I have a detached single car garage that is 16X 30. The building is used a workshop/ shed and the interior walls are uninsulated and not sheet rocked/finished. The building has a 100 amp Service. A friend of mine is a retired electrician gave me a Berko FFR- 4824-A in wall heater that he bought for a job that he never ended up using. The unit is brand new still in the box but it was manufactured in 1980. The unit is very basic and when I connected it to test it, it worked fine it has a heat/ fan/ off push button switches. The unit is 240V and 4800 watts. My plan is to connect it with a 30 amp breaker using #10 AWG. I only wish to use the heater while I am physically using the shop as am concerned that I will leave it on and a fire could occur. To address this, I was going to install a 30 amp/240V timer switch to turn on and off the unit, that way if I do forget to turn it off, it will run for 2 hours vs. 3 days. I am not concerned with the unit running for a long period of time, I am more concerned with the safety of having a heater running in a shop un-attended. I did some research on a 30 amp/240 V timer switch and they appear to cost around $200.00. I looked at the newer up to date Berko “hanging” heater units and they cost $500.00. My thought here is that a newer and possibly “safer” with more current safety standards. I would still have the issue of the cost of a 30 amp/240V timer switch costing $200.00. Am I thinking about this correctly or should I consider something else. I have used plug in space heaters in the past and they work, but I am concerned I will leave them on un attended. I live in northern NJ and it can get down to the 20’s (Fahrenheit) in the winter.
