Heating a garage for home gym use
Discussion
Im in the process of getting a bench and weights into the garage, a standard up and over door, single garage, with exposed concrete floor and exposed brick/breeze block walls. It has a celing luckily which should help.
There are the standard gaps above and below the door, and generally it is a freezing place to be in during Winter.
I need a heater that will heat it sufficiently to make it comfortable enough to work out in for an hour and a half at a time or so, hoping to get it to go from a freezing garage to a warmish gym in about 30 - 45 mins.
Preferably an electric heater, unless the leccy bills will skyrocket with one? Ive had my eye on:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002GKBXQ2/ref=...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/JCB3UF-3kW-Workshop-Uprigh...
or
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ELECTRIC-INDUSTRIAL-PORTAB...
But with very few reviews on any wanted to find out whether a 3KW fan heater would be up to the job.
Any alternatives would be good as well, trying to keep the spend under £80 but if there's something significantly better Id rather spend more once and get something suitable then spend under £80 and end up needing two, especially if an electric one would cost a ton to use (id expect about 8 hours use a week).
Cheers
There are the standard gaps above and below the door, and generally it is a freezing place to be in during Winter.
I need a heater that will heat it sufficiently to make it comfortable enough to work out in for an hour and a half at a time or so, hoping to get it to go from a freezing garage to a warmish gym in about 30 - 45 mins.
Preferably an electric heater, unless the leccy bills will skyrocket with one? Ive had my eye on:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002GKBXQ2/ref=...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/JCB3UF-3kW-Workshop-Uprigh...
or
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ELECTRIC-INDUSTRIAL-PORTAB...
But with very few reviews on any wanted to find out whether a 3KW fan heater would be up to the job.
Any alternatives would be good as well, trying to keep the spend under £80 but if there's something significantly better Id rather spend more once and get something suitable then spend under £80 and end up needing two, especially if an electric one would cost a ton to use (id expect about 8 hours use a week).
Cheers
Can you not borrow a fan heater of someone to give it a try ? I am no expert but I would have thought the lack of insulation would make it bloody hard for a domestic heater to warm a garage with especially is it's got a steel up and over door with all the gaps around it you would normally have. I think you'd definitely need to do something about the steel door...maybe a simple wooden frame and hang blankets from the ceiling a couple of inches away.
The only comparable I can think of is being in our house mid winter when it was being completely gutted...the builders had something resembling a jet engine to try and take the chill out of the air.
The only comparable I can think of is being in our house mid winter when it was being completely gutted...the builders had something resembling a jet engine to try and take the chill out of the air.
Thanks for the ideas, I could definitely try and improve the insulation, I could do it over time depending on expense.
Im a bit of a DIY disaster zone so wouldnt want to take on too big a job, Im guessing I could get some plaster board panels and screw them to the walls. Unfortunately a dividing wall is out as we need access through the garage, so the wall would need a door, and as the Homer Simpson of DIY that would be more than I should take on (thou as a man, I wouldnt say no to trying
).
I suppose I should take advatage of the fact its the one "room" in the house the wife wont go mental about if I ruin another DIY project.
The garage door might benefit from a door type brush or rubber seal, but would be a pain to put onto a metal door.
Using the existing central heating is a possibility, there is a radiator that runs along the wall between the lounge and the garage, but the electric box is in the garage in line with the heating, plus Id need to get someone in to do that work. It also means redecoration on the lounge after drilling through the wall, and trust me, my missus is still grinding her axe after the, um, small mess I made shortly after we'd had the whole place decorated, not sure I want to propose that to her for another 5 years or so.
Without some insulation, would the fan heater be pretty much ineffective?
Im a bit of a DIY disaster zone so wouldnt want to take on too big a job, Im guessing I could get some plaster board panels and screw them to the walls. Unfortunately a dividing wall is out as we need access through the garage, so the wall would need a door, and as the Homer Simpson of DIY that would be more than I should take on (thou as a man, I wouldnt say no to trying
).I suppose I should take advatage of the fact its the one "room" in the house the wife wont go mental about if I ruin another DIY project.
The garage door might benefit from a door type brush or rubber seal, but would be a pain to put onto a metal door.
Using the existing central heating is a possibility, there is a radiator that runs along the wall between the lounge and the garage, but the electric box is in the garage in line with the heating, plus Id need to get someone in to do that work. It also means redecoration on the lounge after drilling through the wall, and trust me, my missus is still grinding her axe after the, um, small mess I made shortly after we'd had the whole place decorated, not sure I want to propose that to her for another 5 years or so.
Without some insulation, would the fan heater be pretty much ineffective?
Just to add, the hanging blankets is a good idea, might even look at different garage doors, some wooden centre opening sones, but again expense would limit that.
Some old carpet is already on the track down list, but Im starting to worry that this idea may be a no go, I love weight training but doing it in the cold doesnt sound like fun.
