My garage is a fairly small 2 car with a low roof and has an oil furnace in it. The furnace hasn,t been used in at least 5 years. I bought the house 1 1/2 years ago. I,m not to sure about using the furnace. I have a gas fireplace which i took out of my house, my question is can a gas fireplace be used in a garage safely? I have no experience with an oil furnace so i hesitate to get it ready to run. I also have no idea what is in the oil tank as its been outside the garage. I,d appreciate your thoughts.
Definitely use gas if you have it and scrap the oil fired stuff. The gas fireplace is not the right way to go either, because it sounds like an older unit and wont have direct vent.Besides, it's designed for ambiance and not to heat a room. Best advice I can give you is buy a high efficiency house furnace . Extremely simple to install, and will vent directly out side using special PVC pipe which you can get at Home Depot (System 636). If you own the house and it is detached, you can legally do the install yourself as long as you have it inspected afterwards. It will be safe, wont void your house insurance in case something happens, and will give you trouble free service for the next 15-20 years. Not sure how small house furnaces come in, but something in the 30-40000 BTU range will be more than enough and will be very cheap to run.
Rather than a Hi Fi house furnace, which is really not a bad idea, I would go with a Hot Shot type unit. It is really a small unit heater and is designed for garages and vents the same way as a Hi Fi furnace. It will hang from the ceiling and not take up any floor space.
There are many ways to do this and you can do most of them yourself as described above.
I do think that there are fairly strict codes that must be followed for insurance coverage in a shop or storage area where cars are involved. The gas unit that I hung in my shop(that isn't hooked up yet) has a plate riveted on that states that the unit must be installed no less than 8 feet from floor level.
**Look into that before you do any purchasing or install work.
With your low ceilings you might find something that will fit in the attic space and force air down through ceiling vents. You shouldn't need a huge BTU rating for a two car garage - a pal of mine has a 26X26 shop with 8' ceilings and uses a hanging gas furnace thats maybe 24"X30"x 12"deep at the most and it has no trouble keeping up. He actually keeps it at 10 degrees when he's not in it or not going to be in there too long and it hardly ever comes on.
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I am running two Mr Heater MAXX 80K units in two separate areas and I love them. They are efficient and fast to recover the area. For a two car garage, you could go with the 50K unit and if you watch the TSC ads, they are inexpensive when on sale. I have several friends using the same unit and we are all happy with them.
Why not use the oil . It's already there and easier to fix as a home owner than gas. If you run out of fuel , you can go to a gas station and get fuel. Pm me and I can help you get the furnace going. I'm a heating guy. I too use oil. I only use a quarter tank of fuel to heat my garage , all year . And no payments to a gas company for the meter , during the off season.
-- Edited by Mr Samis on Wednesday 9th of April 2014 06:59:20 PM
Got an older fisher woodstove in my shop, works great but theres a lota work when you use wood ,,cutin splitin stackin ,but theres nuthing like a hot stove to warm your bones,,,,
Why not use the oil . It's already there and easier to fix as a home owner than gas. If you run out of fuel , you can go to a gas station and get fuel. Pm me and I can help you get the furnace going. I'm a heating guy. I too use oil. I only use a quarter tank of fuel to heat my garage , all year . And no payments to a gas company for the meter , during the off season.
-- Edited by Mr Samis on Wednesday 9th of April 2014 06:59:20 PM
He probably already has gas, so he'll get charged the monthly fee regardless. Getting rid of the oil tank will also get him a rebate on his home insurance policy. The price of oil is almost 4 times the cost of gas, and even when they raise the price he will still be further ahead. IMO
My shop is 2500sq/ft, and converted last year to gas, Used to cost about $9-$10/ day to heat it, now it's about $2.60. Big difference. Thankfully my house will be changed over next month.
FYI; I just checked on those "Mr Heater Maxx" furnaces, and they are only 80% efficient, compared to 95.1% for a house furnace. Also, the venting for a house furnace can be done through the PVC tubing.
-- Edited by hemi43 on Wednesday 9th of April 2014 08:44:34 PM
The MR Heater units put out a lot of heat in a hurry. However the amount of heat coming out the exhaust says something about their efficiency. I replaced one in a buddies garage and couldn't believe how hot, really hot, the exhaust outside was.
(his blower motor failed after 13 years. I guess that's not bad.)
-- Edited by DaveM on Thursday 10th of April 2014 09:14:16 AM
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I'm using a "HOT DAWG" ceiling unit heat for the last 4 yrs, keep garage at 50F, 900 sq. ft double 24' x36' & costs very little to heat, well insulated & takes no time to bring it up to 65F!!!!
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