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After bits and pieces and mentions in multiple different build threads, I figured we could use a thread dedicated to climate control. What works, what doesn't work. What's cost effective, what isn't.

I guess the relative speaking points here would be;

Shop size?
Insulated?
Climate?
Heat source?
Trials and tribulations you've experienced?

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Tucker

Shop size?

~400Sq feet

Insulated?

Nope, not a drop.

Climate?

Northern Connecticut, so southern new England. 85* summers and 10* winters (except for this year...)

Heat source?

I have been using a 5200 BTU infrared heater (http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/produc ... _vc=-10005). It takes about an hour to raise the temp in the garage ~15-20* over outdoor temp. When its 30* out, working in 45* is still not exactly pleasant, but it definitely helps to stand in front of it.

Trials and tribulations you've experienced?

Even though 5200 btu's should be sufficient, I think its the lack of insulation and early sunset that really mess with the whole keeping warm aspect. I searched for other solutions, but couldn't find a pellet stove cheap enough.. and wood isn't ideal for the fact that my time is often unexpectedly cut short (nap times over!).

I came across a fellow who I'll be doing a barter deal with for a NG/LPG stove that I intend to hook up with a 100lb propane cylinder in the garage. It has an electric circulation fan, and is allegedly good enough to heat a 1200 sqft house.. so running it on a mild temp setting should prove to be cost efficient and worthwhile. Even more so when I get a chance to get some insulation up.

Still have some things to work out of course. I am pretty positive it needs to be elevated. 18" from the air inlet to the floor is the minimum. So I'll either be fabricating a stand or stacking some cinder blocks.

quick question - for those of you who use a propane heat source in your garage.. Do you keep the cylinder inside or outside?

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Tucker

My shop is about 900sf. 2x6 framed walls on a slab, 10' high. 6" R19 in the walls, nothing on top; I never got around to putting the ceiling in.

Heating is a 175K BTU kerosene bullet heater with the optional thermostat. I run it on Diesel fuel, which is 1/3 the price of K1 kerosene here. There's a small puff of smoke and then it burns clean, with less odor than K1. Several of my friends have similar heaters and all have switched over to Diesel as well.

The bullet heater puts out a TREMENDOUS amount of heat; it will bring the shop from 20F to 60F in half an hour, then cycles occasionally to keep it there.

What I need to do is insulate the ceiling and put in air conditioning, but at local electric rates I'd have to win a lottery to pay the electric bill.

I've always wanted to build a waste oil heater. Done properly, they don't make any smoke or smell, and you get to heat your garage for free, depending how much waste oil you have.

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I have about 500 sq ft. It has a peaked ceiling with ~170 sq ft storage loft. so I'd guess about 6000 cu ft or more. Walls are dry-walled but not insulated. It has 2" Styrofoam insulation on the outside of the 2x4 wall. The ceiling is dry-walled but probably no insulation. Not sure. I have a wall-mounted electric heater of ~5.75 KW (220V) with thermostat. Electricity is 0.13 per KWH. So it runs about 75 cents per hour while running @100% and heating things up. Thereafter it takes less, depending on the outside temp. I have a 16 ft insulated garage door and there is a bit of air infiltration around the edges.

I am in Northern Illinois. I don't usually keep the heater on and don't work out there unless I have a Major project. It usually takes about 1-2 hrs to heat up.

I gave a natural gas line plumbed out there but don't like working out there that much in the Winter. I am willing to pay the extra for electric when I need to. I had a 40K BTU kero torpedo heater once, with 120V plug-in thermostat. It worked pretty good when I used it. I couldn't stand a) the smell and headaches or b) the intense spot heat and c) takes up a fair amount of floor space. In addition, being that the garage was attached to the house, invariably the kero smell came inside too.

My thoughts are that the electric heat is marginally safer than kero in a garage with gasoline around, as long as the thermostat/relay are located well off the floor.

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Chuck.

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640 sq. ft. poured concrete with storms but little insulation which I heat with a 100k gas unit heater. 40° max. at night and then up to 60° when I am working. The heat up takes about 30 minutes. The biggest problem is humidity. If it is warm and humid outside I have to keep inside temp above the outside ambient or everything sweats. This is usually only a spring time problem except this year. It is currently 50° F out.

This is going to sound ignorant, but I didn't think it got that cold all the way down there in Arkansas. I have a friend whose a buffalo NY transplant that lives just outside little rock, but she only ever talks about how sweltering the summers are.

I doubt i'll ever try and air condition. Our hottest days up here are 85-90*, and we always get a nice three p.m. breeze. comes across in a way that if I open both garage doors, I get a nice breeze right in.

