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I have a ~4 car garage space with a 9 foot ceiling and an attic of the same square footage above. There is a regular house furnace in there that has done a wonderful job of heating it over the years. Well, the furnace is no longer working reliably and, in the winter, could easily make our gas bill double by keeping the garage simply at a low 40 degrees around the clock. I am currently searching for a new, much more cost efficient way of heating the garage. The garage has 220V and gas, so I have both of those options available to me. What type of heating system should I be considering to replace what I've got?
__________________ 99.5 Audi A4 Avant 2.8L quattro 5-speed 03 Honda Odyssey EX-L
I personally work out in a large OLD barn very poor insulation...I have a wood burning stove piped through the roof but usually light two kerosene heaters too...gets to be about 45 degrees when its about 5 degrees outside. It is workable.
The most cost-effective way to heat with gas is - "properly sized and installed" infrared heaters. Roberts-Gordon makes a unit that is UL listed for residential use, but you have to look at "distance to combustibles" on all sides of these units. These distances to combustibles is not as great as you might think, thus rated for residential use. The other way is to use a standard gas fired unit heater. Many manufacturers make them approved for residential use. Sterling makes a model called a TF/RF that is a low profile design and comes with inputs ranging from 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90k btu. These look like your typical unit heater with propeller fan. Keep in mind that you will have to vent the flue gases for both options to the outside.
The advantage to infrared (forgive me if you already know this) is that you use the concrete floor as a heat sink. The heater heats the floor up slowly over time. The floor re-radiates this heat back up to approximately 6 feet above the floor (above the height of the average person) thus keeping you comfortable. You can typically run your thermostat an average of 10 - 15 degrees less than the setpoint of unit heaters with the same comfort level. This saves gas consumption over the unit heater option.
Another advantage to the infrared is that each time the door opens and closes, it does not take long to re-heat the "new cold" air (recovery time). Unit heaters have to heat the cold air each time this happens. The recovery time is longer than infrared and consumes MUCH more gas during this time.
By the way, both of the above are also available in electric type units (which may actually prove less expensive to operate these days). A good manufacturer of the electric type is Qmark. Sorry for the long post, just my .02. Good luck.
What is the square footage of you garage? And what are the walls constructed of? Insulated?
me and my buddy work in and old barn type garage w/poor insulation. we run a 115,000 btu reddy heater, start to sweat and end up turning down the thermostat once the place heats up. we have a wood stove in there which we havent used all winter due to rotted pipes. just replaced the pipes though and cant wait to have something to work on to see how she heats....better than breathing(tasting) burnt kerosene. the place is big enough for one car and plenty of space to work around it also an upstairs area. would have more room to work if not for the old i beams in the way.
The most cost-effective way to heat with gas is - "properly sized and installed" infrared heaters. Roberts-Gordon makes a unit that is UL listed for residential use, but you have to look at "distance to combustibles" on all sides of these units. These distances to combustibles is not as great as you might think, thus rated for residential use. The other way is to use a standard gas fired unit heater. Many manufacturers make them approved for residential use. Sterling makes a model called a TF/RF that is a low profile design and comes with inputs ranging from 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90k btu. These look like your typical unit heater with propeller fan. Keep in mind that you will have to vent the flue gases for both options to the outside.
The advantage to infrared (forgive me if you already know this) is that you use the concrete floor as a heat sink.
Ben,
This is what our facility uses. My guys love them. It's like a camp fire when you think about it. It heats surface area, not the air. So after like 10 minutes in the morning, our tools and floor are warm. The only down side is that when you are working under them, it's sort of easy to start sweating.
__________________
jason
with more se-r's, g20's, and 240's with custom motors than what's allowed to be posted here JGY.cc
What is the square footage of you garage? And what are the walls constructed of? Insulated?
It's something like 42'x25'. I haven't had the chance to remeasure to give you an accurate number. This garage is really ghetto - the base 8 inches or so are are cinder blocks sitting on a concrete slab. The rest are just normal studs sandwiched by wood sheets with siding on the outside. I know the inside are cheap ~1/2" wood panels. My neighbor has told me on several occasions that the previous owner, in an attempt to superinsulate the structure, placed "6 inches of insulation in those 3 inch thick walls." I'm not sure if the lower ceiling/upper floor is insulated or not.
I need to look up these infrared heaters. I've never heard of such a thing nor quite understand how they would work. I'm imagining initially that the concrete would get so warm that it would be hot to the touch, but that obviously must not be the case. I will read up...
Thanks so much for the detailed replies! I never expected such awesome responses!
at my dads shop he rigged up some kind of heater that runs off of used motor oil he has a 55 gallon drum that has a valve on the bottom that regulates the flow and it heats the shop up pretty well but it is well insulated too.....i'm not sure of the measurements of the shop but we have had up too 6 cars in there at once
-Dave
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I will crunch some quick numbers to see how much heat I would recommend (total heat in mbh). No, the concrete does not get hot to the touch, it will just feel warm. Another positive side effect of this is that your feet stay much warmer in cool weather.
