Electric Garage Heating Options

[grumpiergrunt]

Hi, I live in New York City and have a 1.5 car garage with 10 foot ceilings and a epoxied concrete floor that’s home to a couple of motorcycles and a work bench. It is a finished garage that is very well insulated. There is no vent. During the winter, I use the space to tinker on my bikes and do maintenance/restoration type work. It’s a bit cramped, but for my location it works.

In the winter, the space hovers around the 40/50’s during the coldest of winter. The couple days a week that I work in there, I crack the door open and run a propane heater (tank and heater mounted on top). It works, but I’d like to upgrade or make a lateral move that will make it so I don’t have to crack the door.

I know this means electrical, since I don’t have the budget for a mini split or other more efficient forms of heat. I can run and huge air compressor, and I’m not sure how many volts I can run without tripping a breaker, but how many watt electric heater should I run?

I was looking at infrared heaters, about 1500 Watts. I’m a bit of a newb so would appreciate any tips.

 

[acer66]

Nice shop and I just have two portable oil filled radiant heater in my shop.

It gets colder where I am and I only have insulation in the ceiling and they do the trick for me.

But I also would not fire them up if my shop is above 50’s.

 

[grumpiergrunt]

Thanks! It’s a bit more organized now and I replaced the plywood with butcher block. Wrapping up a project also helped with all the spare bits laying around.

I had one of these in there and it worked great! Just a bit slow to get going and raise the temp. I could try hooking one up to a WiFi switch so I could preheat the garage

 

[dcg9381]

I was looking at infrared heaters, about 1500 Watts. I’m a bit of a newb so would appreciate any tips.

Infrared heaters actually don't heat the air, they heat the people and objects (like motorcycles and walls) that they are pointed at. They're more efficient in terms of energy use.

I like the "radiator" idea too as there is no combustion source, but I'd probably use it with a fan to circulate the air a bit.

At 1500 watts, you can run that on any circuit, but only one heater per circuit.. My guess is that you're going to need two.

 

[pcmeiners]

"At 1500 watts, you can run that on any circuit, but only one heater per circuit.. My guess is that you're going to need two."

Agree, 1500 watts is not a lot of output. Also it does not matter what a manufacturer advertises, at a specific output, the output in heat is the same as any other rated output heaters You can pay $200 dollar for a 1500 watt rated heater or $25, both will produce the same amount of heat. Actual wattage is all that matters as to output.

 

[Shiftless]

300 square feet with 10 foot ceilings is not a small amount of space to heat. 1500 watt heaters won’t warm up that space very well unless the place is super insulated and almost air tight.

 

[acer66]

300 square feet with 10 foot ceilings is not a small amount of space to heat. 1500 watt heaters won’t warm up that space very well unless the place is super insulated and almost air tight.

Op said its very well insulated so he should be fine.

I forgot to mention that my ceiling is also 10’ and the walls are bare cinder blocks.

But like I said I would not
think about heating at 50deg.
I would be more thinking about firing up the ac.

 

[WisJim]

My shop spaces are about 250sf and 300 sf, and I can heat each one with a 1500 watt milk house heater, but they are well insulated with spray foam and foam under and around the floor. I'm in western Wisconsin where it gets 30 below zero on occasion, or sometimes colder. A lot depends on what "very well insulated" really is, and how tight the building is.

 

[TractorJeff]

Very nice "Shop/Garage" for NYC! Do you live in a Burb? I remember the cramped garages behind the Duplexes in Bay Ridge back in the early 80's.

 

[HoosierBuddy]

Greetings from the Hoosier State. Actually have a kid in NYC right now at NYU and love visiting your fair city.

All of your basic electric heaters are 1500 watts because that's about all you can safely plug into a 15 AMP wall plug. (1500 W/120V = 12.5 AMPs). You'll only be able to plug in one of them to a circuit, because 2 of them will trip a 20 AMP breaker.

If you have separate circuits, and one doesn't get it done, you could buy another one. As someone else noted watts is the only thing that matters. The 1500 W ceramic for $25 or the 1500 W "Amish built Craftsmanship heater" for $450 put out exactly the same 1500 Watts of heat.

Could be pricey to run, so start in small doses. One of the big advantages of a minisplit is it uses 1/4 (or less) of the power a resistance type heater does. If your power is (say) 15 cents per kwh and you run 1 heater for 8 hours, That's 2 bucks more or less. Not bad for a day, or for a weekend. Might get out of hand if you ran it 24X7X all winter.

 

[fitter30]

Infrared heaters heat only what the radiation touches. So in a cold space move out of the beam of radiation it will be room temp. Size of heater has alot to do with mass and how fast tou want to bring the temp up. Air is easy to heat. Mass - tools, steel, floor is 45° day or two to bring everything up to temp.

 

[pcmeiners]

"Hi, I live in New York City"

You have my condolences, I left Staten Island 3 years ago, now in beautiful Pennsylvania

Damn, tried to get NYC electric rates with all charges, I gave up. Last time I did find the rate it was $.28; report stated it going up a lot more this year . Best to get a very efficient minisplit. You have 3 bikes and you can't afford a mini split ?, with NYC rates you can afford not to get one.

 

[WildBill]

If it's staying in the 40-50s by itself with no additional heat I'm thinking it won't take much to heat it up. I would probably just go with a small forced air ceramic type heater and let it run awhile before you go out there. You can get ones that are app controlled if that would help.

 

[zendriver]

Any chance to wire in a 240v 30a plug?

I have this one and although it will hang and heat my 1.5 car garage, I just have it on a proper extension cord and use it to quickly heat of the area I'm working in.

https://www.northerntool.com/products/dyna-glo-4800-watt-240-volt-portable-electric-garage-heater-fuel-type-electric-heat-output-16380-btu-hour-heat-type-forced-air-model-eg4800dgp-5896791#hotbar-description

The 1500w heaters just never got the job done for me.