"Troy" wrote in message
...
I'm wondering with winter roaring in, whats the safest way to heat my
refrigerator of a 2-car garage. It has roll-up doors so theres some gap
there. It's insulated on some walls and not on others, and covered
with 1/2" plywood. It has about a 6" "flue vent" from the previous
owner where apparently they used to have a wood stove, but now that
would be in my office space, so not much help to the shop itself.
I'm still working on a good dust collecting method, but with sub-zero
temperatures coming I really don't want to freeze my fingers off.

Troy

If you face sub zero winter temps then the first thing you should look at is
properly insulating the building and addressing the gaps in the overhead
doors. You can put all the heat you want into a building but if it won't
hold the heat or it allows that nice fresh air inside through gaps, it'll
never feel nice and warm. Lots of waste there, in either money or effort
depending on whether you buy your heat or chop it.

After that, there is no such thing as the best way to heat. Start by
thinking about what form of heat you already have for the house - can you
bring that out into the garage? If not, how about propane? How big is the
garage? There are some very good ceiling mount systems out there if you're
interested in that option. Good way to conserve floor space.

Unless you are independently wealthy or can generate your own power, I'd
suggest staying away from electric.

I have an older, but very well maintained propane furnace in my garage. I
do woodworking, autobody repair, mechanical repair, etc. in my garage with
no problems and all the heat I want. My garage is 36x26 and is very well
insulated, with good, insulated metal clad doors. Works very well in
Northeast winters. More modern units are more efficient than mine and
typically smaller. If I were to replace mine it would be with a more
modern, ceiling mount unit. Mine is the size of a small refrigerator and it
is mounted in a corner about a foot off the floor.

I use more solvents in the course of painting one car than most woodworkers
use in the course of a year and I generate more very fine dust than any wood
sanding process will ever generate. You will likely hear a lot about open
pilot lights and concerns for solvents and other explosion concerns. Most
of these (though not all) are not valid concerns. A little research into
the required ratios of vapors and/or dust to air volume will provide you
with a great deal of information that can steer your confidence in any
particular heating solution.

I went with propane because it was easier, and because I had been given the
furnace by a friend who is a heating contractor. It came out of a facility
where it had received annual maintenance by his company and it was on an
upgrade cycle. The price was certainly right and I already had propane for
the kitchen stove and oven, so it was easy to simply have a larger tank
placed by the propane company. Not as efficient as fuel oil, but I didn't
have to trench over to my basement, purchase and install all of the copper,
etc. I keep it throttled back to the lowest setting unless I'm going to be
working out there. At that, it keeps the garage above 40 through the worst
of the weather. So, it does not take more than a few minutes to bring it up
to 70.

So, there's my thoughts. But... get that place insulated.

--

-Mike-