heater.

It probably took me about 6hrs to wire and install everything, but I was going slow and taking my time. If you don’t have to deal with crawl space attics and drywall enclosed walls it’s a much faster job. It took a couple hours but the temp went from 50* to 70*F and climbing with the unit on high. This is going to make working out there in January and February pleasant instead of miserable! I don’t know why I didn’t do this project years ago! View attachment 164358 View attachment 164359 View attachment 164360 View attachment 164362

I'd be curious as to the impact on your utility bill vs a similar gas heater. I've wanted to do this for years myself.

 

[Bitterman]

Nice job. I'm also curious on how this heater impacts your electric bill as well.
How large is your garage? I have a three bay garage and I have been running a salamander style heater for work when it is really cold in my garage. My only complaint about the salamander style heater is the floor space it takes up.

 

[ck80]

Looks/reminds me of the harbor freight heater we had on the ceiling of the workshop at one of our former houses. Worked pretty well (north Georgia climate) and electric bill didn't take much hit... I do miss it, and that workshop.

Enjoy, I'm a bit jealous as of right now about that setup

 

[rogue_ryder]

I'd be curious as to the impact on your utility bill vs a similar gas heater. I've wanted to do this for years myself.

I’m not planning on running it when I’m not working in the garage so I’m hoping it’s not terrible. FWIW I was reading some reviews where folks said $100/mo for maintaining a constant temp used daily in the winter (some people use them to heat basement rec rooms or other more used spaces). I’m hoping for maybe $100 extra for the winter. My garage is just an “oversized 2 car” which is maybe 20x30’ roughly. Anything bigger I’d probably go with the 10K watt.

Last year I would burn up a 1/2 of a bbq tank of propane in a weekend if I were working out there. We’re on delivered propane so the cost of a gas heater plus cost of propane I’m not sure how long the extra up front cost would take to recoup (the units are significantly more expensive plus the cost to plumb gas to it $$$$). Last winter I went through 4 tanks ($19 to fill) I’ll probably do more work now out there so we’ll see what the bill is at the end of the winter. It’s definitely going to be far safer not to mention the convenience of flipping a switch.

 

[jlat]

hello people: I'd like to get a heater like that for my basement as heat rises it would keep me warmer. But why electric? I looked into gas and to put one in my town it has all kinds of rules to do it so I did nothing. But electric would work. good luck..
IBBY

 

[08Malibu]

I run a similar setup in my 2 car garage. I got mine from northern last year and it’s great. I hung a box fan from the ceiling a few feet in front of it and it circulates the air to warm the whole garage. I also reworked the unit to work with a regular programmable thermostat. It didn’t seem to raise the electric bill too much last year.

 

[1KWIKSIX]

I opted to go the natural gas route (for operating cost reasons). Works great ! Keep my garage at 68def F throughout the winter . Costs only pennies a day to operate ( I don’t even see the difference in my gas bills). Of course having the garage well insulated and vapour tight helps.
Unit is a Modine Hot Dawg “40,000 btu” unit

 

[mikester]

I opted to go the natural gas route (for operating cost reasons). Works great ! Keep my garage at 68def F throughout the winter . Costs only pennies a day to operate ( I don’t even see the difference in my gas bills). Of course having the garage well insulated and vapour tight helps.
Unit is a Modine Hot Dawg “40,000 btu” unit

I have the same unit in my garage but propane instead of natural gas. Best thing I ever bought. I drop it down to 50 at night and crank it up to 65 when Im out there working. It uses a decent amount of propane in the real cold winters but Im fine with that. At least Im warm.

 

[81cutlass]

I have the same 5000w 220V heater from when I used to have a rental house. It worked OK but the garage wasn't insulated and kinda drafty so the ~15k BTU heater wasn't enough. I didn't notice that much added cost. I calculated like $1ish an hour to run.

Then I moved and had a reznor ceiling mount nat gas heater in the ~40k btu range with an insulated 24x24 garage and got spoiled haha.

Then I moved again and bought a house that was set up for a natural gas heater without the heater. I found a cheap one and installed it but 30k btu for a sheetrocked but un-insulated garage in MN isn't enough. It's good for 25 degrees of temp rise so if its 20F out and 30F in the garage it can get to 55F, but if its 0 outside and 15 in the garage it barely gets above 35F which is too cold to work.

You have got me thinking of installing my electric heater to piggyback my nat gas.

Glad it works out for you!

Is your garage insulated?