Safe way to heat my garage?

[flot]

Hey guys, maybe someone can help me out...

I'm looking for a *safe* way to heat my detached garage. I live in an apartment complex and have a single car garage with 110v power... The garage is uninsulated (mostly) so the temperature inside it stays within.. I dunno, 10-15 degress of whatever it is outside.

Currently I'm "heating" it by simply using two 200w lights that I leave on all the time. These provide some warmth, or at least I should say they keep it from getting too ridiculously cold inside.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other ways to keep the room warm? It isn't very big, I actually thought the lamps would do a much better job but I guess too much heat is lost through the garage door/floor. It isn't drafty or anything inside, but I'd prefer to keep the temp above 50 degrees.

The obvious answer is to buy a space heater w/thermostat, but I don't want to do that - my car is in there, various flammable liquids etc, and sometimes I won't open the garage up for days at a time, so I don't want to use anything with an "open" heat source like a heating coil. Is there anything else I should look into??

 

[Blieb]

I remember seeing one of those home improvement shows ...

They put special tubing in the foundation and hot water runs through it ... keeping the garage warm ...

However, in an apartment complex, I doubt they'd let you rip up the foundation ...

But hoses with hot water running through them may be worth looking into ... but, well, fark, prolly not ...

It'd jack your electric and water bill ... and probably leave you showering cold ...

 

[JC]

Prolly a ceramic electric heater is your best bet, should at least take the chill off

JC

 

Check with your gas company - some people on my old street worked for the local gas co. and they had a garage heater (powered by natural gas, i'd presume). They used to host the trick or treat party in the neighborhood in their garage and it was always pretty warm.

 

[Adul]

Run a dual athlon rig inside of there .

 

[JC]

<< Run a dual athlon rig inside of there . >>



ROTFL!

 

[Tarmouth]

I have a Giga-Byte mobo that runs my athlon 1200 at 55c idled ! Haven't RMA'd it yet, i'll sell it to ya cheap lol

 

[etech]

Why are you trying to heat the garage?

If it is to make it more comfortable to work in you'll have to find some sort of heater that is safe.

If it is to keep your car warmer so it will start easier and warm up quicker in the morning I would suggest looking at adding a block heater to your car. They can be put on a timer to turn on a few hours before you get up in the morning to help keep costs down. A block heater will heat your enging helping it to start and giving you almost instant heat from you cars blowers.

Another area to look at is if you can insulate some of the worst places of air infiltration in your garage. That is usually the garage door. Insulating kits are available and weather stripping across the bottom of the garage doors can make a large improvement for little cost.


If you do get a heater make sure to check if the wiring and circuit breaker can handle the load before you buy it.

 

[Linux23]

leave your car running with the all the doors closed for a few minutes...that should build up a lot of heat in there.