Installed Dayton 10kw heater

[i8iridium]

Hello all,

I posted before about wanting to install a nat gas heater in my garage. Well, after all the $5k and up estimates, I decided to go with an electrical setup. I figure this year I'll trial it out, and if it's completely awful, I'll sell it and save up for gas.

A little background, it's a 22lx34wx14h three car attached garage with 1 8ft and 1 16 ft door. Everything is insulated. I ran 6/2 romex from the breaker panel to the cutoff switch. and 3 (Black, White, Green) 6ga THHN from the cutoff to the heater. The white is appropriately marked with black tape because it's hot. The garage portion is 3/4" schedule 40 PVC conduit. I decided to to run a portion of the romex through 3 feet of the conduit because I didn't want to put a junction box in the middle for that short of a run. Running conduit the whole length would have been a gigantic pain. Anyway, here's some pics. Feel free to judge me.

 

[HoosierBuddy]

Your key is going to be to limit using it to when you absolutely need it.

If it runs all the time, everyday...at $0.10/kwh you'd be looking at $720/month. Now that's WORST CASE (runs all the time, never can get up to t-stat set point)...but compare that to running 8 hours/day 2 days a week (when you're out in the garage on the weekend maybe) and you'd be at about $65 per month.

The same would be true for gas...but your hourly run cost is going to be about 1/3 that for NG so it isn't nearly as dramatic.

Phil

 

[matt_i]

It looks really good. But I like the 2-hole "saddle" style clamps. The split-standoffs are just fine, totally legal, work great, but those raised sharp metal edges can be a man killer at some point when you are least expecting it. I've been wounded by several

If you are in a place that has cheap hydro electricity (tennessee comes to mind) it might not be a big deal to heat with electric.

 

[Showkey]

The same would be true for gas...but your hourly run cost is going to be about 1/3 that for NG so it isn't nearly as dramatic.

Phil

Think in many locations electric is twice the cost of NAT GAS per million BTUs

 

[PoorOwner]

The install looks good, however I am in disbelief at the notion of a 10KW electric heater. If i run both zone of our AC at the same time they use 5KW each so that's 10KW of electricity. That's enough power for ancient AC to cool about 4000 sq ft of space. Refrigerant based heating (heat pumps) beats resistance heat anytime.

In CA I am paying .28 per KW so $3 per hour is not really going to be realistic for anyone in my state.

That said how did you figure you need that size of heater? I had the dayton G73 on a 2 car garage uninsulated walls, and that would get the garage warm in no time when it's 30s outside. I know you have a higher ceiling but seems like the thing is going get the place toasty hot in no time.

 

[Abeo]

Refrigerant based heating (heat pumps) beats resistance heat anytime.

That said how did you figure you need that size of heater? I had the dayton G73 on a 2 car garage uninsulated walls, and that would get the garage warm in no time when it's 30s outside. I know you have a higher ceiling but seems like the thing is going get the place toasty hot in no time.

Heat pumps have declining benefits in colder temperatures, to the point where it becomes resistance heating only.

I have one 4800W plus two 1500W heaters. Well insulated garage. At -20, it barely keeps up.

 

[i8iridium]

My plan isn't to run it all the time. I figure with it being a full time garage, it wouldn't be cost effective to run it all winter. One time the door is open, all the heat is gone. The weekend project is all it's for.

I looked long and hard at the mini-split systems and between reading on here and research elsewhere, I figured it wouldn't work for me. On the coldest day here, it would take such a long time to heat the place up, before it's comfortable to work, it wouldn't be worthwhile. I would need multiple units, and then I'm back at the initial cost of the gas. I have a gigantic slab of uninsulated concrete working against me. The size might be overkill, but I figure with electric it wouldn't hurt to have a hard blast of heat to get things up to temp quickly. I don't have to worry about the same issues as an over sized gas furnace. I also have two 56" fans to help circulate the heat, so it doesn't go straight to the ceiling.

 

[matt_i]

Heat-transfer units (minisplits) as I recall, fit roughly this: 100% rated heating output down to 50F exterior ambient. Then a linear drop off in performance to zero heat transferred at 0F.

So, roughly, at 25F for 100% full load input amps you get 50% of the rated BTU transfer capacity. Not nearly enough imo when you are in a colder climate. Some units have backup electric integrated but its not going to be a 10kW backup in a minisplit...

 

[HoosierBuddy]

Think in many locations electric is twice the cost of NAT GAS per million BTUs

I worded that poorly.

Here in my area, natural gas is roughly 1/3 the cost of power when comparing $/BTu directly to $/KWH.

Phiol