Electric unit heater recommendation - 900 sq ft

[mooch91]

All,

I will be adding electric heat to my 900 sq ft 3-car attached garage. I'm finding that the garage, with no source of heat itself, is staying at about 20-25 deg warmer than ambient outside temperatures. During the current Pennsylvania winter, temps are generally in the 30s - 40s in the garage with outside temps in the teens and 20s.

Garage is pretty well insulated from what I can tell (newer construction) although there are some things I'm sure I can work on to help.

House is largely electric. I have a small propane tank for the stove, fireplace, and water heater and I'd rather not use it to heat the garage.

So I thought a decent electric unit heater would be a good choice.

Any recommendations? I'm guessing I'm in the 7500 - 10000 W range. Use would be intermittent, only when I want to be out in the garage working on projects and maybe the occasional low-thermostat setting at night.

Would prefer an external (wall-mounted) thermostat.

Thanks!

 

[GarageWrench]

how tall are your ceilings? I have a 7500 watt Chromalox in my 615 sqft attached garage which is mostly insulated and its working great. I have 10 ft ceilings. They're a bit more pricey than other units but are well made and have powerful fans to get the heat spread evenly.

 

[GarageWrench]

http://www.electricheaterwarehouse....-Unit-Heaters--10000-watts-100-kw-_p_549.html

http://www.electricheaterwarehouse....-Unit-Heaters--10000-watts-100-kw-_p_534.html

I have the second style only in 7500 watt, I bought mine with the optional 24 volt transformer to hook up a low temp thermostat.

 

[tinbender 66]

I just put a Fahrenheat 7500 watt heater in my 1150 sq ft shop. R-19 everywhere, 11 ft to the trusses with no ceiling. I have ceiling fans up high in the two center bays. It's low to mid 30's outside and 60 inside with the heater on low running 20% of the time (12 mins per hour). I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[mygarageone]

I just can not imagine using any kind of elec heat where we live , it would run you to. The poor house.

 

[65gto]

I just installed a farenheat 7500 watt in my 750 sq ft garage. medium insulation. So far it will maintain 60 to 65 degrees setting it just above the low setting. Live in Iowa, can get very cold. I believe you will find with most of the comments on this, that with today's propane prices, that electric will be less. But of course natural gas will be the best if it's available. I'm holding my breath waiting for my first bill.

 

[mooch91]

I know there's more cost-efficient choices, but I can't believe that running it once per week for a few hours while I'm out there working is going to break me...

Right now my heat pump is working overtime and probably tapping the emergency electric heaters on a regular basis. If I can handle that (although I haven't seen the first electric bill just yet), then another 7500W on an intermittent basis shouldn't be a big issue.

 

[54stude]

Where are you? If you are in mn, I have a used 7500 watt ceiling mount modine I would sell you from my old garage.

Here in mn, running 7500w of heat raises my 1,000 sq ft hi ceiling well insulated garage by about 5-10 degrees f per hour. Not too bad, but it is not like a gas unit heater. Better to turn on 8 hours before you go out to the garage than to turn it on when you get out there...

 

[skipnay]

I have been thinking about these heaters. I could turn it on the night before and should be warm in garage by morning. I was wondering how much you guys see in your electric bill? I have seen these electric heaters from a $100 to a thousand dollars. How can you tell how efficient they are?

 

[rburke65]

The OP states in the first post he lives in Pa. I don't know.....everyone says electric cost will kill ya, but I think it varies on usage and KWh cost.

 

[matt_i]

How can you tell how efficient they are?

Electric heater is 100% efficient, turning all energy into heat via the resistive heater elements.

Since there's no chimney or "waste heat" then you aren't outputting some of the energy to the atmosphere as you would in the exhaust/chimney of a gas-fired unit.

You can even calculate your cost to run it. Figure out your basic cost by kW-hr by dividing the total electric portion of your utility bill (mine is a combined nat gas & electric) by the number of kW-hr you were billed for.

Somewhere around 0.10 to 0.15 per kW-hr is going to be typical I believe.

So a 5kW heater running for 1 hour is going to be 0.50 to 0.75 per hour. Seems reasonable, but if you put in 40 running-hours in a month (between weekends, etc) then you can probably expect a power bill bump of $20 to $30. Will likely be more if its left on 100% of the time to maintain a low temp. The typical directionalities apply...colder outside means more runtime, higher the thermostat is set the more runtime.

 

[Longhair]

colder outside means more runtime, higher the thermostat is set the more runtime.

The better the insulation the less run time....I have electric heat in my garage and it's ok but would rather have radiant heat.

Here's one type I have with remote.......love it for what it is. I chose the 5000k from Menards for a 400 hundred sq/ft area. Works great! and was only $300

http://www.king-electric.com/pdfs/KBECO2S_WEB.pdf