Heating Garage w/ Dryer

[Burley]

I know, I know.. Humidity makes mold but hear me out.

My garage is detached and unheated, and I'd like to purchase a very inexpensive used *electric* dryer to use on the occasion that I need to get some work done in the garage. I live in Iowa, so currently ambient temps are 0f (30 in garage), and my concrete walled 2 story garage already has 220v outlets. I already have a "vent-less" propane heater built into the wall, and although it gets my garage up to the mid 50s, I worry a bit about the carbon monoxide (dioxide?) or whatever it is that kills you. On top of that, its very slow to heat, and propane only lasts a month.

If I buy a cheap used electric dryer and hook up the vent hose to a 5 gallon bucket filled w/ water and drill holes in the top (filtered) I bet I can heat my space while using the same amount of electricity we are already using to dry clothes. I've seen many on Craigslist for $50.

Am I crazy? Everything I've read says its a bad idea, and mold will grow. My garage is fairly large, and since the walls are 12" of concrete (covered in slat board) I'm not super worried about mold. Snow melt gets everywhere, and in the summer the floor sweats.. I've never had mold problems aside from items that have been sitting for 7-8 years. The second floor is terribly uninsulated, which may help vent the moisture.

I keep burning out thermostats on basement dryer, so this would keep my wife happy having a backup dryer while I do monthly maintenance.

Someone walk me off this cliff. Here are some quick photos of the space in question.

 

[mike93lx]

terrible idea. you'll dump a ton of humidity into the space, plus you are telling me your or your wife is going to carry wet, clean clothes out to a detached garage, then clean clothes back?

are you planning to run it constantly? how could this possibly maintain a temp?

just get a small, electric 5kw heater and run it when you need it.

 

[SweetD]

I'd work on the terribly uninsulated space above first. And it's carbon monoxide that kills. Hopefully you have detectors for that where you need them?

I agree to just get an electric heater appropriately sized for your space.

Cool looking garage btw!

 

[Copymutt]

Get ready for rusty tools. Cant think of a worse option.

 

[laser3kw]

I burn a propane construction heater in my 30 x 40. I was worried about CO so I got a CO detector. Last Saturday, my garage started out at 22° and I burned my heater On "high" - 80k setting for five hours and brought the temp up to 57°. I checked the CO detector and the display never moved off "0".
I use 30# tanks and normally, on the low setting, 30k, I can get 20 hours (about 5 average days) of burn time per tank. I go thru 3 or 4 tanks per season. I have one on the heater and a full spare.
If I start my snow blower and run it for a few minutes, the CO detector definitely goes up!

 

[ambenz]

My natural gas procom ventless doesn't have issues as it was set up properly. But I do understand propane ventlass does conduct humidity...it you are concerned about monoxide poisoning, call in a pro to regulate the ventless properly. It really is a common issue where owners who question there ventless have NO CLUE how they work or if they were set up properly.
I really think you need to upgrade your propane situation and get yourself a proper heater for the space if you want to get to a constant zone temp in your winter garage. IF you feel electrical heat will be cheaper as a supplemental heat source, go for it... but be aware a dryer takes up 3 times the space a typical electric heater would take up. And the use of a bucket with water is definitely not a way to contain lint...really? I would get a electric oil heater for the smaller footprint and they are cheaper to run...along with insulating your space properly!

You are really putting bandages on a situation where you just need to do it right.

 

[Sevenhills1952]

To me it would be terribly inefficient. For less wattage you could get an electric heater.
I'd do some calculations, propane vs electric where you are. It may be cost effective to put in a larger propane tank and have a vented propane furnace or heater.
Dryer idea is like putting a small refrigerator in window for summer cooling.

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[Tracs]

I thought my ideas were bad...

 

[Burley]

I dont want the space constantly heated, I would just run an extra load maybe once a month to get the temp from 30 to 50. I would be the one who carries the wet laundry, but it beats a cold garage.

This would be very occasional use.

 

[Burley]

To me it would be terribly inefficient. For less wattage you could get an electric heater.
I'd do some calculations, propane vs electric where you are. It may be cost effective to put in a larger propane tank and have a vented propane furnace or heater.
Dryer idea is like putting a small refrigerator in window for summer cooling.

