Heating a detached one car garage

[ramair02]

NJ here... Pretty cold winters

I moved into my house a few months back and am finally getting around to turning my garage into a dual purpose space -- workshop & garage. (I do still need to keep my ZL1 in there! I pull the car out when I'm working.)

It's a very old, single car detached garage (1938). Cement floor, exposed 2x4 wood construction, carsiding on the exterior, two double hung single pane windows.

So, there's likely a lot I need to do to make this a suitable winter shop. What are your recommendations to insulate and heat the space?

Thanks.

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[thin_concrete]

Subscribed - I’m in a similar situation a bit further north.

 

[acer66]

Close all gaps and cracks and add insulation that fits your framing.
ceiling or rafter insulation will help the most.
I am in the process of putting r38 fiberglass batts into the ceiling joists.
Before you do that you might want to check that you got your electric sorted
if you want to run it inside the walls.

 

[Adk Mike]

I have a similar sized shop mine is 20 by 25. I say the best money you can spend is in insulation. I did mine and sheeted it with chip board. Then painted everything shiny white. Heats easy after that. Do that first I say. I use a HD45 Modine Hot Dawg mounted to the ceiling hooked to a Propane tank. Just like being in the house. Can’ Beat it.

 

[ramair02]

Great. Thanks for the advice. Ok, so if I do the Modine HD45, I need to have a gas line run out to the garage. I'll look into that.

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[PhantomEB]

I would follow all of these! Natural Gas line from the house is my vote though. Dunno how often you may go thru a tank or how you will get it filled.

 

[The Cobbler]

properly insulated single car garage does not need 45k heater

 

[dcg9381]

What you need to heat the space depends on what you do to insulate the space.
No idea what the siding is on this guy - or how well it's held up for 80 years.
If it's clean, easiest "one stop" insulation is foam. The roof will be your main source of heat loss and it's not easy to put bat insulation up there.

If have that garage stripped to bare walls, consider foam. If not in budget, consider foam roof deck only and then addressing the walls with bat insulation.

2x4 walls are typically easy to bat-insulate, but the insulation is kinda nasty. And bat insulation doesn't do as well as foam for sealing cracks, but it's way better than just siding.


You can, of course, minimize insulation and simply throw a lot of heat at it... And I'm not discounting this option, it depends on how often you use it and the costs (otherwise) of insulation. Something in-between might work too.

ZL1 - great car.

 

[aventino68]

I'm in similar situation but not on town gas. Like to keep it warm enough in winter 5C to stop freezing and then crank it up to 20C when I want to work in it. If Im not using gas then what else to heat it with.

 

[Locker537]

Can you wire the heaters in question to simply plug into standard 120v outlet?

I'm in a similar situation and I would love to run propane for heat, standard 120v outlet for blower on a heater like the ones mentioned above.

 

[InsanePyro]

Get the biggest torpedo heater you can afford and let 'er rip