[guest]

well it hit 34 degrees the other morning.. and im starting to think about heat for the garage...


The best thing would be a wood stove.. but im kind of leary about putting a wood stove out there for safety...


so for now im looking at kerosene...

Home depot sells one for 120$

<img src=http://www.homedepot.com/cmc_upload/HDUS/EN_US/asset/images/eplus/164149_3.jpg>


heres one from northern tool.. looks & costs about the same..

<img src=http://www.northerntool.com/images/product/images/173405_lg.jpg>



Ive never used a kerosene heater.. seems simple enough to be able to just leave it in the center of an open area.. while i am watching it...





harbor freight is selling this wood stove for 130$

<img src=http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/photos/32000-32099/32058.gif>



nothing beats a wood stove.. but for safety i am leaning towards kerosene.. and if i were to get a wood stove id want something where i can watch the fire... i think a wood stove like the one im wanting would cost much more.. but i do have plenty of trees and could run the stove all winter for nothing..



any disadvantages to using kerosene?? besides maybe smell? any real issues with a wood stove? besides safety??

 

[Live Oak]

SJ, I have 3 kerosene heaters I use as back up heat during really cold snaps or a quick boost in heat first thing. They are very convienient and very fast at getting a great deal of effective heat going fast.

They are relatively maintenance free but do require replacement of the wicks and cleaning very infrequently. I have some heaters that I have used for over 10 years on the same wicks.

It is a good practice to periodically burn the heater dry to clean the wick as it will start drawing kerosene slow if you don't.

If you have any buddies who work around aircraft and get waste Jet-A or JP-8; this fuel works really well. Puts out even more heat but does not last as long.

For your garage, I think they will be a good choice as a wood stove takes a long time to get going and and long time to go out. They are designed to be kept burning for long periods of time. I keep my wood stove burning for months at a time during winter. The kerosene heaters you can turn on and off as you need.

They do smoke and stick a lot on shut down and a bit on start up but once going, they are pretty much odorless if burning correctly.

I would think you will probably need two of the 23,000 btu kerosene heaters for your garage; at least on cold days.

 

[Live Oak]

Something else you may want to consider depending upon how much money you spend heating your garage is a corn or wood pellet stove. These stoves a expensive but the fuel is really cheap, especially corn.

For occasional use heating though, I would thing the kerosene is the best option.

 

[Rodster]

What is the size of your garage?
Rodster
:question:

 

[guest]

Originally posted by Rodster
What is the size of your garage?
Rodster
:question:

26*38 as for heat, it would not need to be up to living conditions.. (65-70 degrees)
i would need just enough to make it ok to hang out there.. 45-60 degrees..

 

[Rodster]

Hi John
I just have a standard size two car garage. I used to use the kero salamander type heaters. they heat fast and burn clean if you burn the good kero. trouble was the noise and the fact that
they would heat the garage good but the floor was always cold as the heat just went up. I spend a lot of time in the garage so I finally went with a forced air natural gas heat. It is quiet and the floor is warm plus the cost is a fraction of buying kero. The cost is a lot more but the quality of heat is worth it. Just depends how much time and what you do out there. Here is a picture of my set up.
Rodster

 

[ducati996]

Its overkill but look at something simliar to the Franco Belge unit
which i posted somewhere in this forum....its the unit for gravity fed home heating oil (diesel) units.....

I have a relative that I helped locate a unit here, and brought it up to New Hampshire...its the 41,000 BTU unit which dosent require any electricty, just gravity fed fuel....it heats 2,500 sq ft
and in a month only uses 15-20 gallaons on medium to high settings...set it and forget it literally for the winter

There are other types of units that do similar methods, some use blowers to disperse the heat (which requires A/C) I stayed away from that type. But it may work for others....search and they are out there...

Duc

 

[bontai Joe]

Please just remember that the kero heaters have an OPEN FLAME! A definite NO-NO if using solvents, pouring gasoline, using paint thinner, spraying paint, or sanding wood that will create a lot of airborn dust. All of which can cause an explosion.

 

[Chipmaker]

I don't think a wood stove is any more dangerous than a kero heater, but I think a kero would be better as chief stated......but if it was me, and I lived there and had the cold conditions, (and I don't like temps to survive in, Ilike real nice warm temps to work in and be around in a shop) I would probably go with a good air tight wood stove, not the crap HF sells.........

Push come to shove I can cut up pallets, gather scrap wood from construction sites etc if I had to......easier than I could scrounge up sufficient kero to keep warm with. A good stove heats up quick and is easy to light, and maintains a good burn for a long time...........but they are still not as easy to operate as a kero heater is.

Just think, being able to work on yur car with the garage door open and a nice warm interior with a hot wood fire gong, coffee staying hot on the lid, open door roast a weiner, bake a potatoe.........heck all you need is a bedroll and you would never need to go back in the house!:furious: :furious:

 

[Ingersoll444]

I use a Kero heater like that in my garage, and it works pretty good. Is a bit of a smell but not that bad. A good thing is that is you ARE using any solvents, you can shut it off fast, use the cems, then ventlate, and fire it back up quick. Much faster then a wood stove.

