Garage Layout Heat

My experience with an attic under similar situations is that adding insulation, if the garage isn't well insulated, is worthwhile before trying to add a heater.  That said, I use a high-efficient ceramic electric heater - don't like the infrared kind: they heat what they project on but the heat doesn't seem to circulate as well as a cermaic heater with a small blower fan. 

Having used both infrared and ceramic /fan heaters to warm rooms, I'm with Lee.
The ceramic heater with a small fan worked much better for me.

My folks had an electric unit that looked and worked like a steam radiator (but no whistle). I think it was filled with oil, and gave out a gentle heat. They liked it.

Lee has the key point right.  You need to deal with insulating the room first.  You can easily get a 20-25 degree improvement just by insulating the walls.  Be careful not to make the room too tight or you may have issues with adequate ventilation.  Are you getting the garage just for your layout or will there still be cars coming and going.  Snow melt and rain could introduce insane amounts of humidity. 

My (attached) garage is the layout area, and it's about the same size as yours. I'm able to keep it heated reasonably well with a 1500w space heater. It's been cold here in St. Louis the last few days, but the room is warm enough to use.

Jeff C

I use the 220V version of this in my garage.  No layout there, but I do a lot of modular building in the garage (aka my wood shop)  This one is a dayton U33 and works on 120V.

... about $100

Ed

We have a couple of those, and they work very well.  And there aren't any exposed heating coils, which is a plus.

I've got a Honeywell oil-filled electric heater that works very well:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Hone...-HZ-717-WMT/21666111

Insulate your walls.  I also installed some 2x4 silver-backed foam insulation boards I got at Lowes, they're very lightweight so easy to install over your head.  I used some roofing nails with plastic disks on them to hold the panels in place, plus a roll of aluminum tape to cover the seams.

Is your garage attached or detached?  Mine is detached and I found a PITA to go out there, moved my layout inside.

But if you know you'll be going out there I would go out and turn on the heater 30 minutes before going out to run trains just to get things comfy.

I had a Railking RS3 that was giving me fits out there.  It wouldn't run if was below 55 degrees or so.  Never had another problem after I moved inside (I've since installed ERR Cruise Commander and MRC AC Sounder).

Oh yeah, you might want to think about adding a small AC unit for the summer heat

I had my layout in a one car garage and while portable heaters were ok in temps above 40 degrees. Below that temp. They were useless. I tried different types of heaters with same results. The garage was insulated also. 

Half the year it was either too cold or too hot to be in the garage, the portable A/C was not much better than the heaters. 

Btw I live in Pa. Also

I have a 3 car garage and the layout takes 2 of the spaces. In summer I leave the doors open when playing trains and closed when it gets cold. It does get chilly in Rockwall (Dallas) from time to time.  I do use a "swamp cooler" in the summer, it has a great fan and cools well if you are in front of it.

Brent

I had a nice layout built in an insulated room in my garage.  Insulation of the room including the ceiling is key!

A built in wall mounted electric heater with fan (120v) was all that was required to heat the room. 12 X 12.  I was running trains when the temps outside were well below freezing.

I  have one in my (insulated) backyard train shed. It works fine down here in Virginia and it doesn't get so hot to the touch that I have to worry about the kids accidently touching it.

Hanging heaters. Get them off the ground and into the air, all your flammables are waist high and below. Why put the heaters there?  Let the heat come down rather than shoot to the ceiling, it is going there anyway. If this is a long term thing and no cars put in the garage, lay insulation on the floor and cover with plywood. The slab will be very cold on your feet.

My layout is above my garage in a room about 1000 sq feet.  I had a propane wall heater installed my first winter there and it malfunctioned caught the wall on fire and I lost over 100K in trains so I would avoid those at all costs.  When I rebuilt I had a Mitsubishi Mr Slim installed that heats as well as cools.  It has been nothing but the best thing I did when I rebuilt.  My garage is log and well well insulated. Below where the cars are even when we have weeks of sub freezing temps my garage barley gets below 50 degrees.  As most other have mentioned no matter what heater you choose insulation and any extra costs you need to invest in it will be well worth the cost.  Above where the trains are is equally well insulated and I rarely have to keep the heater on for more than a week at a time.  In the summer I run the air a little more to keep it from getting too much above 75 but the heater doesn't even run more than a few months out of the year simply becasue the garage is insulated so well.  I realize I am heating and cooling a much bigger space than you need to but they make these units in different sizes.

