Sounds like you need more antifreeze. Keep a bottle of this near the car and you'll thaw right out:
Sounds like you need more antifreeze. Keep a bottle of this near the car and you'll thaw right out:
I'm in Mass
My garage typically never gets below 45 degrees (it's attached to the house) and driving the car in when I get home, popping the hood and plugging in the electric heater typically gets it up to a stable 55 degrees in half an hour, which is where I find it quite comfortable to work.
My garage is a detached one car with a work bench and mostly insulated, but it's drafty. It does retain heat pretty well though despite that.
Last winter, I was out there a lot, many times with both heaters going. My town has it's own electric company (Middleboro) and it's dirt cheap. My bills were far lower than expected when the heaters were going, and a lot lower than the summer with the A/C going. It doesn't get tropical in there, but it definitely takes the edge off.
Seeing as I just bought a set of molds to make bodywork for the Radical, I have to heat the garage now.
I'm thinking a closed-tube overhead radiant on propane. 75k btu will get my 840 square foot garage plenty warm, and radiant warms from the ground up, and heats stuff, not air - so curing composites will work when it's ball-numbingly cold out.
LS1 = Heater.
Done.
We've got a 100 year old cabin in the Shenandoah mountains that I've considered a similar arrangement, though for AC. It's got a stream that runs in front of it, and that stream is about 40* year round. So, water pump, radiator, box fan, viola - AC.
back when i had a barely insulated and not very well sealed 26X48 pole shed, my medium sized kerosene nipco (torpedo heater, whatever you want to call it..) would get the air temp up from -10 to about 55 in about a half hour... everything in the shed was still -10, but at least the air was warm and tools and what not warmed up really fast if you put them in front of the heater for a few minutes before using them. if the air temp was over about 20 degrees, i didn't bother with the heater at all and was just content to be out of the weather.
fumes weren't a problem due to the "not very well sealed" nature of the shed..
I'd recommend the propane IR heaters that mount to the top of a standard grill tank.
Nice and quiet and there isn't really any smell.
We have actually had these in the house after losing power in the winter.
T
I would suggest a waste oil rocket stove they are super easy to make and done properly you will get no fumes. I added one to my shop, a small fella. Used 6" steel tube to make the initial stove, insulated with homemade aircrete. Portland and dawn dishsoap blended in a 5 gal. Bucket make the aircrete. I Used foam to block holes on stove inserted stove into mix, let dry, knocked out the intake) Then regular 6" stovepipe for the rest of the exhaust put a 10" pipe around the 6" and cut a hole and mounted a little blower fan to circulate the hot air throughout. Occasionally I'll get a little back draft when starting but never once she's hot. Mine was originally made to burn wood (which is super cheap and I love the smell) then seen a video using a bean can and some scrap soft copper pipe +fittings to burn waste oil and thought why the hell not. I added some activated carbon felt (old fireblanket) to act as a wick and give the oil a better surface to burn from. There are several very detailed videos on YouTube for almost this exact build. Only part I'll take credit for is the blower and surround pipe to heat air better, also the aircrete. They also radiate a good amount of heat and sound sweeeet!
I'm wanting to add a water heater to the build on my previous comment. I have a radiator from a instant propane water heater. My biggest concern is. Would running it without water in it cause the radiator to overheat and melt down. I'm pretty sure there is a good bit of solder on the radiator don't want to ruin it.
I always get a chuckle out of the half baked suggestions like this or heating a garage with the stack of pepsi cans a-la passive solar. Do the math and it doesn't work. Oddly enough there is rarely if ever any followup posts from folks who did this and worked in a T-Shirt in Wisconsin in January in their garage heated by a 4'x4' wall of black soda cans and a computer fan.
Now what does work - insulation. I finally insulated my garage this summer, standard 2x4 walls with fiberglass bat, 12" of fiberglass in the roof, new double pane windows, 2" thick doors with a thermal break, new exterior door. My garage has been maintaining 45-47 degrees during the week and only gets the heat it gets from the slab and if a vehicle gets pulled in at night plus whatever passive solar it can catch through 2x 18x40 windows. For good measure I put in a 60k BTU gas heater and we were out there this weekend in 65 degree warmth.
Turns out if these alternative energy sources worked, they wouldnt be alternative. They would just be "the way"
In reply to 93gsxturbo :
I actually have a system running that's pretty close to the OP's suggestions. Solar water panel pumping hot water thru a car radiator. Works pretty well (when not broken). So it is doable.
And you're totally right that good insulation is key to having a comfortable workspace.
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