Baseboard Hot Water Heat Option

[Brett]

First time post, long time reader. We completed our attached garage addition last year. Should have added heat at the time of construction, but that was one of the line items that had to nix to bring the project back in budget. I did spend the money on insulation and drywall finish of the space, so it is sealed up pretty well.

Garage is attached to our home and is 30'x53'. A little over 1500 sq ft. Ceiling is 9 feet. We have baseboard hot water heat in our home and have the ability as well as some excess capacity on the boiler to add another zone. I was wondering if anyone has had experience with adding baseboard hot water heat to their garages and have had success.

I really like the baseboard hot water heat vs. a forced air system. Much quietier, less dust, more consistent and even temps, etc. We also have future plans to tie in a solar loop into our system to supplement our boiler. It really does have a lot of advantages, but I'm just not sure it would do the job of heating the garage. Most of the winter, our garage is around 45-50 degrees without heat. Would like to bring it up to 65 when I'm there working.

 

[Shocker]

Hey Brett, I have hot water baseboard radiant heat in my home and I like it.

But I am questioning if you have enough excess capacity.

If your garage has decent insulation, I estimate that you will need around 80k BTU to heat it. Do you have that much extra available?

If so, sounds like a good way to go to me.

 

[jvitez]

Fast temp rises are not the strong suit of any convection type heater, whether electric baseboard or hot water. If you plan on only bringing the temp up when you're working there, forced air or overhead radiant heat would be faster. Now if you want to keep the temp up all winter, nothing better than quiet convection heat.........well, in floor radiant actually

For the cost of tying into your system, it would probably be cheaper to just add a NG forced air unit heater or NG radiant tube. Depending on your electric rates, the cheapest capital vs operating cost balance are usually electric unit heaters.

We have ground source heat pumps heating our home, water to water with 4 zone fan coils. I had the option of a fan coil in the attached garage or in-floor radiant heat, but the cost and complexity rose dramatically so I nixed them both. I will be adding forced air unit heaters now. I only plan to heat intermittently.