Heating a Garage

I know winter is about over but I am just finishing my garage, It is 38x40 with only 9ft ceilings. It is well insulated but was wondering what type of heat you guys use.  I was leaning towards electric just because it is clean and pricing remains somewhat steady. Does anyone use electric and if so how do you like it, Any other suggestions will be great also. Propane is the second choice, which is appealling.Thanks

Radiant is the only way to go in a garage.

Curt wrote:Radiant is the only way to go in a garage.

Concrete floor? Baseboard? Forced hot air? Overhead? Electric? Oil? Gas?

???

DFI429 wrote:

Curt wrote:Radiant is the only way to go in a garage.

Concrete floor? Baseboard? Forced hot air? Overhead? Electric? Oil? Gas?

???

Sorry and yes, concrete floor.

Propaine used to be alot cheaper than electric, but with all the price increases last winter, not so much. If there is a repeat of last winter and the propaine BS I would go electric, between the two.

I use propane but only because it was easy.if you consider cooling it i'd go electric.

Lol It beats a bucket of Ice by the window.  

Natrual gas forced heater.....


Ace

Here a heat pump with lp or ng back up is your best bet.

And a heat pump is by far the cheapest heat, but it is all done at around 20-25 degrees.

My shop is 30 x 40 x 12 high and my highest electric bill summer or winter has been $65.00

4 ton heat pump. When it gets down to below 25 I turn on a forced air lp torpedo fro about 30 min and get it to 60* and then turn on the heat pump it will hold it there the rest of the night.

IDT-572 wrote:Here a heat pump with lp or ng back up is your best bet.

And a heat pump is by far the cheapest heat, but it is all done at around 20-25 degrees.

My shop is 30 x 40 x 12 high and my highest electric bill summer or winter has been $65.00

4 ton heat pump. When it gets down to below 25 I turn on a forced air lp torpedo fro about 30 min and get it to 60* and then turn on the heat pump it will hold it there the rest of the night.

What s a heat pump?

Ace

powerstrokeace wrote:

IDT-572 wrote:Here a heat pump with lp or ng back up is your best bet.

And a heat pump is by far the cheapest heat, but it is all done at around 20-25 degrees.

My shop is 30 x 40 x 12 high and my highest electric bill summer or winter has been $65.00

4 ton heat pump. When it gets down to below 25 I turn on a forced air lp torpedo fro about 30 min and get it to 60* and then turn on the heat pump it will hold it there the rest of the night.

What s a heat pump?

Ace

A heat pump is a device that provides heat energy from a source of heat to a destination called a heat sink. Heat pumps are designed to move thermal energy opposite to the direction of spontaneous heat flow by absorbing heat from a cold space and release it to a warmer one, and vice-versa.

I believe Blake was talking about an A/C system that reverses the flow of refrigerant for heating. It has emergy and supplemental electric heat for extreme conditions. When it gets much below 25 degree's F outside, the electric heat kicks in, as it is too cold outside, for the cold refrigerant to transfer its remaining heat from the outdoor unit into the air. The outside coil becomes the refrigerant evaporator in the heating mode, via a reversing valve. Yes they are very cost effecient to about 25 degree's and when you don't have prolonged extreme cold. The intial install price and cost of equipment as well as maintainance are their drawbacks. For a commerical full time operation in most semi-cold climates they are hard to beat if you don't have gas, at an affordable price. If you can get a ground loop heat pump, then your good to go to lower temps, as the ground water does not get as cold, as the air outside.

Not to start an argument but forced air whether its gas or electric. I've never had the radiant in the floor, but dealt with the overhead stuff. The only problem I see with it would be the need to keep it steady temp, due to the amount of time to warm up. With a 9' ceiling you would hate the overhead radiant. I've got 11' in my garage 30x65 and got talked in to radiant and it would cook you right under it and freeze 10' away. We've got three of the full length ones in a 60x80 with 18' ceilings and it's a little better but still hot right under them. My garage used to take an hour even to get halfway warm. I put a forced air propane in my garage and in ten minutes it will take it from 45 to 70. The other plus is I have a 4 ton ac on mine. Makes it nice on them 100 degree days. Just my 2 cents. 

powerstrokeace wrote:Natrual gas forced heater.....


