Heating a garage or hanger

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gfeher
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by gfeher »

Just make sure you hoist it high enough so you don't need to bend over to take the wheels off.
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hilltop170
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by hilltop170 »

Bruce-
All joking aside, I heat my cabin in Alaska with 3 oil-filled 1500w electric heaters, but only down to about 30F because I'm not there in the winter. The walls and ceiling are insulated but the floor is not and it stays cold. Maybe spray foam some day for the floor? It's 16'x32' with a loft and a ceiling fan which helps a lot.

They aren't fast but once up to temp they have a thermostat that holds whatever level you choose, the heat is very uniform, they are safe, and they just plug into 110v wall sockets. They cost about $80/ea at Home Depot/Lowes/Costco/Sam's. Plug them in the night before and your shop should be just right. Then move them down to the basement the rest of the time.

You could use your direct-fired propane heater just to get the shop up to temp and then the oil-filled heaters to maintain and Teresa probably wouldn't mind.
Last edited by hilltop170 on Fri Dec 29, 2017 3:47 am, edited 2 times in total.
Richard Pulley
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hilltop170
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by hilltop170 »

gfeher wrote:Just make sure you hoist it high enough so you don't need to bend over to take the wheels off.
It has 25' of lift but something about getting the plane higher than a foot or two above the floor just feels wrong. I have a comfortable creeper to sit on.
Richard Pulley
2014-2016 TIC170A Past President
1951 170A, N1715D, s/n 20158, O-300D
Owned from 1973 to 1984.
Bought again in 2006 after 22 years.
It's not for sale!
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Bruce Fenstermacher
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by Bruce Fenstermacher »

Richard, only 4500 watts. That's impressive.

There are many ways to heat my garage space. Pro's and con's to each. I would like nothing more than to continue to use my kero torpedo heater. I own it, it's portable to a certain extent, heats fast, I'm feeding it with free Jet A sump fuel and it is/can be automatic with it's remote thermostat. But it smells. I don't smell it but Teresa has put up with it when I've used it in the past cause I'm generally working in the garage to fix something like a car or snow plow. Something necessary. Now I'd like to fool around out there with my Bridgeport and other tools. It's not necessary. I'd rather not include it in my heating plan.

I think electric may have more pro's than con's specially if I utilize smaller units, not as small as you are using Richard, but small enough to be moved elsewhere like my basement.
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gfeher
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by gfeher »

This may be a crazy idea, but you could try to make a plenum for your torpedo heater. If I recall what you said about it, it puts out a lot of heat. I'm guessing the output end of it is 8" D. Run some 8" or larger rigid ducting long enough that the air coming out the end of the ducting is no longer hot and the heat is transferred to the ducting and then to the room. Then vent the end of the duct to the outside. Use a flexible duct from the outside to the input end of the torpedo heater to supply it with air. You could cap the ends of the ducting when not in use. I've never tried it, but theoretically it should work. You'll need to figure out how long the output duct will need to be. It may take up a lot of room. But you might be able to run it along the walls near the floor. Just an idea that came to mind. The heat would be extracted and the fumes from the heater would be vented to the outside.
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Bruce Fenstermacher
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by Bruce Fenstermacher »

Gene,thanks. Great minds think alike.

Thought of this but started to think about whether or not the exhaust end of the heater might be choked with the exhaust extended up and out. And out where? At least 8 ft to the side wall and probably no draft as a result. I need a chimney out the roof with draft. If I installed a chimney for this Rube Goldgerg heater I might as well get a vented kero heater and burn the Jet A. And around and round the mind goes with different ideas reinventing the wheel and if the idea is pursued, hope it works as well as my mind thinks it will. My wife is worried, I'm sure, I have a scheme in mind that is not main stream and just another "thing" she'll have to correct to sell the house when I'm gone. She actually hasn't winced a bit when I mention a clean electric heat solution (except she pays the electric bill with my pay check :roll: )
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170C
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by 170C »

I've used vrs heating devices in both TX & TN in my hangars. These weren't insulated. A propane torpedo unit does a good job if pointed in the direction of work, but won't heat the entire hangar. I have a larger keroscene/Diesel/Jet A unit that puts out 150,000 btu's. That one will heat the hangar, but is super noisy, Diesel stinks to high heaven and keroscene is way too expensive. Biggest issue with all of these is the carbon monoxide ! Really got to watch it even in non insulated hangars. While rewiring some of my plane in a friends hangar in Grand Praire, TX several yrs ago (in February) he became sick after we knocked off for the day and he had his blood tested and he was in some degree of danger. After that we were a lot more careful. Hope you will be too.
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DaveF
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by DaveF »

