Anyone have good recommendations for a decent heater for the garage? Needs to be 110v

psrivats

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Friend has a woodshop in his garage. No 240v outlet. He's looking to get a decent heater for his garagev and is looking for some recommendations. It's a typical suburb 2 car garage, he usually parks one car outside and uses that side for his woodworking stuff. I told him I'll ask the forum think tank here. Would appreciate some advice/direction.
 
Another option you could go to depending on how much you want to raise the temperature would be a propane heater either radiant, tank top or forced air.
I'd be concerned with continuous use of a max wattage 120v heater on a wiring circuit of unknown wire gauge, total length of run and other loads on the same circuit.
 
The only thing a 120V heater is gonna do is raise your electricity bill. Tell him to buy a Kerosene heater and a ceiling fan. its still gonna be slow, but it will take the chill out of the air...especially if its insulated.

If he's in town, a NG heater is pretty inexpensive to install and to run. That's what I use...65000 BTU and I only bumped my gas bill by 30/40 dollars a month...and I'm heating a 24 x 30 two story barn with it.

as an example

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Mine draws combustion air from outside too, so I don't have to worry about a big ka-boom! when I'm making fumes or doing anything that releases a lot of fine dust.
 
I run a floor-mounted propane ventless blue flame heater in a 700 sq/ft half of my basement, fed by my house tank. It keeps it as warm as I want. My whole place runs on propane - hot water baseboard heat, water heater, gas oven/range, dryer - so the small amount of additional propane for the blue flame heater is a minor part of my total propane use.
 
I have a High Intensity Infrared Ceramic heater that is mounted on a roll around stand that is controlled by 110 VAC but uses a 110lb cyl of propane for the heat side, I like it because of the portability of it and it gets hot as the sun.
 
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Lots of ways to make heat. I live on 17 acres. My future shop plans include a loop or two of pex tubing in the concrete slab and a wood fired boiler.

Propane can introduce a lot of humidity into a space. Might need that 120v for a dehumidifier.

-Mac
 
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I was going to mention a propane convection heater, but I had one and HATED how much water vapor it put into the air. All my tools were getting rusty. For a woodworking shop that would be a no go as you need to try and maintain some semblance of dryness in your wood, or it will move all over on you and the joints that you spent SO long to make tight will open up like right now when you bring it somewhere its actually dry.
 
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions so far. I am forwarding him this thread in a day or two.

I was going to mention a propane convection heater, but I had one and HATED how much water vapor it put into the air. All my tools were getting rusty. For a woodworking shop that would be a no go as you need to try and maintain some semblance of dryness in your wood, or it will move all over on you and the joints that you spent SO long to make tight will open up like right now when you bring it somewhere its actually dry.

Exactly and hence his interest in an electric heater.

Does he have natural gas available? That's the route I'm going.

He does have a gas line for his kitchen. Probably the better long term solution, adding to what @Mike_H said above. 120V heater does not seem like a prudent solution.
 
I use a propane cannon style heater. 10 minutes in my 2 car and I'm in a t-shirt. Only have to run it for a few minutes every hour or so to maintain.
 
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I've looked and never found anything good for 110. I use a propane tank and double top radiant heat heater. I do have my natural gas line running thru the garage and would like to T that to a ceiling heater but damn, they are expensive!
 
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How many cubic feet is he heating? Is it insulated. A 110V heater is only good for 1500-2000 watts of heat depending on if it’s a 15 or 20 amp circuit.
I have a 4K BTU ventless propane heater for my 2 car insulated garage that works great and have no issues with water vapor. My 32’X50’X12” uninsulated shop is heated with a 180K BTU diesel torpedo heater that I burn red diesel. Of course I live is SoCal and we seldom get below 30. The diesel heater is cheaper to fuel but the trade off is the noise it makes while running.
One issue to be aware of is that a unvented gas heater has an open flame which can ignite flammable vapors.

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A 110V heater is only good for 1500-2000 watts of heat depending on if it’s a 15 or 20 amp circuit.

You can actually take that one step farther for comparison purposes. BTU is a unit of energy, just like watts. There are about 3.4 BTUs in a watt. So, a 1500 watt electric heater will put out about 5000 BTU/hr. Compare that to the ubiquitous Buddy Heater, which puts out about 4,000 BTU/hr on the low setting. Not much heat!

Growing up, we heated our insulated single car garage with a kerosene heater that put out about 20,000 to 25,000 BTU/hr, and it would raise the temp inside about 20°F or so.
 
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Only so much heat in a 110V 15 pr 20 amp circuit. Less if a fan is added.

Exactly. It's just not enough.

I did most of my LJ build in a 2 car garage in a Colorado winter with nights in the 20s and below. I have a "Big Buddy" that I think is something like 18,000 BTU/h on high, it would have me comfortable in a shirt in about half an hour. I got an adapter hose to use a grill sized tank instead of the little 1 pounders; the big tank would last me a couple of weeks.
 
There's only one way to heat a garage, and that is with wood. Everything else is a sin.
 
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