My shop is 30x48 fully insulated,bought an old 6 burner lennox furnace on lp gas,alway on low through the winter to keep at least around 50 degrees,should someday update to alittle more efficient one.

Thanks for the stove link 345coupe! Right now I'm just using a little kerosene heater which heats the garage just enough to make it bearable. But since I do continually have used oil laying around I'm gonna have to build me one of them oil burners.

The shop is 35 X 65 made from block walls that are filled with insulation and fully insulated ceiling and doors. Paint room and office are entered thru a doorways. There is an oil burning furnace ducted throughout and the thermostat is set on 50 to make sure the pipes do not freeze. The real source of heat is a wood burner that is constructed from 3/16 flat steel. My bud made a box that surrounds the stove pipe. there is a heat chamber on one side with a squirrel cage glower on it that comes on by a thermostat. The warm air is blown into the shop through a series of 2" X16" exhaust pipes that the hot flue gases pass over on the way up the chimney. The shop stays around 70 degrees, regardless how cold it gets outside. We cut and split our own wood from several hundred acres of woods that surround the shop. We use Locust, which tends to burn hotter and leaves very little ash. Environmentally, we only cut the dead trees, which there always seem to be plenty, since there is a disease that is slowly killing all them, much like the long go Chestnut trees.

Trees

My garage is 24X24, insulated.

I have a wood stove that a friend built from an 15 inch piece of pipe. I burn hardwood skids that I cut up at work. I fish the nails out afterwords.
Doesn't cost me a cent.
Works real well, but a little messy.

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Home Handyman Forum I Shade Tree Mechanic Forum

My garage is attached to my house and heated with the house furnace.

hi guys,just a few notes i made while reading this thread.
kit car , you don't need a separate pump for the garage, all you need is the loop (tubing in floor), and a zone valve, the pump runs whenever you call for heat, the zone valve (with thermostat)opens to let the water go where needed.so basically , you need to hook up the loop, install the valve near the furnace, and run a lead to the thermostst in the shop, you're on your way.
also, bonuts, the easiest and cheapest way to go is to get a 40 gallon oil fired domestic hot water heater, a zone valve, and a circulating pump. the furnace costs about $1000. american, the hot water tank is only about $400. and is more than adequate to heat an insulated garage.For a few dollars more you can get a direct vent set up wich can vent straight out the wall, and this is also the cold air feed to the fire (center of pipe)
remember, in floor heat is very efficient, but is a passive heat, no fans,so it is better to keep the heat at about 50 derees at all times, and turn it up when needed. If it needs to heat all the water up every time, it will take forever and be far less efficient.If you only want heat when in use , go with hot air.

I just got what you all need!!

My wife got me a propane forced air heater for Christmas that I just got a chance to use this weekend. That thing is awesome. Bear in mind my shop is insulated 30x40 with R19 insulation, but on the 50,000 BTU setting it warmed the shop from 30 ish degrees to warm enough I was sweating in a tee shirt in a matter of 30 minutes. I clicked it down to the 20,000 BTU setting which was still too much so I had to cut it off. This thing was only $130 at tractor supply and burns very clean since it is propane. It will run 8 hours on high on a 20 lb cylinder.

Anyway, just thought I would share because I was totally impressed.

Chris

Heat, heat...we don't need no stinkin heat!! Wait till it gets down below zero, theeennn we need HEAT! I use a large wood burner.


Tazz


Rat Rods Rule!

30 X 48 pole barn. Half of it is fully insulated which is where the lathes and machine tools are kept. I use an old house furnace like zonk. Keeps everything very nicely warm at 50 degress and, if I'm going to be out there for a while, I might kick her up to 63 or so. Sure is nice to go out into a warm work shop and not have to worry about condensation and cold tools...
Mark

Right now, I use a Redi-heater with a plug in thermostat. I set the temp on the thermostat and it keeps it cozy. The walls and ceiling have no insulation, and the garage is 22X32 so it is a job to get it warm when it is "really cold" out. But then "really cold" here os 45 deg or less. It's about 25 deg today. That's "TOO COLD". At $2.00 a gal for kerosene, I can't let it runn all of the time. It usually takes an hour or 2 to get comfortable in there. I like to work in a t-shirt!

I like the idea of that used oil heater. One of the trans shops I worked at years ago had one that burned used trans fluid. The boss thought that was the greatest thing since sliced bread. He went from paying to have the stuff hauled away to getting money for what went. We had to open the shop doors sometimes because it got TOO warm in there. Now I have to figure out where I could put one of thise things and have enough room around it, so as to not have a fire hazard.

B K, you are welcome. Let us all know how it turns out. By the way, am I the only one here who thinks it strange that Mother Earth News CONDONES the burning of used oil? Now, if their heater could be modified to burn old tires, we would be good to go.

One thing to remember about Waste Oil Furnaces or Used Oil Heaters is that every business / garage has one and used oil is getting harder and harder to come by. Around here there are tank trucks that drive from business to business wanting to buy their used oil.

Kevin

I use a salamander(torpedo) to get the chill off and then use a KeroSun kerosene heater. works wll for my needs.

I have a 24 x 24 garage that I can barely walk through to work on the old 38. It'll get a much needed cleaning this spring. I have a monsterous stack of wood (pine) for building things that I'll have to put up for sale just to get some extra room. I heat with a Workhorse Bullet/torpedo type heater witha thermostat on it. I only have the garage partially insulated on one wall but I can still work without a coat once it wrms up. I did notice my windows and engine block was sweating a lot. My girnder also wanted to freeze on me so I had to heat it up and blow out the moisture from time to time.

30 X 30 wood frame shop with an 8in concrete pad.. here in alabama I don't need a LOT of heat... but occasionally I do.
R-13 insulation in the walls, AND (thanks to my buddy the HVAC guy..) a 1.5 tun electric heat pump! one return and four vents. ... It's this summer when it gets its real test ... COOLING the garage durring these MISERABLY HOT summers ( I am from ohio... cold doesn't get to me as bad as the 7months of summer that alabama has!)