 

[ducati996]

I re-found my link....convection heating via home oil

http://www.francobelge.com/gb/indexgb.asp

 

[guest2]

sj
Joe had a good point about the kerosene heaters having an open flame. Sometimes if there is a draft or they're not running right, or running out of fuel, they will belch a flame out the front. Avoid the temptation to stand real close to warm up, your pants could ignite.

Also never block the air flow from behind in an attempt to get more heat. I know you're smarter than the genius' on my route, but I see them do this every winter. Then the cone at the front glows red until it starts to melt and flames shoot out like a crashing jet. All while they continue to spray paint and carb cleaner. It's a good thing God watches out for idiots!

 

[bontai Joe]

I use a kero heater in my basement during the winter if I want to work donw there. It works well, is quick and easy to use and I can shut it off a lot easier than a wood stove (for which I don't have a chimney so can't use, don't want a metal chimney up the side of my house). Some of the new pellet stoves are efficient enough that you don't need a chinmey, just a PVC vent through the wall. They are easy to start, easy to stop and the fuel is available at Walmart (at least in my area). I'm trying (with little success) to save up for one of them, because they deliver more BTUs.

 

[guest]

Originally posted by Chipmaker
Just think, being able to work on yur car with the garage door open and a nice warm interior with a hot wood fire gong, coffee staying hot on the lid, open door roast a weiner, bake a potatoe

Chip.. i could not have said that any better if i'd tried... you should have been a writer..

A wood stove in the garage is exactly what id want to do... But..

For this season.. im gonna have to go with a kerosene heater... maybe next year (if i have any extra money) ill do the wood stove.. that scenario just sounds too good to pass up...



for a cheap easy quick way for warmth ill do kerosene for this winter.. hopefully a future winter will have me sitting by a wood stove drinking a cold one....


cost of a stove:
I called a local fireplace store.. they estimated about $2000 for a complete setup (not installed) $1200 for the stove and 800$ for the bestage pipe (in place of a chimney) no direct or b vent fireplaces.. except for a pellet... but then id be buying the pellets which although easy.. makes no sense considering i have all the wood id ever want to burn out back...



thanks for all the input..

 

[Live Oak]

Corn stoves are cheap to buy fuel for. Corn is about $2.50 a bushel. A bushel of corn woud heat your garage for a several days if not a week if you did not leave it on all the time.

 

[Fusion1970]

SJ...Heres another option to consider. It is a 80K BTU propane convection heater. It is 40K on low, 60K on med., and 80K on high. http://www.reddyheat.com/products/rcp80v.html

I live in central Ohio. I know it gets colder in Maine, but this heater is plenty adequate on the "low" setting. My garage is 21'x23', with a semi-finished ceiling, and finished with R-13 on three of the four sides. When 15 degrees outside, I can get the garage to about 70 within an hour on the low setting.

I know some people do not like them, but I have no complaints whatsoever. It doesn't ever smell, but some have told me that propane produces moisture. To curb this, I sometimes run a small ceramic heater which I just put up on the work bench.

I also would never run a propane heater without an o2 sensor. My car and even my tractor will set it off if I do not back them out soon after starting them...the heater has never once set it off, and I do not open the door for ventilation much at all.

It is also very light, and easy to move around from the garage to the shed. Again, just another idea- but again, I am sold on propane convection heaters. BTW, the heater was under $100 at Lowes.

Greg

 

[guest]

thanks greg.. bob pm'd me this one too..

<img src=http://www.northerntool.com/images/product/images/173607_lg.jpg>


same idea.. he indicated there are no real open flames and that it does not use too much propane..
im gonns take a look at both the propane and the kerosene at Home depot...

Chief i never heard of a corn stove... interesting... do they burn on kernels?

 

[guest]

anybody use one of these style heaters?

<img src=http://rds.yahoo.com/S=96062883/K=propane+heater/v=2/SID=e/l=IVI/SIG=11qnvv2vv/*-http%3A//www.universalheaters.com/images/3500-FACNG.jpg>



The did not have any of the kerosene heaters i showed a pic of originally at HD.. may be a little too early in the season...

they had the propane kind (turkey fryer looking heater) like in the last post.. but those were both made in china..


They sold models like these... both types... that run on either propane or kerosene.

The Turkey fryer looking heater (last post) looks good and sounds like its a great source for a blast of real heat.. but im sort of leary of my dog running into it or getting too hot.

the original kerosene heater (original post) seems to be functional but not a quick source of heat...


a sales guy at HD said he liked this style.. they blow a lot of heat and if i got a propane one.. its odorless...

i sort of like the kerosene becasue although you must refill it often.. and it does have an odor.. it would take up less space than a heater AND a big 40 gallon or a 20 gallon tank..


the heater in this pic.. (or the version they sell at HD) is made in US and i am assuming would put out a good blast of warm heat...

 

[Live Oak]

Originally posted by simple_john
thanks greg.. bob pm'd me this one too..

<img src=http://www.northerntool.com/images/product/images/173607_lg.jpg>


same idea.. he indicated there are no real open flames and that it does not use too much propane..
im gonns take a look at both the propane and the kerosene at Home depot...

Chief i never heard of a corn stove... interesting... do they burn on kernels?

Yes, they burn dried corn kernels.

Corn Heating Stoves

This is a pellet stove but I think it can burn corn as well.

PELLET STOVE/SHOP HEATER

 

[guest]

pellet stoves can be direct vented too...


that would save on a chimney.