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Those things crank out some serious heat, my basement vent accidentally came off and it was a swamp down there in 20 min.

It might be inefficient, but its not wasted electricity since Im just doing laundry that would normally be done.

 

[JRC3]

That bucket thing won't work. Worse than mold will be the condensation and the resulting rust. Might as well just throw all your side cutters and needle nose pliers away because eventually they won't work anymore. Cold tools and metal in a warming area is a problem...Throw humidity in and it'll be even worse.

If anything, running an empty dryer would be OK, if you sat it in the garage recirculating that air, and not pushing conditioned air out of the house from the basement. When I posted my electric heaters another member posted a DIY version he made from old dryer parts.

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=6185173&postcount=29

Whole threads:
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=357853&highlight=heater
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=347448&highlight=sale

 

[Bogie1632]

Pretty sure that little heater element in the dryer was sized to just get the dryer hot, not heat an entire space like a garage. Besides being an ineffective way to heat your space, can you clarify what you mean:

"If I buy a cheap used electric dryer and hook up the vent hose to a 5 gallon bucket filled w/ water"

Why fill your poorly insulated space with additional water vapor? Lots of more efficient methods to warm your area that a dryer.

V/R
Bogie

 

[mike93lx]

I dont want the space constantly heated, I would just run an extra load maybe once a month to get the temp from 30 to 50. I would be the one who carries the wet laundry, but it beats a cold garage.

This would be very occasional use.

Without insulation, it will be a complete waste

 

[Burley]

Sounds like a bad idea all around, I'll move on to something more useful.. I'm sure my allen wrenches need to be sorted or something.

 

[u2slow]

I'm quite sure the previous owner of my house tried ducting the dryer into the crawlspace for similar heat recovery... bad idea.

If you have a 30A circuit out there, just run a cheap 4800W box heater. They're only $80 or so when on sale.

 

[Burley]

I'm quite sure the previous owner of my house tried ducting the dryer into the crawlspace for similar heat recovery... bad idea.

If you have a 30A circuit out there, just run a cheap 4800W box heater. They're only $80 or so when on sale.

I wasn't worried about cost of buying a heater, but mostly trying to be conscious of my electricity consumption. The only reason this came to mind was because its so wasteful that we're doing laundry (1-2 loads a day because: kids) and the heat just goes outside in 5f weather.

Oh well, propane it is. Yes I do have carbon monoxide detectors, and the only time they've ever gone off is when I'm adjusting the timing on my Jeep w/ the garage closed. I jokingly tell my wife to check on me every hour

 

[p_mori7]

If you have a 30A circuit out there, just run a cheap 4800W box heater. They're only $80 or so when on sale.

↑↑↑ THIS ↑↑↑

Step #1 is to spend a few bucks insulating the garage. You will make it all back and then some just in saved energy to heat the space...either part-time or full-time.

My 16wide x 30deep x 10tall is well insulated, and I heat it with a 5000w shop heater plugged into a 240v outlet. Set at "1" it keeps the garage at 50 degrees.

I also use a high - mounted fan to circulate the air 24 hrs a day.

Warm Moist air = Terrible idea.
Warm Dry air = just what you need.

 

[strutaeng]

I have a detached garage 25x25 that was unheated. I ran water for washer and dryer and one time we had a bad cold snap the pex water lines froze. Didn't burst, but was inconvenient.

Last year I ran natural gas and now have a 50 kbtu heater, that I only run if I work in there, if it gets really cold to prevent frozen pipes. But have always thought about a heat recovery system for our dryer in the winter. There's videos on how to make one. Basically just capture wasted heat energy into the garage. Same idea. Some sort of coiled exhaust duct with a fan. It doesn't get too cold here, but if I lived in a colder climate it would make sense for sure.

 

[engineer2]

For a ballpark estimate in the upper midwest with an insulated garage, you need around 10,000 to 12,000 BTU per car space.

If you want to try a clothes dryer skip the bucket of water thing. Just let it run. A space heater or heaters would be more efficient and take up a lot less space.

 

[Metal-Marc]

I dont want the space constantly heated, I would just run an extra load maybe once a month to get the temp from 30 to 50. I would be the one who carries the wet laundry, but it beats a cold garage.