Never had a layout in the garage, but do mechanical work, etc all through the northwestern NJ winter.

Insulation (and, of course draft sealing) is very important as stated. But, if you don't have it, running a 220V line into the garage will give you more powerful portable heaters. I'm glad I did it.

Good luck.

I have had 3 different layout-in-a-garage situations. I had electric baseboard heaters installed and hooked up to a wall thermostat in each case. Room stayed nice and warm, even in 20 degree weather. For insulation on the garage doors, I used styrofoam sheets that I cut-to-fit, and glued them to each garage door panel. also used garage door insulating strips that go around the whole garage door, and make it a tight fit to the opening, when closed.

Check your one outside wall.  The contractor may have cheaped out and put in little or no insulation as he considered the garage to be the air gap for the house.  If the door is stamped steel and has no insulation that will become your  biggest heat sink.  You can apply insulation to the panels which may interfere with the doors operating characteristics or hang a "tapestry" in front of it.  A full sized sleeping bag opened up and hung on the back side of the door might be the easiest/cheapest way to go.  Carpet remnants on the floor will make walking around easier and add some additional warmth you may want to put down some 15 mil polyetherlyne sheeting under it as a moisture barrier.

I'm glad to see that no one has suggested kerosene or gas heaters. One they are risk to children and anything flammable and two I found out the hard way that they introduce more moisture in the air which also is not good.

Dave

Well worth checking if your garage door is insulated. 

As for heating I would go for an air conditioner.

 I have one for our Gamesroom. It will work as air conditioner in summer and a heater in

winter.  It has a air source heat pump built in. 

What's great is that my unit uses 1000 watts of power and gives out 3900 Watts of heat.

A lot cheaper to run than electric fires.

Cost under £300. 

If the garage gets hot in summer, bonus you just switch on your air con.

Nick

my condo has ceiling installed radiant heat, ... one of the most idiotic heating systems i could ever imagine, so over the years i've tried a number of space heaters to make it through the 2-3 cooler months in SoCal.

hands down, putting a pair of these (not endorsing any particular brand, they are all pretty much the same) oil filled radiant heaters in a large room is the best solution i've come across.  why a pair?... don't know exactly why, but two of these placed in opposite room corners on med-low seem to cover a room much more evenly than a single unit blasting full out.

With,any,of,those,heaters,remember,they,use,a,lot,of,watts,to,use,so,your,

electric,bill,will,now,be,a,lot,higher.

Fred

Sorry,for,all,the,comas,my.keyboard,is,not,working,right,no,sace,bar,and,

some,letters.

Thanks all. Thats terrible Hollsc, sorry to hear that.

Beside Lee has anyone had experience with these new portable IR units?

Seems a few folks here recommend these. I think these are fairly kid safe correct?

The,oil,filled,heaters,are,hot,if,you,touch,them,I,use,one,in,my,kitchen,when,

it,gets,down,in,the,teens,at,night,and,it,works,great,I,like,it,a,lot,and,my,

electric,bill,is,great,also,which,I,do,not,like,.Have,to,fork,over,the,money,to,

be,warm,and,the,trains,like,to,be,warm,to.

Fred

Yeah, they do get hot.  The instructions say not to get it close to curtains, etc..  I use mine in an open area of the 24x24 garage (used to use it in a 7x16 walled off area for my train room) and just kept it away from everything so nothing is touching it.

You could put up a barrier to keep kids off it, plus tell them not to touch it and hopefully they won't find out the hard way.

I mounted a 220v "Hot One" heater with fan on the garage wall and it keeps it nice and warm during the cooler days.  It is insulated and dry-walled.

Our train room is on the second level of a barn style structure. The train room is  finished with insulation installed. The room is 40 ft. by 36 ft. and I heat it efficiently with a gas space heater (40,000 BTU). It also has a fireplace effect, very nice. It heats up quickly and is very comfortably in cold Maine winters.

