Heater timer, i.e. run for 6 minutes every 90 minutes?

[porcupine73]

I see many people want a low temperature thermostat for the garage. How about a timer that runs the heater for say 6 minutes every 90 minutes or something like that? It might be enough to maybe keep the area a bit above ambient. Anyone know of such a timer that would be adjustable to do something like this?

 

[CARS]

http://www.farmtek.com/wcsstore/EngineeringServices/allbizunits/techdocs/109198.pdf

Will that work?

 

[CARS]

Started to think about that for a couple minutes. That would be a bad idea, even with the floor limit set low. Let's say one day is 30 and the next 60. How is it really going to know? (that is where the floor sensor limit comes in I would guess, but then if your sensor is set low and the temp goes to sub zero, the timer would keep the heater from keeping up).

Why not just get a low temp thermostat??

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004N7712Q/?tag=atomicindus08-20

That one goes down to 35 degrees.

 

[porcupine73]

That thermostat is interesting. I saw the pump switch, to run the boiler pump one minute every 24 hours if it hasn't kicked on, to keep the pump from seizing. My parent's boiler pump seizes every couple years but it doesn't have this feature.

Right, with a purely time based set up, it would not know the outside or inside temperature. The idea would just be in the winter it would keep the inside temp some amount above the outside temp. The thought there would just be to try to cut down on moisture/condensation without having a set temperature in mind. Sort of like space heaters in electrical equipment.

 

[Sureshot]

You would think that somewhere there is a cheap programable way to do this. It might even look at the forecast, inside, outside temps, wind speed, floor temp, attic temp, minimum run time on the pump, day/night, sunset, or any other input you could think of. I am sure a plc could do it but something $100 or less plus some optional sensor costs maybe.