Garage temperature.

[Terranova]

How cold do you let your unheated, attached garage get?
Of course we're the standard enter/exit through the garage family and with all the "stuff" I have out there, I've been a bit concerned with the temps dipping down to single digits.
If I went out there and ran the salamander for an hour or so to bring up the temp, will ambient heat really help all the cold metal things out there?
When the wife comes home, I'll just have to start the whole process over.
Is it futile?

T

 

[77thor]

If it's an "unheated" garage, it would be futile... IMO.
Don't worry about the temp because there's nothing you can do about it.
Just be sure to remove anything such as liquids that you don't want to freeze...

 

[Shiftless]

I did not think the metal things care about being being cold. What they would care about is rusting in the dampness brought in by running an unvented propane heater.

Acrylic latex paints will be ruined if allowed to freeze.

 

[BillK]

Have you actually put a thermometer out there to see how cold it is getting ? My attached garage has never gone below freezing even in 12 degree outside temps. It is insulated and has a very well sealed door but I guess enough heat stays in there to keep it "warm" Yesterday it was 17 outside and it was almost 40 in the garage. I have a sink out there and it has never frozen. I have a heater that I run when I am working out there but have never left it on.

All that being said . . . as long as you dont have anything that will get damaged by freezing like paint or other liquids, I wouldnt worry about it.

 

[ford33]

My attached garage went below freezing once in 20 years. It was a very cold Chicago winter that year. It typically stays in the 37 - 50 degree range during Chicago winters with no heat. I don't see an issue with cold temperatures in the garage effecting my tools or liquids.

 

[Justind97]

Definitely an exercise in futility.

Metal does not like the temps to go up and down. This promotes condensation and then rust soon follows.

 

[James-W]

My detached garage is heated and I leave the thermostat set on 50 degrees when I am not working out there. If I am working out there, then I crank it up to 70 degrees. The garage is pretty well insulated, R-19 walls - R-30 ceiling, and we have natural gas available. Working in the garage during the Winter months is actually a lot of fun.

The daughters come over and have projects/crafts they want to work on and we set up a table and they can sit and work on whatever it is they brought to work on. Sometimes it is an old lamp they bought and it won't work so they replace all the bad parts and get it working again. Other times it is an old table they want to make parts for and fix up.

The daughters go to rummage sales and find all sorts of stuff they think they can fix up and use. I help them out on the repairs when they need it, but they do a lot of the repairs themselves. Of course they use my tools to do it, but I don't mind, I imagine when I am gone they will want all the tools anyway.

 

[Denwood]

My detached shop is only heated when in use, so does hit -10C inside after a few days with outside lows of -30C. Latex paints and any other freeze issues live in the basement storage. Zero issues..and it’s been about 20 yrs like that. I actually prefer it below freezing when parking as A. The salt is less active and B. The snow melt mess is reduced.

Given a 60K BTU Reznor gas furnace..it only takes 5-10 minutes to get comfortable. It likely takes an hour or two before all surfaces fully warm...however I rarely run the heat that long unless painting.

 

[pogrelis97]

I leave my thermostat on 40 when I'm not in the shop, I turn it up to 55-60 on my way home from work so it's nice when I get there.

 

[Jazz1]

Mine got down to 5C yesterday when it was -32C outside. That's the coldest I''ve seen it get in garage. I put a fire on daily, just a few logs even when not using garage to keep it from getting below freezing. Garage warms up quick.

 

[GMCGarage]

How cold do you let your unheated, attached garage get?
Of course we're the standard enter/exit through the garage family and with all the "stuff" I have out there, I've been a bit concerned with the temps dipping down to single digits.
If I went out there and ran the salamander for an hour or so to bring up the temp, will ambient heat really help all the cold metal things out there?
When the wife comes home, I'll just have to start the whole process over.
Is it futile?

T

Yes. Spend a few bucks and get some bigger oil radiator type heaters and put out there. They seem to heat objects, not the air.

 

[coljar]

I don't know a good answer, but since we're about 80 miles apart from each other, I'll tell you what I keep my detached garage. 58F when I'm not in there and 70F when I am.

 

[slimcake]

58 when not in there? I leave mine at 50 when not around and was thinking about letting go to 40? 60 when I am in there is comfy.