Ace

X2
Works great, I bought a ceiling mount heater about twice as big as required by size of garage. I only turn it on when I'm working and it warms it up within minutes when needed.
Gary

Wes Littrell wrote:Not to start an argument but forced air whether its gas or electric. I've never had the radiant in the floor, but dealt with the overhead stuff. The only problem I see with it would be the need to keep it steady temp, due to the amount of time to warm up.  With a 9' ceiling you would hate the overhead radiant. I've got 11' in my garage 30x65 and got talked in to radiant and it would cook you right under it and freeze 10' away. We've got three of the full length ones in a 60x80 with 18' ceilings and it's a little better but still hot right under them. My garage used to take an hour even to get halfway warm. I put a forced air propane in my garage and in ten minutes it will take it from 45 to 70. The other plus is I have a 4 ton ac on mine. Makes it nice on them 100 degree days. Just my 2 cents. 

Heating is always best from floor level as heat rises. Cooling Vise Vesa, from the ceiling. No argument from me. It was one of the first things taught in HVAC class. Start Up expense and operation costs are the major concern unfortuniately in most cases. I will post some pictures of a cheap electric alternative that works good around here for us. Not knocking the propane deal, as it is good for shop use also.

My propane was locked at $1.39 this year. I don't know what next year will bring.

I have a Mr heater garage heater and it heats my 24x24 easily but it's well insulated. When I bought it, I went with propane because the gas company wouldn't set a second meter on my property and I didn't want to run 300ft of gas pipe when I only needed 40 to the nearest line. But now, after what happened to lp over the winter I'm going to switch to ng.

In floor heat is the only way to go imho. Set up properly, it can't be beat for uniform heat.

I have no natural gas where I live and as stated about what happened to propane this year is why I was asking about electric,

I tried using a oil over electric heater to keep my shop around 50 and only did that for the last 2 weeks of January and my electric bill was $75 for the month, so I shut if off and used a double burner heater for my gas grill bottle to bring the shop up to temp when I wanted to work in there.
Based on my experience, I would say you will be better off with LP and just get a bigger tank and have it filled in the summer when it's cheapest. I has 80% in my tank when winter started so I didn't have it filled. Come February, I was wishing I had.

I have in floor radiant heat in my garage, love it.  ....24x30 shop with a 60gal electric hot water tank making the heat.

Every type of heating system can be very expensive if your building isn't sealed well(air leaks), and insulated well(walls, ceiling, and sometimes floor). In a garage/shop I typically do not recommend a heat pump due to the fact it does have a longer recovery time when temperature is lost(bringing in a cold car from outside) but as a dual fuel system they will work well. a dual fuel system would be a natural or propane gas furnace with a heat pump on top of it this will take care of both heat and a/c. the set-up of the thermostat will determine what outdoor temperature your system will switch from using the heat pump to the gas heat also when the temp drops in the building quickly and the heat pump cant keep up it will switch to gas. By doing your system this way you can limit the amount of high dollar gas you use and still be able to warm the building up quickly if needed. if your shop has no insulation in the walls or ceiling then go straight gas and forget using electric and be prepared to pay for a lot of gas.

BigRigTech wrote:I have in floor radiant heat in my garage, love it.  ....24x30 shop with a 60gal electric hot water tank making the heat.

My next one will be geothermal. I'll only have the cost of running the water pump once its installed. Heat in the winter and cool in the summer.

Curt wrote:

BigRigTech wrote:I have in floor radiant heat in my garage, love it.  ....24x30 shop with a 60gal electric hot water tank making the heat.

My next one will be geothermal. I'll only have the cost of running the water pump once its installed. Heat in the winter and cool in the summer.

I would have liked that too but it's expensive and by the time I finished my house and new shop I was tapped.  I had to build the garage myself and put the materials in my mortage because the contractor wanted too much to build it. It will all be mine in another 14yrs or so...LOL...I hope.  

I've always heated with wood. My old shop was 28x32 with a 10ft ceiling had a add on forced air wood burner with a thermostat, kept it at a steady 70 degrees and recovered fast when I was exhausting while painting cars. It cost nothing for fuel, I burned pallet wood, it's every where

Coveralls, gloves, and a hat.. No heat