Some old carpet is already on the track down list, but Im starting to worry that this idea may be a no go, I love weight training but doing it in the cold doesnt sound like fun.
Why would it be difficult to fit a brush draft excluder to a metal door? All you need is a drill and some self tappers, they probably come in the kit! Once you've plugged up the drafts I would assume that a fan heater would suffice perfectly well given you're meant to be working up a sweat in there 
RichB said:
Why would it be difficult to fit a brush draft excluder to a metal door? All you need is a drill and some self tappers, they probably come in the kit! Once you've plugged up the drafts I would assume that a fan heater would suffice perfectly well given you're meant to be working up a sweat in there
Cheers Rich, Ill do some searches and see what turns up.RichB said:
No, I think people are suggesting you screw some brush type draft excluder to the bottom of the garage doors..
Slightly O/T but I saw this topic because I was thinking about working on mountian bikes in my garage over the coming months.Last winter our water pipe froze by the stop valve. The valve's in the corner of our double garage which is attached to the house on one wall and clearly, since the place was built in 1995, the extant insulation had proved sufficient.
Long story short, I re-lagged the pipes and fitted brush type draugh excluders to the metal door frames - which was a piece of piss. B&Q have a decent selection.
Still thinking it might be nice to insulate the walls, but no idea how...
I use my garage as a workspace and modelling area (Airfix, Tamiya, etc. models!) during the winter. I bought some rolls of "low height" (i.e. thin) loft insulation and stuck them to the walls where I could. Plasterboard went on with some No More Nails where I needed it.
Electric oil filled radiator under the workbench (bench covered in alu foil underneath) at the end on a timer, fan heater on a switch I can operate from inside the house. Radiator is on for an hour each morning and evening to keep a nice temperature in there, then fan heater goes on about half an hour before I want to go in there.
Toasty warm, keeps its temperature even in the coldest weather, and cost me bugger all to do.
Electric oil filled radiator under the workbench (bench covered in alu foil underneath) at the end on a timer, fan heater on a switch I can operate from inside the house. Radiator is on for an hour each morning and evening to keep a nice temperature in there, then fan heater goes on about half an hour before I want to go in there.
Toasty warm, keeps its temperature even in the coldest weather, and cost me bugger all to do.
RichB said:
Digga said:
Still thinking it might be nice to insulate the walls, but no idea how...
Screw batterns to the walls, tack some insutalation between the batterns and then nail plasterboard to the batterns I suppose?
Ill probably try a basic insulation job then, get some insulation and plaster board as suggested, and get some insulation round the garage door.
I was hoping to avoid a DIY job, but it doent sound too difficult, cant be worse than the kitchen sink I fitted, that looked like Jason Voorhees had attacked the kitchen work top while drunk.
So once insulated to some degree, Ill still need some sort of heater, fan heater should be more than up to the job, does anyone have any experience of a good one?
Think Ill use the fan plus some blankets stuffed around the garage door to start with, and then start getting the rest of the insulation in place as time and funds allow.
I was hoping to avoid a DIY job, but it doent sound too difficult, cant be worse than the kitchen sink I fitted, that looked like Jason Voorhees had attacked the kitchen work top while drunk.
So once insulated to some degree, Ill still need some sort of heater, fan heater should be more than up to the job, does anyone have any experience of a good one?
Think Ill use the fan plus some blankets stuffed around the garage door to start with, and then start getting the rest of the insulation in place as time and funds allow.
Edited by Vagabond on Tuesday 26th October 14:41
Firstly try to keep the heat in!
If you've got a suspensded ceiling then chuck some insulation on top of it. As suggested, plasterboard/battens/insulation for the walls, and some insulation on the back of the up and over door. We have a segmented electric door which seals at the bottom and is insulated, works wonders!
Get one of those low power tubular electric heaters. We have one on a thermostat so if it drops below 5c it kicks in. Much easier to heat to a reasonable temperature if it's not below freezing in the first place! Then a fan heater ought to be able to get it up to temp quickly enough.
Beware linking in your central heating as it might have implications for the rest of the house, acting as a heat sink and stopping the rest of the house heating up. My folks were advised not to extend the CH into their conservatory for this reason.
If you've got a suspensded ceiling then chuck some insulation on top of it. As suggested, plasterboard/battens/insulation for the walls, and some insulation on the back of the up and over door. We have a segmented electric door which seals at the bottom and is insulated, works wonders!
Get one of those low power tubular electric heaters. We have one on a thermostat so if it drops below 5c it kicks in. Much easier to heat to a reasonable temperature if it's not below freezing in the first place! Then a fan heater ought to be able to get it up to temp quickly enough.
Beware linking in your central heating as it might have implications for the rest of the house, acting as a heat sink and stopping the rest of the house heating up. My folks were advised not to extend the CH into their conservatory for this reason.
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