It seems counter-intuitive, but I run small fans at their lowest setting in several rooms all year round. Doing so seems to help keep the warm air from gravitating towards the ceiling.

I probably got the idea from the instructions that came with my first ceiling fans.

mine do have a tilt sensor switch if it should get knocked over, but are pretty stable when assembled correctly (most have wheels or a pedestal that needs to be attached).

obviously they do get hot, but i suppose they could be strategically placed to avoid casual contact.

By far the best supplement heat out there. They do get hot....but I can touch mine, on high, and not get a burn that needs any treatment. We at one time raised Manx cats and had these in our kitten room where the kittens could rub up against them....never had one hurt....in fact in Winter they would all pile up and sleep at the base of it!!! 

Maybe it's because I'm running mine on low, but you'd have to leave your hand on it a long time to get burned. I haven't had that same experience with other portable heaters. Ouch!

I used a space heater and really only have a few weeks on and off where it gets cold to work in the garage.  Lack of insulation is a problem.

IF your furnace is in your garage, please take a moment to consider how it functions.  Last year I talked to our expert during a scheduled maintenance and learn that the air being heated came from either in our house or from outside, however, the air used to burn the natural gas was the ambient air inside the garage.  If I had gone forward with my plan to better "seal" the garage, it would have had a very negative effect on the furnace and how it safely operations.  Best wishes, keep us posted as to what you decide and how it works.

Thats very good advice IronHman. I hope a lot of weekend warriors stuble across this post. My utlilites however are not in my garage.

Well I got a freebie portable 1320w Lakewood 205 space heater from work yesterday and decided to give it a test run last night. Outside temp, 29 degrees, garage 35-40, positioned on the floor. After 45 min it may have gotten the garage to 50...all the time making my meter spin like crazy and tripping my gfi. I have a 110v plug-and-play hot-tub on that gfi so I unplugged it and let it go for another 30, but this time elevating it 3'. It was doing something, perhaps a bit more but it still required a sweater after a total of 2ish hours of heating. I should note this was by feel, couldn't find the thermometer I thought I had. Outside temp was from accuweather.

This type of electrical radiant heat source is pretty much out. Wondering how much juice suck to those oil filled finned units pull? Thanks again for the suggestions all. My house is a single family but the garage is set up similar to a townhouse. The ceiling is insulated and drywalled as are the 2 walls against the house. Foam and seal the door are good suggestions as its the biggest heat loss culprit but think for 250-300 sqft singale car garage getting gas ran out there is perhaps overkill and not in the budget.

The insulation on the outer wall has foil backing so I think I'm going to try a newer IR unit pointing diagonally at that wall so the waves can bounce off. I like hearing too that these IR unit are supposed to be much more efficient so hopefully  the tub can stay plugged in.

On real cold days I can probaly get away with opening the interior door to the garage with a fan for some conventional convection...until the mrs. gets bothered by cigar smoke

The concrete floor will also act as a second heat sink.  It's too late in the season to seal it but that might help out.  If you can keep the moisture from wicking out you can put down some carpet remnants and that should help as well.  Good luck with the project.

If you worry about your power bills, those oil filled heaters use a great deal of power. Reverse cycle aircon is the most efficient.

The ceramic type might be the best bet. There was a recent fire in Darby PA that damaged or destroyed five row homes cause by a space heater that set curtains on fire in a bedroom.

You need to insulate the floor, as previously mentioned. You also need a real heater if you want anything that will be reasonable to operate.

If your home has natural gas the solution will be easier. Talk to a heating contractor. You'll need cooling in the summer, too. I don't think your climate zone would permit the use of a heat pump\cooling type unit. It'll use too much electric to produce heat.

Looks like this years project is a train room.

Not ours.  We were pleasantly surprised at how little they affected our electric bill.  And they're on pretty much 24/7, too.

A curious question, but do you leave your engines inside the garage in low temps? or do you bring them inside? Would there be a concern of low temps damaging locomotive electronic on PS3 diesel engines for examples? 

Thanks