Garage heater

[Derek Smith]

I've got an 18' x 10' garage. I'm after an electric heater, one that uses little power, to keep my SLK warm as well as dry over the winter.

Has anyone any recommendations?

[MDMA .]

Garage that size with standard roof works out at 10,000 btu's, or about 3kw to heat up. Running a 3kw oil filled heater wont be cheap. Depends if you want the garage warm or just to take the chill off it.

Edit - roughly £2.77 per day for a 3kw heater.

Edited by MDMA . on Tuesday 29th November 20:10

[kambites]

If you want to keep your garage permanently warm, an electric heater will cost you a fortune to run unless yoru garage is VERY well insulated and draft-proofed. A hydrocarbon burning heater will cost less to run but will make everything damp. You're better off just running a dehumidifier, IMO, and forgetting about heating.

[Derek Smith]

Thanks for the answers.

It's just to take the chill off, to stop frosts and such.

[kambites]

A hefty greenhouse heater is probably your best bet for that, since they come with automatic temperature switches to keep the temperature just about freezing. I'd guess it'd cost you £1-200 a year on the south coast to run if the garage is decent.

[Derek Smith]

kambites said:

A hefty greenhouse heater is probably your best bet for that, since they come with automatic temperature switches to keep the temperature just about freezing. I'd guess it'd cost you £1-200 a year on the south coast to run if the garage is decent.

Ta!

[monkfish1]

Why do you want to keep your car warm. Surely what you actually want is to keep it dry, properly dry.

If you use a dessicant de-humidifier, it will keep it dry, work down to much lower temps than a normal one, and as a bonus, create a bit of heat.

I have one in any garage i keep cars.

Just make sure its reasonably air tight.

This is the one i use. http://www.dry-it-out.com/DD822-Graphite-dehumidif...

[bogie]

My garage is similar size, and insulated well, walls, door, floor etc nearly to residential building regs. I just have a 3kw fan heater in there that I put on for 10 mins when i go in to work on the bikes. After that it gets too warm, soon up to 15 deg ish to work in.

Rest of the time leave it on temp setting of 8 degrees. It only comes on a few times a year and then not permanently. Does not take long to raise the temp a few degrees and it never gets that cold to be fair. Just keeps the real cold and damp at bay as I keep all my bike gear in there too.

A £40 heater from argos or screwfix will do the job just fine.....but the garage needs to be insulated and sealed up well first otherwise you are just wasting money.

[Andehh]

Derek Smith said:

Thanks for the answers.

It's just to take the chill off, to stop frosts and such.

For what it's worth, we have a modern double garage - single skin brick walls, open rafters with an insulated door. Just my car stored in there, and despite -5 degrees here yesterday AM, the garage was still a rather toasty 1.5 degree when I got in the car. This was off the car's readout, as I drove it out of said garage so there is a chance it was 2-3 degrees warmer in there, but the temp dropped with the door open before I read it.

After 3 years of using it, I've never found the car to be frosty/frozen.

[elanfan]

Derek,

Get yourself on fleabay and find yourself a second hand Cair O Port. That should be sufficient but if you then want to put a small tubular electric heater (often seen in toilets) within and put it on a timer so it comes on for an hour or two at night when it's coldest- that way ou only need to warm a small percentage of the garage. Job done.