portable heater

[orionz06]

anyone use a portable heater? im looking to get a 2 stall garage up to detailing temp in 20 degree weather... any thoughts?

[Junebug1998]

Is the garage insulated? If not your gonna have a hard time keeping it warm in 20 degree weather. I heat a 1.5 car with a 20,000 btu propane heater easily. Can get it up to 75 degrees from 20 in about an hour.

[CharlesW]

I use a 90,000 BTU Kerosene Torpedo style construction heater to heat my 25' x 32' garage. I can raise the temperature 20 degrees in about 15 minutes.
It is noisy and smelly and while carbon monoxide is not a big concern with it, it does use up the oxygen in the air. I run it with my entrance door blocked open about 6" to allow some fresh air to enter the garage. The temperature will stay up for long enough to wash a car with one heating cycle, but for a longer time period, I would need to run it another time or two.
Since I believe products work much better at 50 degrees and above, I don't usually try to do anything but a quick wash when the temperature is much below 30 degrees. A 40 degree day and I can do about anything I want with 15 minutes of heating a couple of times during the process.
The heater looks a lot like this one.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a259/CharlesEW/ReddyHeater2.jpg

[orionz06]

the garage is insulated, but not heated, and consequently cold... i will look into some BTU requirements later... i threw the question out there in hopes of the above answers to lead me in a direction..

thanks!

[CharlesW]

If you can easily get natural gas to your garage, You can find lots of heating units that would do a great job for you. Some are ventless, others mount on a wall and vent through the wall.
If you have a lot of electricity available in your garage, several electric heaters are out there. They would be very easy to install and for no more use than most of us give them, the cost of operation would not be all that great.
Either of those options would be my preference, but.....
I have no easy way to get gas to my garage and it would be expensive to add more electric power as well.
Because of that, I went the portable heater route.
It was cheap & easy, like me. :D

[orionz06]

i need it heated up for 8 hours max... just looking to do some sealing... i can crank the heat up high and it will drop to 50 over a half day or so...


how does that unit work at spreading the heat, or let me rephrase, not directly burning you or anyting in the place?

[jake66]

I got a deal on a used agricultural heater by Hired Hand for $50. It is 225,000 BTU, put it on a rolling pallet with a 100# propane tank. Now I can put it anywhere in the shop (30x40) and instant heat, just need a plug in.

[CharlesW]

i need it heated up for 8 hours max... just looking to do some sealing... i can crank the heat up high and it will drop to 50 over a half day or so...


how does that unit work at spreading the heat, or let me rephrase, not directly burning you or anyting in the place?It is an open flame so you do need to keep flammables away. That will be something you need to do with any type of combustion heat.
The end towards the handle has a heat diffuser cone that the flame goes up against. That cone gets red hot. The heat is dispersed by a fairly high speed fan and I have no problem getting it spread around the room. I only need to place it once and run it, I don't need to move it to direct the heat in an area.
I am careful to not have that heated air blow directly on a vehicle, but 2 to 3 feet away from it won't feel all that uncomfortable if you walk in front of it. About like a hair dryer.
Having that heat blow directly on your paint probably wouldn't be a good idea so I don't.
These are used a lot at construction sites and you might be able to see and hear one in operation.
Maybe not the best solution, but one that has worked for me for over 30 years. (Same heater. :))

[orionz06]

It is an open flame so you do need to keep flammables away. That will be something you need to do with any type of combustion heat.
The end towards the handle has a heat diffuser cone that the flame goes up against. That cone gets red hot. The heat is dispersed by a fairly high speed fan and I have no problem getting it spread around the room. I only need to place it once and run it, I don't need to move it to direct the heat in an area.
I am careful to not have that heated air blow directly on a vehicle, but 2 to 3 feet away from it won't feel all that uncomfortable if you walk in front of it. About like a hair dryer.
Having that heat blow directly on your paint probably wouldn't be a good idea so I don't.
These are used a lot at construction sites and you might be able to see and hear one in operation.
Maybe not the best solution, but one that has worked for me for over 30 years. (Same heater. :))

ive used one before, but forgot all about it...