This would be very occasional use.

I say go for it and report back to us the results!

 

[Burley]

For a ballpark estimate in the upper midwest with an insulated garage, you need around 10,000 to 12,000 BTU per car space.

If you want to try a clothes dryer skip the bucket of water thing. Just let it run. A space heater or heaters would be more efficient and take up a lot less space.

The bucket of water is to catch all the lint, otherwise it makes a huge mess. Just another reason not to go this route.

 

[JRC3]

How much is your electric per kwh? Mine is pretty cheap at 5.5¢ so basically it cost me about 30¢ per hour to run each 5k heater if they are on high. How much does a dryer pull, 3K or so? You really wouldn't be saving much capturing that hour or two dryer exhaust anyways.

How are you feeding the current propane heater, small tank or house propane? How much is that propane per unit?

 

[engineer2]

The bucket of water is to catch all the lint, otherwise it makes a huge mess.

OK, I misunderstood. I thought you were running the dryer empty as a source of heat and didn't know you were drying clothes as well.

 

[Shiftless]

An electric clothes dryer just running empty in the garage would take cool air from the garage, heat it up, and throw the warm air out the vent hose which you could route to under your workbench or any other spot. Dryers are big compared to actual electric heaters. I wouldn’t go with the dryer unless I had lots of unused space and a free dryer.

A typical electric dryer cranks out about 20,000 BTU’s A small 240 volt heater is usually about 5000 watts which is about 17,000 BTU’s.

Like the others have said, drying clothes in that dryer would dump lots of moisture into your garage possibly leading to mold and rust.

Any unvented propane or natural gas powered will pump a lot of humidity into your space. A typical 30,000 BTU natural gas heater will add about 5 gallons of water into the air for every 24 hours of run time.
Burning hydrocarbon fuel gives off carbon dioxide and water vapor (and maybe some other gasses). It’s unavoidable. That’s chemistry.

 

[Glemon]

Back in the seventies first energy crisis they sold a little air diverter for the dryer vent hose. We got one and I installed it. The dryer was on an back room added on to the house, three exterior walls, lots of windows, and very poorly insulated. Opening the diverter warmed it up in a hurry. It also pumped a ton of moisture in the air, windows and walls dripped.

It might work if you just ran it with no clothes, the thing is designed to pump hot air, but with a load you are going to add a lot of moisture to everything in the garage. Give it a shot if you want, but I think it will get a little too wet.

 

[DGersic]

Back in the seventies first energy crisis they sold a little air diverter for the dryer vent hose. We got one and I installed it. The dryer was on an back room added on to the house, three exterior walls, lots of windows, and very poorly insulated. Opening the diverter warmed it up in a hurry. It also pumped a ton of moisture in the air, windows and walls dripped.



It might work if you just ran it with no clothes, the thing is designed to pump hot air, but with a load you are going to add a lot of moisture to everything in the garage. Give it a shot if you want, but I think it will get a little too wet.

My parents bought one of those. I think we used it once. It did provide a small heat source, which didn’t do much for an unfinished basement. It also pumped a ton of moisture and lint in to the air, which Dad figured probably wasn’t a healthy thing to be breathing.

Looks like they’re still selling them. What I remember looked just like this one.





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[firebirdparts]

Here that would actually be cheaper to run than propane, even when propane is pretty cheap. It's a good idea, really. You won't need any bucket of water, and I'm not sure why you'd even think of such a thing. The dryer can be used to create humidity, which would be comfortable, but the best way to do that is just wash a load of clothes and throw them in it. I assuming you have to wash clothes sometime anyway. But you don't need clothes. You need the heater, and that'll work when it's empty.

There won't be any lint, honest.

 

[sjvicker]

Another option is a cheapo diesel heater from eBay. Just bore a hole through your concrete wall and pop the exhaust through.

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[Shiftless]

Don’t forget that you could buy the off road diesel fuel (dyed red) for a lot less per gallon since it avoids lots of tax. Here in CA you’d save about a dollar a gallon.

