Best variety of space heater for garage this winter

^What the esteemed Mr. Curtis says, time 2^

I have a detached 26' x 32' stick-framed, uninsulated garage in Maryland near DC. Winter before last I had to build a race car Dec-Feb including laying up a full set of fiberglass body parts in molds. Heat was absolutely going to be necessary. The only thing that really works in an uninsulated garage is radiant. It just passes through air and everything in the room gets warmer.

I bought a 45k btu radiant tube heater made by Mr. Heater, now sold by their parent company Enerco. It was configured to use natural gas and in theory I could pull copper tube from the house through an unused buried 4" PVC drain to do it, but time being of the essence I got a 100# propane tank, the kit to convert the regulator and a water manometer to set it. I ducted the heater for fresh, outside air to the intake and exhaust to the adjacent wall of the garage and sealed every suct joint w/ silicone and aluminum tape so I wouldn't blow myself up.

On the long weekends I'd work in the garage I'd turn it on early Friday morning - 20s outside - by the time I went to the garage it would be in the 50s in the garage, and would settle at the thermostat set 64. At night I'd turn it down to 50 to keep the garage contents heat soaked. It would cycle on surprisingly infrequently.

I used about 3 tanks of propane over the winter; a 100# tank holds about 24 gallons and cost about $80 last time I filled it.

They can be installed on ceilings as low as 8', usually at the wall-ceiling juncture aimed in at about 45 degrees.

Not the cheapest solution, but a very good one.

Can someone here provide insight because i too have been garage heater shopping. As soon as people mention torpedo heater or propane heater everyone seems to say that all your tools will rust and anything metal will rust. Is this exaggerated or is there truth in this? Should i even be concerned ?

Anything not exhausted will produce moisture that will cause everything to sweat, water being a byproduct of combustion.

I tried propane, found I got a lot of moisture.

Tried a kerosene salamander, too loud but it seemed like a much drier heat than propane.

Finally settled on an old-school Kero-Heat wick type radiant kerosene heater. No fumes, or very little compared to the salamander or propane heater, way less moisture, lots of heat and no noise.

The wick type units were popular before ventless propane units became the standard thing.

Shawn

In reply to CarKid1989:

I use that torpedo style Mr. Heater Hero I posted on the first page. It's propane, and it has never caused excessive moisture on anything but the propane bottle itself. If I run it all day there'll be a puddle of water around the propane tank from the condensation, never had anything else with any significant amount of condensation on it.

In reply to bigdaddylee82:

With the Hero, how long do you run on a 20lb propane bottle? The thing looks pretty good, I'm just wondering if I can get a weekend out of a 20lb bottle.

pres589 wrote: In reply to bigdaddylee82: With the Hero, how long do you run on a 20lb propane bottle? The thing looks pretty good, I'm just wondering if I can get a weekend out of a 20lb bottle. Bump for answers :-)

I ended up getting a Mr. Heater Big Buddy and a hose to run off of a 20lb bottle. They don't include a wall wart to run the fan off of mains and not D-cell batteries, so I've ordered one from Amazon. I plan on using that to get the garage to a half-decent temp faster.

I also bought a little indoor quartz infrared radiant heater as well. I figure I can run them in tandem to get the garage closer to the mid-50's and then just run the small heater in the area I'm working in. This is to save the bottle and less worries about CO2 to worry about.

The next thing is what to do about the roll-up door and all of its leakiness. Wish I could get a heavy canvas tarp and tack it up inside the door to try and cut the drafts and get a bit of an air barrier going. But that kind of tarp is pretty spendy.

I have been using propane heaters for the last 20 years, torpedos and radiant.  The torps put out a lot of heat but are loud.  Radiant is great, my favorite right now.  Have a propane furnace from the old motorhome, someday I will set that up and try it.  Never had a problem with condensation, the garage has an open ceiling and a ridge vent.  One neat thing, took a radiant heater and put a hose extension on it, with an old jack stand I can get it a foot off the cement floor.  Half an hour like this and I have a warm place to sit when doing brakes.

I have a propane radiant that clamps to the top of a 20# bottle.  Never noticed condensation but I know h2o is a product of hc + o2.

I am using [comfortcanoe] fan-forced [canoe] mounted space heater for my [houseboat] for 3 years, it is performing well in 2019. it can heat 900 sq feet insulated [pontoons] very easily. it is working on [solar].

Heh. Amusing for this to get resurrected by a canoe- but ironically over the weekend I had the chance to see how a modest-sized torpedo heater worked in the tent that my sister-in-law's wedding was being held inside of (in Wisconsin in mid-30's weather) and I'm now a bit more interested in finding a cheap one to try out in the garage as the 'paint can' one just really didn't seem to do that much that I could tell. At the minimum, standing a few feet in front of the torpedo heater made things MUCH more comfortable...