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Tucker

Arkansas what about S California? This is the land of frozen tundra.

40' x 40' x 11' hanger/shop, R25 in the walls, R60 in the ceiling, R15 in the overhead door. It is cool and comfortable in the summer (75* to 80* outside temp, 65* to 70* inside).

I let it freeze in the winter (it never gets below -30* inside despite it being cooler outside) but two 5600 watt 240V construction heaters can bring it up to comfortable "coveralls and bare hands working temperature" (about 50*) in about 2.5 hours. The inside air heats up quickly, the big heating challenge is the slab and the vehicles stored inside....they take a while to heat up.

I have to heat and dehumidify in the spring a little to control condensation if the slab is frozen when the season changes.

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Bill H
Winnipeg, MB, Canada

My attached garage is 24 x 30. The walls are 2 x 4 with fiberglass insulation. The ceiling is 2 x 10 with 10" of fiberglass. The walls and ceiling are finished with pegboard and osb. I have two skylights that face the winter sun. My house has radiant hot water heat in the floors so when I built the garage I did the same to the garage floor. The extra water circuit has it's own pump and thermostat that I keep at 50.

There hasn't been a noticeable increase in the heat bill since I installed the system in 2001. In the winter the temp in the garage can get up to 60 from the extra heat from the skylights. I'm in the garage for at least an hour each day plus going in and out to get tools when I'm working on things in the house. Laying on the floor to work under cars is really nice with this set up. This doesn't help anyone that doesn't already have hot water heat but if you do I'd recommend it.

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At our old place I had a 24x28 attached garage that was heated by a dedicated natural gas water heater and a pump to run the hot water/antifreeze through in-floor heat strings to warm the slab. The garage was only 2x4 walls, so not real good insulation, and had a 16' wide garage door. I didn't have a a thermostat for temperature control of the garage, but I could adjust the thermostat on the hot water tank and the circulating pump had 3 speeds. It worked well at -40, but took a long time to bring the slab up to temperature in the early part of winter, and after opening the door for any length of time to warm up the air again.

At our new place, I have a similar sized detached garage that isn't heated or insulated, but there's also about a 24x12 workshop on the end that is insulated and heated with a small wood stove. If I ever get around to building my dream shop, I would probably go with in floor hot water heat, but instead of natural gas, I'd go with an outdoor wood fired boiler, and also use it to heat the house. My parents put one in at their farm a few years ago and it works great. They heat 2 houses and a 40x60 shop with it, just have to put wood in it a couple times a day or so.

Kristian

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It regularly gets down below freezing for a couple months in winter. Every now and then it will drop into the single digits. And then up to 115 or more in summer, so humid it's hazy.

Not as bad as North Dakota, which gets into the hundred-teens in summer, then *really* cold in the winter...

50 is fine for me if I'm moving around. If I'm stuck at the bench or a machine, I may crank it up to 60. 45 and my hands start to go numb after a couple of hours.

I ran 950 feet of barrier PEX under the floor of the new house, stubbed everything off outside at the water heater hutch, and bought all the fittings, manifolds, crimping tool, circulating pumps, and a stainless steel heat exchanger so I can use one heater for both hot water and the radiant heating system. Theoretically I should use a "boiler", but that sort of thing is unknown in Arkansas and would have to be shipped in, and then the code inspectors would just stare at it in confusion.

In your case... there are fireplace inserts that double as boilers, just for hydronic heating. Besides using some of the "waste" heat directly, you don't have to go outside in the cold to re-stoke the boiler. I would have gone for one of those, but in my area that would nearly double my homeowner's insurance, which would make it more expensive for me to use a fireplace even if the wood was free. [sigh]

I have 625 sq. ft., but I ran out of money before I could insulate or put in a ceiling. As our average temperature during the winter is roughly 30*-35*F (-2* to +3*C), it's pretty miserable working out there.

TRX's experience with the kerosene heater, though, looks promising indeed! I can buy one locally for a little over $200, which is (for here, anyway) reasonable, but the ability to use diesel (vs. kerosene, which runs around $30 per gallon here) is a huge plus! To be honest, I've never really investigated these heaters. I do have a radiant kerosene heater, but it's kerosene-only, and has no fan, thermostat, etc., and it just cost too much to run. I could use propane, but I really dislike the amount of moisture they seem to put into the air, and with a raw-steel frame in the shop, moisture is the last thing I need.

I'm going to have a look at them, now. I've found some negative reviews, but due to the simple design of these heaters, it looks any like problems should be easy to diagnose & fix. One thing all reviewers agree on is the prodigious amount of heat these things make!

Thanks for the tip, TRX!!

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