 

[mikeyr]

a unheated garage ? what is that ? isn't there a law against unheated garages ?

I am in S. Cal. where temps in the mid-50s is considered freezing and even my garage is heated and set to 55 when i am not there.

Anyway, some things like paints/chemicals/gun powder won't like freezing, tools won't care.

 

[RoadBeater]

I’m just south of you, my attached garage stays around 40-45 without heat. I’ve got a sink in there, but have never had it freeze up. I have convinced the wife it is a door, and it never stay open, so I’m sure that helps some.

 

[doublearon98]

If the garage isn't insulated, you'll just be beating a dead horse.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[finn]

Harbor Freight tools, if they have any plastic parts, at least definitely don’t do well in an unheated garage.

The plastic/ pseudo rubber air hose on my HF planishing hammer crystallized and broke into a hundred pieces when my garage in suburban Chicago dipped into the teens.

The black threaded plastic handle on my HF orange grinder broke at the threaded metal insert at low temperatures sitting on my workbench in Michigan, and the plastic HF deadblow hammer head did the same.

I don’t shop there any more.

No other tools in my inventory have a similar aversion to unheated garages.

I have had a couple of diet soda cans explode, though.

 

[NUTTSGT]

Well that was freaking nice, had a long reply typed out and my laptop decided to do an update out of the blue with no warning. . . .

The house garage is unheated but insulated. it generally maintains temps 15-20 above the outside temps in the Winter. When we get a cold snap below zero or single digits, I'll fire up my kerosene heater and let it run for an hour or so.

I have a fire going in my garage every day when I'm not at work. The wood heat is cheap and I'd prefer to have the heat going out there, especially with a bathroom. It generally stays at no lower than 51F when I come home from a shift or two at work. However, when we get a cold blast from the north or windy days, it does make it harder to heat.

I was just considering putting another layer of insulation in one section of the attic since it only has R11 or R13. A second layer of R11 would help retaining heat when I don't have a fire going.

 

[Macrosill]

Mine is heated and I keep it at 50. I have some water pipes running through it for the Master Bath above.

 

[Urambo Tauro]

My garage isn't attached, so I can't speak from experience on how much the residual heat from parking cars and briefly opening the house door are going to help. I'm sure the effect is minimal though, especially if the garage isn't insulated.

Frankly, it's not really a question of how cold you "let" it get unless you're actively going out of your way to heat it. It's pretty much going to be just as cold as it is outside, except that you're out of the wind.

 

[diesel_dan]

Our attached garage only gets heat if we run the downstairs heater (which is in the garage), or if we drive a hot car in there. Now when we had Dogs and/or Cats in there, we'd put on an electric heater. Funny thing is, we used to have 2 - 3/4 Aussie 1/4 Border Collie dogs and one outside only cat -- if it got cold enough, in the morning you'd find the cat sleeping in a huddle with the dogs! We called that a "2 dog night" Temps probably got in the 40s out there...

Guy that we bought the house from made some funny decisions (or was just lied to, which I'd totally believe): outside walls of garage - no insulation, yet double pane window and 2" insulated garage doors, go figure...

Yet ANOTHER reason I wish we'd built our own place...

 

[OccupantRJ]

I only heat my detached shop when I am going to be working in it, and sometimes do not do that if I am only going to be out there an hour or so. The last two mornings have been 19* here, and the shop has been 49-52 degrees inside with no heat. Walls are insulated, but no insulation in ceiling yet. Uninsulated steel garage door. I noticed both days after I had been in there for an hour, the temperature rose 1 degree with me in there with the lights on.

 

[redheelerdog]

I leave a milk house heater running 24-7, one in each of my shops. 22 x 30 and 30 x 60, water has never frozen. I have a couple of store bought drinking water bottles, when it gets freezin *** I look at them often, they are my temp indicator. -34F last year, this year has been a piece of cake, barely below 0 all winter. Guess I shouldn't speak too soon... Damn it man!

 

[Bert_]

58 when not in there? I leave mine at 50 when not around and was thinking about letting go to 40? 60 when I am in there is comfy.

I thought the same thing. Mid 50's-60* is good working temp. I don't even like to keep it 70* in the house, just to warm.

 

[brownbagg]

whatever the outside temp is