My 42x50 hangar has an overhead natural gas infrared heater. It's great for quick heat-up and making you comfortable working, without having to heat the entire volume of air. Not sure it heats uniformly enough to keep machine tools rust-free in a humid environment, though.
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Poncho73
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by Poncho73 »

It’s -20c today here in Sunny Brampton, just northwest of Toronto. I was going to head to the hangar today, but way to cold to even attempt at heating up the hangar. I have the same heaters in the hangar I’m in now. I don’t see any ceiling fans in your hangar but they make a big difference in heating up the building.
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DaveF
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by DaveF »

Thanks for the tip on the fans. I've never measured the temperature vs. height above the floor, but I'm sure you're right that fans would help a lot. I'd also like to improve the ceiling insulation.
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GAHorn
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by GAHorn »

Bruce, as Frank mentions,...the biggest concern I have (other than smell) with a torpedo is that you are breathing combustion-gases. Those gases also contain a lot of water vapor as the result of combustion..and that has to be hard on the tools you're trying to protect.

For .20-cents an hour I'd still recommend the propane Mr. Heater solution, as it will also be less maintenance than several other types attempting the same job. IMO
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hilltop170
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by hilltop170 »

Same problems with any direct combustion heater, exhaust and lots of water vapor in the heated airspace no matter whether it's kerosene, diesel, or propane, open flame or catalytic. Combustion is combustion.
Richard Pulley
2014-2016 TIC170A Past President
1951 170A, N1715D, s/n 20158, O-300D
Owned from 1973 to 1984.
Bought again in 2006 after 22 years.
It's not for sale!
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GAHorn
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by GAHorn »

hilltop170 wrote:Same problems with any direct combustion heater, exhaust and lots of water vapor in the heated airspace no matter whether it's kerosene, diesel, or propane, open flame or catalytic. Combustion is combustion.
Yes...but the difference is... the torpedo heater pumps that moisture-laden air directly into the hangar/workshop... while the overhead heater I'm suggesting is vented outdoors. (The heat for the hangar/workshop is derived from a heat exchanger, so the combustion by-products are vented outside the building.)
'53 B-model N146YS SN:25713
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An originality nut (mostly) for the right reasons. ;)
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Bruce Fenstermacher
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by Bruce Fenstermacher »

Here is where I'm at on this project. There is no natural gas line which would be the cheapest heat if there was. So a tank to hold fuel be it propane, heating oil or kero is an issue cause I have no place to put it either inside which would be required for oil or outside for propane. I do have plenty of electric power however. And I can install electric myself.

Actually the biggest problem still is I don't completely trust the methods I've used to calculate the BTUs required for my situation. All of the simple quick formulas just seem to simple and don't take into consideration a 7x16 garage door or 528 sqft of uninsulated concrete floor acting like a heat sink, and their results are all over the place. It seems reasonable that I may need about 45,000 BTUs so I'm using 50,000 BTUs until I find a better method I trust. 50,000 BTU is very close to 15000 watts or 15kWh.

Using these numbers and looking at about every electric heater I can find I keep coming back to this one heater.

https://www.marleymep.com/products/qmar ... nit-heater

First thing you might see in the specs is this heater is 4800watts or 16378 BTU. So in order to be close to the 15,000 watts or 50K BTU I need 3 of them. Here is why these heaters appeal to me. Right now they are on sale for $129 each. At 4800w I only need a 30amp breaker and 10 gauge wire to wire them. Yes I need three circuits but I have plenty of room in my panel. Cost is $387 for the heaters, $75 in wire and $36 in breakers. They have a built in thermostat WITH REMOTE. I will not have to climb up to adjust them. The thermostat is adjustable in degrees not just low, medium or high. There is a timer I could set to automatically turn them off. I like the idea of 3 smaller heaters spread out in the garage to heat more even and they can be directed to circulate the air. I can easily add a 4th if I find I under estimated the amount of heat I need.

So right know I'm sleeping on this project and looking for a heat loss calculator I trust.


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brianm
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Re: Heating a garage or hanger

Post by brianm »

Hey Bruce,

Just a datapoint: My dad's garage is 20x25 on a concrete slab, insulated all around including a mid-range insulated door, and a common wall with the house. He has an old Reznor 40,000 BTU gas heater. We work in there comfortably in Chicago winters. This evening the outdoor temp was 5 and the heater got the garage to 55 and it was still getting warmer when we finished up and put the cars back inisde.
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