[RaskyR1]

Propane
DESA Online Outlet (http://products.desatech.com/index.php?cPath=21_22_44_52)

Natural gas
DESA Online Outlet (http://products.desatech.com/index.php?cPath=21_22_44_53)

Most are ventless. :cheers:

[img]

http://www.autogeekonline.net/gallery/uploads/14723/gaslog.jpgcreates a nice detailing atmosphere too

[PaintPolisher]

I hope I can help those of us that are looking at heating for the winter months - here is my research on heating my 24’ X 24” closed in roof garage that I also insulated last year.

The best site that I can offer for information on what may fit your specific heating needs can be found at heatershop…a lot of info and should help on your decision process.

I purchased a Mr. Heater Big Buddy Propane Heater from Northern Tool.
Big Buddy Heater on Sale - $99.99
Fuel Filter - $8.99
AC adapter for fan - $14.99
12’ Hose connector - $27.99
20# Propane Tank - $34.99
Governor’s take - $11.22
Purge & Fill of Propane tank at Ace Hardware - $19.01
Total = $217.18
The researching, shopping at Northern & my first testing = OH Baby life is Good – I am gonna be warm or even toasty from now on.

Testing time frames along with temp’s right out of the box done on Hi setting:
Propane tank located outside of the garage.
Time Inside Outside Wind steady at 10mph - Roswell, Georgia.
2pm 48 42
3pm 68 42
4pm 76 42
5pm 78 42
6pm 82 42

Propane usage by lifting and guessing maybe a quarter of the tank = 5 dollars.
I have been using the Big Buddy for 2 months now Im the MAN :cheers: Im the MAN

[Gobeavs]

I picked up one of these. Takes awhile to heat up the garage as it does not get tremendously hot, but moves a good amount of air. Need 220 though. No fumes like some of the others that have been posted here.
240V electric heater - the Patron E 3 (http://www.heatershop.com/heavy_duty_electric_heater_model_e_3.html)

[Junebug1998]

Something to condider is the cost of operation. Propane is aable to produce 91,330 btu's per liquid gallon of Propane. A 100 lb tank holds approxamitly 24 gallons of propane. A 20lb tank approx 5 gallons. So you can calculate how many BTU's you need for the area then you can determine how what the cost will be. In my garage I run my heater at 20,000 btu's per hour so I get 4.5 hours per gallon x 24 gallons or 108 hours total burn from a 100 lb tank. It cost $85 to fill it from empty so If I use it for 4 hours a day that give me 30 days use for $85. Not very efficient in my eyes but that is the only choice I have.

[CharlesW]

Something to condider is the cost of operation. Propane is aable to produce 91,330 btu's per liquid gallon of Propane. A 100 lb tank holds approxamitly 24 gallons of propane. A 20lb tank approx 5 gallons. So you can calculate how many BTU's you need for the area then you can determine how what the cost will be. In my garage I run my heater at 20,000 btu's per hour so I get 4.5 hours per gallon x 24 gallons or 108 hours total burn from a 100 lb tank. It cost $85 to fill it from empty so If I use it for 4 hours a day that give me 30 days use for $85. Not very efficient in my eyes but that is the only choice I have.None of the portable units are economical to operate, but even if you had a good natural gas furnace, it wouldn't be free.

My 90,000 BTU Kerosene heater is supposed to use .66 gal. per hour.
Kerosene in my area is $4.50 a gallon.
$2.97 an hour so call it $3. (I can do that math in my head :))
That means each minute is costing about a nickel.
15 or 20 minutes of run time per hour would be a high estimate. Once the garage is heated to about 60, it probably only takes 10 minutes of run time every 1.5 hours.
So if it takes 20 minutes for the initial heating ($1) and another 20 minutes for an additional 3 hours (another buck) I should be able to have 4 hours of comfort for $2.
It does take a little electricity for the fan and igniter, but it's only 4 amps during the actual run time.

A quick wash with ONR followed by Aqua Wax takes a little less than an hour. A dollar to do a wash & wax seems like a pretty good deal.

If I just do a Spray & Wipe cleanup, it only takes about 30 minutes. The paint cleaning is much faster with S&W, but wheels and tires seem to take me about 15 minutes no matter how I wash them.