Oh yeah, I didn't ask you, but what was the height (ceiling height), again?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
It's something like 42'x25'. I haven't had the chance to remeasure to give you an accurate number. This garage is really ghetto - the base 8 inches or so are are cinder blocks sitting on a concrete slab. The rest are just normal studs sandwiched by wood sheets with siding on the outside. I know the inside are cheap ~1/2" wood panels. My neighbor has told me on several occasions that the previous owner, in an attempt to superinsulate the structure, placed "6 inches of insulation in those 3 inch thick walls." I'm not sure if the lower ceiling/upper floor is insulated or not.
Thanks so much for the detailed replies! I never expected such awesome responses!
M5 is also correct, the used motor oil heaters work well. I am not familiar with the residential ones, but the commercial heaters of this type are fairly pricey.
Ill second the infrared heaters, ive been looking into them as a replacement for my updraft propane furnaces here in the shop (currently in the winter we pay about $300/month to heat my entire shop. Defiantely talk with an authorized distributor as they are tuned for altitude (I sit at 6400' elevation). They are definately effecient and if you have a concrete slab floor it will retain a lot of the heat
The real big disadvantage is the buy in cost. I priced a unit 30'/40' long to heat a 25'x 50' x 12' celings (x3 areas) and average prices are $1200-$1500 a piece new, not including installation. You can find them on ebay from time to time like this one.
OK, here's what I come up with.....
What is going to cause you the most problem with IR heat is your low (relatively) ceiling height. As I mentioned the DTC - distance to combustibles is your main concern. Roberts-Gordon, www.rg-inc.com, makes a heater called the Caribe that is UL listed for residential use (reduced DTC over most IR heaters). There are many other types of heaters available also. The website has all the info on this and other heaters.
Your garage is approximately 1000 sq ft. I would recommend a heater with 40 to 50k btu. This equates to 40 to 50 btu / sq ft (more than adequate). The problem is "where and how to mount". It would be easy to assume to just mount it in the middle of the garage and face downward. The DTC for this unit (which varies with different types of units and heat outputs) is 48" below (you can check all of the values on the website). This would only give you about 4' in height beneath the heater. In addition, the coverage area is reduced from it's potential.
I would recommend mounting the heater on one of the short sides of the building and have it "tilted" slightly toward the center of the garage. You may have some cool spots but your overall coverage is much improved over the center mounting facing directly down.
In terms of equipment cost - one of the 50k btu units with t-stat (no hanging material, flue vent, freight or installation) is about $750-$900 depending on source. BTW the price for the 40k and 50k btu unit is the same in this particular unit. Hope all this has helped.
installing heating systems is apart of my trade and my personal fave style of heating are heat pumps with radiant heating. the cost of seting this system up is expencive but you save in the long turm since your not consuming fuel to heat only a bit of electricity to operate the compressor motor. depending on what the weather is like there, you might not start recouping the cost of the system for about 5 years, so if you dont plan of living at your curent place for long time its not cost eficent.
Other than that if short term is the thing electirc base board heaters, they are dirt cheep. grate for keeping the cold out of shops i just leave mine set at 10*c keeps the moisture out and every thing dry with minamal heating.
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The most cost-effective way to heat with gas is - "properly sized and installed" infrared heaters. Roberts-Gordon makes a unit that is UL listed for residential use, but you have to look at "distance to combustibles" on all sides of these units. These distances to combustibles is not as great as you might think, thus rated for residential use. The other way is to use a standard gas fired unit heater. Many manufacturers make them approved for residential use. Sterling makes a model called a TF/RF that is a low profile design and comes with inputs ranging from 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90k btu. These look like your typical unit heater with propeller fan. Keep in mind that you will have to vent the flue gases for both options to the outside.
The advantage to infrared (forgive me if you already know this) is that you use the concrete floor as a heat sink. The heater heats the floor up slowly over time. The floor re-radiates this heat back up to approximately 6 feet above the floor (above the height of the average person) thus keeping you comfortable. You can typically run your thermostat an average of 10 - 15 degrees less than the setpoint of unit heaters with the same comfort level. This saves gas consumption over the unit heater option.
Another advantage to the infrared is that each time the door opens and closes, it does not take long to re-heat the "new cold" air (recovery time). Unit heaters have to heat the cold air each time this happens. The recovery time is longer than infrared and consumes MUCH more gas during this time.
By the way, both of the above are also available in electric type units (which may actually prove less expensive to operate these days). A good manufacturer of the electric type is Qmark. Sorry for the long post, just my .02. Good luck.
What is the square footage of you garage? And what are the walls constructed of? Insulated?
WOW sounds like a lot of money we are talking here......how about a couple of space heaters from the local hardware store???
This is what our facility uses. My guys love them. It's like a camp fire when you think about it. It heats surface area, not the air. So after like 10 minutes in the morning, our tools and floor are warm. The only down side is that when you are working under them, it's sort of easy to start sweating.
IIRC, the Koreans had a method similar to this. They had a floor made out of a certain material and when heated, it would stay heated for a good month or so. Of course we waffled that building with that floor in the Korean War...oops. Heating the floor would be probably the most efficient since heat rises in the first place so not only would the floor be nice and toasty but hot air rising would heat the room nicely.
finally!!! 
