Heated cabinet for winter storage

[go4donuts]

Last fall I started a thread about the idea of building a heated storage cabinet for my garage. See http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=246860

Over the winter I used my newly insulated and heatable garage to go ahead and build a heated cabinet. Pictures attached.

As you can see, it's made from spruce boards and OSB paneling. I insulated it with 3/4" polystyrene insulation, and installed some weather stripping to keep it sealed nice and cozy. As suggested by someone who commented on my previous post, I used a gun safe dehumidier heater as the heat source - I think it puts out about 8W. I connected the heater through a simple thermostat that I found at Home Depot. I set the thermostat at 5 degrees Celsius -- it works great!


Just a side note about the garage insulation - this was the first winter having my garage insulated, and I found that even with sustained outside temperatures of -32 degrees C (approx. -25 F) the temperature inside the garage never dropped below -5 C. [edit: that's without the garage heater running]

 

[Voi]

I remember that thread. Cabinet looks great. I like the combo of common materials.

On colder days how hot to the touch would you say the heater gets?

 

[Kaizen]

nice I was just thinking of this as I was bringing my paint back to the garage. not clear was your garage heated or just insulated? did you keep it just above freezing or target like 60degrees f?

 

[go4donuts]

Voi asked: "On colder days how hot to the touch would you say the heater gets?"

I recall that it was warm enough that it was uncomfortable to hold your hand on it for more than a few seconds, like the side of a cup of takeout coffee?? What would that be...maybe 140-150 degrees F? Not hot enough to be a fire hazard, but I plan to make some kind of shroud around it anyway.

And I have no idea how much it cycles on and off (with the thermostat). I'm tempted to wire an indicator light into the circuit next winter just for the sake of science. I set the thermostat to 5 degree C and left a thermometer inside and checked it periodically for a few weeks as the temperature outside varied; it was always 5 degrees in the cabinet.

I'm actually quite impressed with that little thermostat. I recall that it was only about 10 bucks and according to the specs, I could run my 220V heater through it, which I find surprising. My 220 heater has a crappy little thermostatic control that's on the back of the heater (hard to reach because of the way my heater is mounted) and very imprecise. I'd love to hook the heater up through a little thermostat like this for easier and more precise control. That's a topic for another post on another day.

 

[yhprum]

For a heat source, you could also could use an incandescent lightbulb with a thermostat, like the old egg incubators are setup

 

[go4donuts]

nice I was just thinking of this as I was bringing my paint back to the garage. not clear was your garage heated or just insulated? did you keep it just above freezing or target like 60degrees f?

It is "heat-able", i.e. I have a 220V electric construction heater which I use if I'm working out there, but I don't keep it heated. All the information in the post above is with the garage NOT heated.

 

[go4donuts]

For a heat source, you could also could use an incandescent lightbulb with a thermostat, like the old egg incubators are setup

Yeah, that's the discussion we had last fall in my original post. I was initially going to do that, but if the bulb burns out, everything freezes. I was thinking of using a string of small lights, so if one burned out you could catch it before everything froze.

I guess I don't know about the reliability of these rod heaters either. I suppose they could fail too.

 

[Voi]

And I have no idea how much it cycles on and off (with the thermostat). I'm tempted to wire an indicator light into the circuit next winter just for the sake of science.

I've used a heated floor to ceiling closet in my shop for nearly 20 years. I use a small desk top fan as my indicator and to disperse air throughout the closet. Even with an insulated door on the closet I can usually hear when the fan kicks on while working in the shop.

I'm not sure there is a small enough line voltage fan for your cabinet that would be loud enough to be useful and I'm not even sure such a small space would benefit from the fan. But I thought I'd mention it in case it gives you some ideas.

 

[DonPowers]

Voi asked: "On colder days how hot to the touch would you say the heater gets?"

I recall that it was warm enough that it was uncomfortable to hold your hand on it for more than a few seconds, like the side of a cup of takeout coffee?? What would that be...maybe 140-150 degrees F? Not hot enough to be a fire hazard, but I plan to make some kind of shroud around it anyway.

And I have no idea how much it cycles on and off (with the thermostat). I'm tempted to wire an indicator light into the circuit next winter just for the sake of science. I set the thermostat to 5 degree C and left a thermometer inside and checked it periodically for a few weeks as the temperature outside varied; it was always 5 degrees in the cabinet.

I'm actually quite impressed with that little thermostat. I recall that it was only about 10 bucks and according to the specs, I could run my 220V heater through it, which I find surprising. My 220 heater has a crappy little thermostatic control that's on the back of the heater (hard to reach because of the way my heater is mounted) and very imprecise. I'd love to hook the heater up through a little thermostat like this for easier and more precise control. That's a topic for another post on another day.

Nice job on cabinet.

You could put an inexpensive digital thermometer like the one from the following link. It will provide you with the daily high and low temperature inside the cabinet.
http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?productId=3830955

 

[ambenz]

Nice work on the cabinet!
If I decided to stop heating my garage, I would have all my perishable consumables in a cabinet just like it. I would add a led on the cabinet door to show when the heater is on. And maybe one of those analog duct tempature probes....

.....through a hole in the door to check up on the inside tempature once in a while.
Are you gonna paint it?

 

[LifeLongWNYer]

I guess I don't know about the reliability of these rod heaters either. I suppose they could fail too.


They do. I have two gun safes, each with two heater/dehumidifiers ( so I have a total of 4 heaters ) and I end up replacing one of the heaters every fall.

I use Golden Rods, primarily because that is all that I can find. Don't worry about "customer service", they don't return email or phone calls.



JBP

 

[go4donuts]

I guess I don't know about the reliability of these rod heaters either. I suppose they could fail too.


They do. I have two gun safes, each with two heater/dehumidifiers ( so I have a total of 4 heaters ) and I end up replacing one of the heaters every fall.

JBP

Hmmm...good to know. Thanks. My original idea of a string of light bulbs is seeming like a better idea all the time.

 

[Onewolf]

Heating for a garage. You guys are too funny.

From hot and humid central florida.

 

[eriksalo]

This is great, I am going to install this type of system in one of my metal cabinets. Wonder how it will do without insulation?

 

[Thumper68]

Great idea and looks much better than the fridge that I used to use in my unheated garage. Oh course I had no build time on mine other than cutting away a bit of the door seal to run the cord for the bulb through.

 

[jwhcars]

You could use a fan out of a shot computer.

 

[Stuart in MN]

This is great, I am going to install this type of system in one of my metal cabinets. Wonder how it will do without insulation?

Not nearly as well. A sheet of 1" foam insulation board from the home center is pretty cheap and will make it a lot easier to keep warm.

There are a number of places that sell heaters designed for enclosures (mainly for electrical or control purposes but they could be for any industrial purpose.) A couple sources are:

http://www.automationdirect.com/adc...nclosure_Thermal_Management/Enclosure_Heaters

http://www.omega.com/subsection/enclosure-heaters.html

Grainger sells them as well. Other people in previous posts used heaters designed for gun safes, those would work as well.

Remember that in most cases you only need to keep the temperature above freezing, it's not necessary to heat it up to 70 degrees or anything like that.