 

[Joemctag]

What I’m hearing is that OP actually is interested in saving heat from dryers that he sees going to waste. He knows he can heat his garage a lot of other ways. I think that a lot of the heat is staying inside anyway, heating the machine and the clothes. But I’d say, sure, put in a used one. Just vent it outside. Dryers aren’t made to push the exhaust through water. Might have to run longer, IDK. Machine probably has something so if heat builds up it doesn’t melt all your wires or something. I wouldn’t leave it unattended with the bucket-of-water thing. But, yeah, seriously, let us know how it turns out.

 

[Joemctag]

Another advantage of dryers in the garage is that in the summer your AC doesn’t have to remove all that heat.

 

[Daniel Dudley]

I would bet you could walk into your local box store today and walk out with a plug in 220 volt heater in five minutes. They do the job and are affordable for occasional use.

 

[Daniel Dudley]

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=220+port...520119&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_120p1vukjq_b

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XOZN7A/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[HoosierMark]

I have a simple smaller 220 heater in my 3 car garage in SE Indiana It is set to keep the garage about 40-45. It hardly runs but garage is insulated and drywalled. I have a well insulated 36 x 60 pole barn that runs at 40 or above without any heat when temps are in teens for a few nights. I recommend insulation as the long term goal.

 

[racecougar]

I burn a propane construction heater in my 30 x 40. I was worried about CO so I got a CO detector. Last Saturday, my garage started out at 22° and I burned my heater On "high" - 80k setting for five hours and brought the temp up to 57°. I checked the CO detector and the display never moved off "0".
I use 30# tanks and normally, on the low setting, 30k, I can get 20 hours (about 5 average days) of burn time per tank. I go thru 3 or 4 tanks per season. I have one on the heater and a full spare.
If I start my snow blower and run it for a few minutes, the CO detector definitely goes up!

Same experience here. I run a tank top propane heater in my 30'x60'x12' shop to get it up to temp, then maintain it with an electric 5kW unit. My CO detector never registers a reading with the propane heater, but if you fire up a car, even with the overhead doors open, it shows a CO level almost immediately.

 

[glentre]

I don't think the OP has a bad idea at all, except that a dryer vent stuck into a bucket of water will blow water everywhere and create a huge mess. Years ago, I too used the same kind of diverter shown in post 26 above except mine had a large fabric sock on it instead of the flat filter shown. Because of the larger surface area, mine collected a good amount of lint and there was no problem with loose lint in the room. Using a diverter would allow the OP to vent outside when he's drying clothes and to direct the air into the garage when not drying, thus resolving the humidity problem so he could use it without a sock if he wanted to. He could also do a combination of both depending on how much humidity his garage could handle without having condensation form on everything .

If he can pick up a cheap dryer or one for free and has the space for it, I don't think he has a bad idea at all.

Glen

 

[racecougar]

Those dryer diverters won't pass fire/building codes in most locations, as they are a known fire hazard.

 

[Captain Spaulding]

A properly working propane heater doesn’t produce carbon monoxide. It does consume oxygen and produces roughly the same amount of water as the propane it consumes. Most likely the dryer will put less moisture into the shop than the propane heater per BTU produced.

For the curious, here is the reaction for the properly adjusted combustion of propane:

C3H8(propane) + 5 O2 → 3 CO2 + 4 H2O + Heat

No CO.

If something is wrong, in this case 5%less oxygen consumed in the combustion, you will get some CO:

2 C3H8 + 9 O2 → 4 CO2 + 2 CO + 8 H2O + Heat

This is why the CO detector and low oxygen shutoff are important, along with regular cleaning and maintenance of the heater.

 

[glentre]

Several comments that using an electric space heater is more efficient than using a clothes dryer. What difference would it make? Electricity is used to heat a coil of wire in both instances. How can one be more efficient than the other? Asking because I don't know.

Glen

 

[Dustball]

I wasn't worried about cost of buying a heater, but mostly trying to be conscious of my electricity consumption. The only reason this came to mind was because its so wasteful that we're doing laundry (1-2 loads a day because: kids) and the heat just goes outside in 5f weather.

Oh well, propane it is. Yes I do have carbon monoxide detectors, and the only time they've ever gone off is when I'm adjusting the timing on my Jeep w/ the garage closed. I jokingly tell my wife to check on me every hour

If you're doing 1-2 loads dryer loads every day, you may want to consider having a gas line put in and changing from electric to gas.