I've recently moved into a house with a 24'x28' attached garage and I'm wondering what would be good to heat it during the winter. Not 24/7 just something that would take the chill off when I'm working in there. I thought about a kerosene heater but I'm not sure if they put out any type of soot or not.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
bone

 

Awesome question. I'm in the exact same situation. I was thinking about a propane heater myself. That way I can monitor how much I'm spending to heat it.

 

I have one of these.

They're awesome and come in different sizes. Check Home Depot, Lowes and Sears. They're all within a few bucks of each other.

 

Heater for the garage? Never!!!!! Unless I lived in Alaska (Or Buffalo- same thing....)

The only heat my garage sees in winter is the hot exhaust from the duals on my SuperCrew.

VrOooom!

 

Our house has a boiler and hot water, radiant baseboard heating. The heater in the garage runs off the boiler and has a fan to distribute the heat. But unless it is really cold we don't run it because the boiler is in the garage and the heat it puts off when it's running heats the garage fairly well!!

 

I have a kerosene heater that I bought last year and it works great. I have seen no evidence of soot but that is not to say if you used it for hours and hours you wouldn’t get a little. The longest I used it for was 4 hours when polishing my truck and seen no evidence of any soot.

This was in temperatures of around 20 – 30 degrees. It took all but 10 minutes if that to take the chill out of the garage and warm it up. They put out a lot of heat…

 

One of my clients in Bowling Green, KY makes those for Home Depot and Lowes....

I was in one of their warehouses over the summer and all I can say is DAMN!!! That's a BUNCH of heaters!

RP

 

In my shop 24' x 48' 14' ceilings i have a old oil furnace i bought for $50.00 150,000 Btu its a downflow build it up on a platform 2' plus off the shop floor works great has a thermistat

only problems i have is my shop door is 18' wide 12' high with electric opener and when you have heat in the shop during the day it melts the snow outside just enough that the damn door freezes to the floor and with the opener it breaks the chain drive
broke it 5 times last year thinking of putting plywood between shop floor and the overhead door seal anyone think that would help ?

 

Down here it rarely gets below 30. But when it does and I know I have to do something in the garage I use an oil-filled 1500 Watt radiant heater. I just turn it on about an hour before I go out. It brings the temp of the garage up to about 40 or so, depending on the temp. I personally don't like the Kerosene heaters. The heat from kerosene affects my sinuses like cigarette smoke does.

 

Just start the truck, turn on the heater and let it run for 15 or 20 min.

Between the exhaust and the heater it warms it up ok.

Think I need to change waxes though, I always get a head ache and sick feeling when warm up the garage and wax the truck.

Sled...

 

If you use a propane heater then use a carbon monoxide detecter. Or you can be like sleddogg and get ill.

 

Heat in the garage? Totally gay dude!

Real men don't do that but my smokes prolly add a bit of warmth

 

one of my friends has a Dryer in his garage, it doesn't do a bad job at getting the chill off.


In the barn though, we have a large Kerisine (sp?) heater to take the chill off, then a Reznor heater to keep it warm. That combo seems to be quick and effective. Also, the reznor heater can be turned to where the fans only turn on, getting some heat to move during the hot months of summer.

 

You said "attached garage", right? I've had two homes with attached garages.
#1 was newer and had forced air gas heat. I plumbed a heating duct to the garage and opened it when ever I wanted some heat.
#2 was a 100 year old home with single pipe steam heat, and I didn't want to tap into the system. I bought a used 100,000 BTU hanging gas heater that used to be in a warehouse for $50.00. That thing would make the garage nice and toastie.

MR

 

I had one of the ventless natural gass heaters in my first. Worked great, but the wall above it constantly needed washing to take the yellow stain off it. The specific brand was Warm-Glo I do believe.

I am now using a ceiling mounted 220V heater with a thermostat on the wall. Heats nice, and no more yellow walls.

I really wanted one of the natural gas in wall heaters, that is a sealed combusion chamber, and has the intake / Xhst via one fo the mushroom domes on the outside. These are similar in function to the higher efficency furnaces. I could not get the heater, gas and electric all in the same place to do it, without major tear apart, so I passed on that.

If you have an outside wall that you can get one of these in, it would be the best bet.

Also I have 2 of the warehouse ceiling fans installed over each bay, to stir up the heat. I run the furnace for about 15 min, and then turn on the fans, and push the heat down from the ceiling. Works great.

Good luck which ever method you choose. Next place I am going to cut up the garage floor and install hot water lines in the floor. No question the best way you can go, but by far the most costly.