Electric heater for my garage?

[zr600]

What would you guys think of this heater for my garage it is 34x30. It is a Ouellet 10,000 watt heater with a fan. Found it at northern tool.
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200316377_200316377

 

[Mafesto]

I am a big fan of electric heat, everything we have is electric....house, garage, shop & man cave.
However I don't think it's the most economical if you don't get a special rate from your electricity provider. We pay a little over half the regular rate for our heating kw usage.

Also, I don't advise using all of your spare capacity in your breaker box, you may regret it later. (consider plugging it into a welder outlet & simply unplugging the heat when welding to conserve breaker box capacity)

 

[sledboy82]

one difference between elect. and gas is the recovery time. elect. heater will take about 3 times longer to heat up the garage vs gas. if your going to be drinving in and out of your garage all day then i would go gas. just my 2 cents

 

[Ex-Member]

yeah, a gas-fired heater is going to heat that space far faster and more efficiently than an electric heater will.

Electric heaters work great for small rooms, offices, etc.... not so great for garages.

 

[jimmy buffet]

save money with the electric heater now and if you bought the gas heater you come out the same next year.... electric is not cheap.....plus what everyone else said.....but if you dont want to run a gas line and space is insulated well get a bigger electric.... almost double your watts.....but then you need 220 and wired to the box....


good luck.......

 

[Mafesto]

one difference between elect. and gas is the recovery time. elect. heater will take about 3 times longer to heat up the garage vs gas. just my 2 cents

yeah, a gas-fired heater is going to heat that space far faster and more efficiently than an electric heater will.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but 2 heaters of equal btu's (one gas & one electric) will each produce the same amount of heat.

save money with the electric heater now and if you bought the gas heater you come out the same next year.... electric is not cheap.....plus what everyone else said
good luck.......

For many users this is correct, however as I said in my original post, many electricity providers have "special" rates for electric heat, check with your local provider to find out.

Plus if you remember a couple of winters ago, people were throwing out perfectly good fuel-fired furnaces to install electric because of high nat. gas, propane & heating oil prices.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to promote one over the other. I am just trying to ensure the info you are getting is accurate.
On that note, get some advice from a local HVAC contractor. That will be more suitable to your needs than what any of us on here tell you.

 

[143777]

If you go electric with a pigtail to plug into welder outlet, check the prongs for being tight about once a year. I almost lost my shop because they will work there way loose.

Steve

 

[151Viper]

I have a garage similar in size (28 X 36) and I have used my 10,000 watt electric heater to heat it and it does just fine. The general tule of thumb for electric heat is 10 watts per square foot. So theoretically your garage is going to require a 10KW electric heater. If I remember right this heater was costing me about $50 per month to heat my garage to about 45-50 degrees all of the time and higher at least once a week to work out there. I am not on a reduced electric rate as others have mentioned. I don't think a 10KW electric heater would be a bad choice.

 

[zr600]

Ok thanks for all the advice. I ordered the heater when i get it here and get it installed i'll let you all know how it works.

 

[opus]

I am a big fan of electric heat, everything we have is electric....house, garage, shop & man cave.

What happens when you lose power for a week straight?

 

[Jeff C]

What happens when you lose power for a week straight?

The electric fan in your gas powered unit will not work either..........

 

[zr600]

If i loose power for a week my garage heater is proably the least of my worries. Hopefully i like.

 

[Mafesto]

What happens when you lose power for a week straight?

4 years ago we had an ice storm the weekend of Thanksgiving.
We were without power for 4 plus days (many others were blacked out longer).
Anyway, I used a "sunflower" heater for a few hours a day to take the edge off.
House would get down in the 40's at night, but the sun would warm it up a bit during the day.
Dog even slept under the covers with us one night!!

Neighbor has a propane deep fat fryer, we cleaned out our freezers & ate like kings!
Never ran out of booze either!
Looking back it was kinda fun!

I do have a generator now, so we will have the basics if it happens again.

 

[zr600]

Well was working out there all nite tonite, and the heater worked great didn't even run that much. It was like -3 out and i only had it on the second setting after warming it up. I was only wearing a t shirt with a long sleeve shirt over it. I don't know what my elctric bill will be affected yet, but so far i am impressed what this little heater throws out for heat. I might put in a ceiling fan of some type to help get the warmer air up near the ceiling to circulate a little more.

 

[aebsledder]

My little electric heater works great too. My buddy who is an hvac contractor tried to talk me into a gas fired, but the initial investment was way more than I wanted to spend. I spent about 200 bucks, wired it in and it works phenomenal. I usually only use it about 5 times a month when I am pretending to work on my sled anyways.

 

[zr600]

Got the first electric bill holy smokes. It tripled the wife wasn't to happy. I don't know what i should do. The heater doesn't have a temp thermastat on it just 1-5 settings always had it on 1 unless i was out there working which wasn't that much. I'm thinking about getting a thermostat for it so i can set it at 35. It was way warmer in there then 35 proably more like 45-50. I would really like to be able to keep everything from freezing in the garage. It was nice having it that warm though.

 

[151Viper]

I have a garage similar in size (28 X 36) and I have used my 10,000 watt electric heater to heat it and it does just fine. The general tule of thumb for electric heat is 10 watts per square foot. So theoretically your garage is going to require a 10KW electric heater. If I remember right this heater was costing me about $50 per month to heat my garage to about 45-50 degrees all of the time and higher at least once a week to work out there. I am not on a reduced electric rate as others have mentioned. I don't think a 10KW electric heater would be a bad choice.

I figure mine cost me $60 last month and I kept mine at 50F and turned it up to about 65F a few days to work on stuff and then back to 50F. How well are you insulated? That may be a factor. Now if you want to talk expensive I have floor heat setup using a water heater. I turned that on last winter and got a $500 electric bill. That hurt.

 

[duffman]

I have an insulated three car garage (can't remember the dimensions) and put a twenty dollar wally world space heater in it. Keeps it about fifty degrees unless it is damn cold outside or I am in and out all day. Poor little thing runs all the time; I keep thinking it is going to choke but it keeps running. Costs about $25/month to run but I have .03/kilowatt power here.

 

[151Viper]

I just got an electric bill today and it looks like my garage heater cost me $100 last month. It is running on .07 per KW electricity. They also hit me with a $27 "renewable energy correction" WTF.