Hey guys, I've gained lots of great ideas from this forum (and a new hobby - working on the garage itself! 
) I'm hoping for one more...
I have a 2.5 car garage whose inside dimensions are 30x24 with 9 ft ceilings. I did drywall, Roxul insulation and vapor barrier myself. It has two 8x9 R16 brand new doors. I redid all the seals around the doors so it's about as sealed up a space as you can get. I have an exhaust fan installed in one wall over my bench, and when it's on you can feel that it is drawing 100% of the total air it's moving down the chimney for the heater! :O I'm careful never to use it and the heater at the same time. It just illustrated to me how well sealed up the room is.
The heater is an older home unit, about 75,000 BTU I believe, natural gas powered. It was installed when I bought the house. I've used it for two winters now and it's performed well, but since the seal-up I've been getting headaches and the room smells faintly of NG (yes, I've checked the supply pipe for leaks). I have a CO2 alarm in the room, it never goes off.
It dawned on me that most furnace installations in a home require a fresh air inlet near the furnace. I suspect that the chimney is having trouble exhausting the fumes when the room is sealed up so well. So, I want to install a vent in the room to address this. The furnace is on 24/7 so I can't just leave the door open.
The walls are just 2x4 with stucco on the outside, drywall inside. I was thinking of punching a hole, inserting a vent tube horizontal with the floor ending near the furnace and adding a critter cover on the outside. Are there butterflies you can get to automatically open and close the vent as the furnace comes on? I don't want to piss all the heat out the vent tube.
So, any insight into this process of installing a vent? Thanks guys.
) I'm hoping for one more...I have a 2.5 car garage whose inside dimensions are 30x24 with 9 ft ceilings. I did drywall, Roxul insulation and vapor barrier myself. It has two 8x9 R16 brand new doors. I redid all the seals around the doors so it's about as sealed up a space as you can get. I have an exhaust fan installed in one wall over my bench, and when it's on you can feel that it is drawing 100% of the total air it's moving down the chimney for the heater! :O I'm careful never to use it and the heater at the same time. It just illustrated to me how well sealed up the room is.
The heater is an older home unit, about 75,000 BTU I believe, natural gas powered. It was installed when I bought the house. I've used it for two winters now and it's performed well, but since the seal-up I've been getting headaches and the room smells faintly of NG (yes, I've checked the supply pipe for leaks). I have a CO2 alarm in the room, it never goes off.
It dawned on me that most furnace installations in a home require a fresh air inlet near the furnace. I suspect that the chimney is having trouble exhausting the fumes when the room is sealed up so well. So, I want to install a vent in the room to address this. The furnace is on 24/7 so I can't just leave the door open.
The walls are just 2x4 with stucco on the outside, drywall inside. I was thinking of punching a hole, inserting a vent tube horizontal with the floor ending near the furnace and adding a critter cover on the outside. Are there butterflies you can get to automatically open and close the vent as the furnace comes on? I don't want to piss all the heat out the vent tube.
So, any insight into this process of installing a vent? Thanks guys.