$$$frumnuttin'

Ok, I had several people pm me about the electric heaters I use in my 3-car garage during winter storage. So, I thought I should post up a separate thread to handle the requests from the recent thread.

Just a little background from a lot of research I did before deciding which heat source to go with. Mainly, I wanted the safest, most cost effective, easy to install heat source. Bottom line, I ended up with electric heaters, two, one at each end of the garage. Here is one of them...note the size is only about a cubic foot...



The beauty of this approach is there is no plumbing in of a 6" vent (I didn't want to cut a big hole in my garage); no fumes, no running out of fuel, no storage of fuel, no leaving a door open while heating, small size, and movable/adjustable. Also, I have the option of running just one heater if that's all I need. Furthermore, these heaters sport a built-in T-stat, and can operate as a cooling fan in the summer. The only real task is installing the 10-2 electrical lines and outlets. Each unit requires a 'home run' back to the electrical box main in the house. A home run is nothing more than a dedicated line from the appliance back to the box...no other devices on the circuit to draw electricity. These are 240v units, and that is what you will need if you want excellent heat output. There little guys put out just under 20000 BTUs each. There are no 110v units out there that can match that output. Thus the need for adding the 10-2 wiring.

Each situation is different, of course, but I can show you a few of the things I had to do to get the wire from the garage to the basement. I used up nearly an entire 250' roll of wire, and it' s very stiff at this gage, meaning hard to pull around corners, etc.

From the far end of the garage (up above the ceiling, then down here to meet the second heater wiring)....



Entering the house below the main floor....



Through the joists, then under an engineered beam, I didn't want to drill a hole in the beam, probably would not have made a difference, but that was my choice. It's the orange wire.



Finally terminating above the box and completing the circuits.



Labeled them East and West circuits...



Larger wire requires huge plugs and sockets:





Here's a shot of the back of the unit...(the newer units have wisely placed the control **** at the front...wish I had that feature, but..)



Model # Dayton....



All in all,I am very pleased with how this all turned out. The drilling out of all the holes to run that wire created a ton of chips and dust, and pulling that wire little by little was a real pain.

When I work on the C5 the heater is only about 6 feet away, which is nice. I end up shutting it off after 20 minutes because I get too hot when wrenching on the car.

I think I saved about $1000-1500 Electrician costs by doing it myself, over a week in the summer. Working in the garage attic to run that second line over was a real pain too. I paid around $200 each for the heaters, $85 on ebay for the wire (copper prices pushed 10-2 wire to $135/250' coil at the time), and $16 for the female outlet. The spiral conduit sheathing was free from another job.

robert miller

Nice post going to look at these now... Robert

QCVette

Very nice.

I like my 240v heater also. I had it easier since my garage already had 240v wired in. My heater is a different brand, but I am pleased with it also.

JETninja

240V is more efficient also so probably a better cost savings also compared to 120V units per therm of heat output.

$$$frumnuttin'

JETninja

In the house we recently sold in Mission Viejo, CA, we put in a 240V Pool Pump, compared to our previous 120V unit, its was silent, almost zero noise, and used 20% of the energy of the previous noisy unit. Night and Day difference.

damilleniumboy

Interesting!

mikes1hog

I use my propane powered convection heater for my 850 sq ft garage workshop. I have a ridge vent and open rafters and no insulation as well as 2 1/3 walls are concrete block so my garage doors are closed. No CO problems.

Vetteman Jack

Thanks for sharing how you have your garage set up for heat. Looks like a good solution for those cold winter days.

RonSSNova

Fifty bucks says you miss the putt..........

I use one that is similar. Not sure of the BTU, but it is 5000w 240v.
2 would be nice, but I just bought and wired for one.

Ron

f6john

This could be an option for me. I have a detached garage with it's own 200 amp service. Only problem/concern for me is electrical cost. My electric co-op gets it's power from TVA which is about as cheap as anywhere in the country. So what's the problem? The TVA which is run by federal government has stipulated that if you have more than one meter you are a commercial user and must pay commercial rates on any meters over one. Since I have a 200 amp service on my house my garage is subject to the commercial rate. It costs me $40.00 a month if I don't even have the lights on.

DDaaryl

There is no efficient way to heat with electricity, especially in many cold states (New England) where I pay 17 cents/KW at my summer home. Dollar per BTU, you need to be prepared for large bills. Sure they're clean and easy but they stopped putting electric heat in homes up there thirty years ago for a reason. Many folks can't afford it. If money was no object I would have electric heat everywhere myself. In northern enviroments it is better to leave your garage cold. Warm temps with higher humidity promote rust and corrosion. Add a little road salt to equasion and the fun begins. On a quiet night, I could hear my Toyota rust.

fishbust

No offense intended but I do not like the looks of that loom with jagged edges in pic #4.

I feel a better choice would have been "sealtite". They have nice screw on adapters for a neat and clean installation with no exposed jagged edges. It is all we use at work for small wiring jobs like this and it is easy to work with.

The gray coated is the most popular for dry area applications. A link to some general pics here, lots of variations/choices....

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...ing&FORM=IGRE#

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However, it is still safe, even if against code. The idea is to prevent someone from running a nail or screw into the wire when behind drywall,, but since the basement ceiling is exposed common sense tells you it can't happen. I have learned that some things in the code don't make sense at all from a safety point of view. For example, if you wanted to run thicker wire, even though it wasn't necessary (where 14-3 is all that is needed), it is not allowed. Yes, it would cost a ton more in $$$ but it's still a no no. Is it safe? Absolutely. Absurd? yes it is.

$$$frumnuttin'

All of that is beside the point. We're not talking about whole house heating here. I might find myself running these heaters maybe 2-3 hours maximum out of the whole winter. As long as the garage stays above freezing they're not needed. Now that most of my modding is done I avoid working on the car until spring. But if something comes up I can safely warm the place up as needed. And I don't have a propane bomb forever sitting in the corner. I pay $.13/kwh here in Michigan.

fishbust

Sorry nuttin, jagged conduit edges and wiring just do not mix! It is something you just do not do. In your words just common sense, nothing about codes, common sense. It would have been better to install nothing there if you didn't want to go through the beam.

Nice to see a guy can accept some constructive criticism.

No worries.

$$$frumnuttin'

I was using what I had on hand that metal conduit is tough to cut neatly...my fear was if an inspector saw nothing I would have to pull all that wire back out again I bet I could slit a piece of what you suggested and switch it out, no?

fishbust

No the inside of the seal tight is the same as the outside of that stuff. The difference is the seal tite end fittings screw into the jagged ends and are plastic coated on the inside, protecting the wiring from the sharp edges.
The only way around it at this point would be cut it and install a splice box with 'hubs'. Hubs are similar seal tite fittings that screw into the splice box and have plastic bushings on the inside to also protect the wiring from sharp any edges. There is a lot of hardware that makes the difference in how a job turns out. It is a lot easier when you have bins full of choices right in front of you to choose from, as we do at work. An electrical supply store would be able to hook you right up with all the fittings and in the right sizes if you describe to them what you are doing. I hope this helps and as I first stated, no offense intended.

rbrumm

They make split insulating bushing the can slip over the wire and slip inside the flex conduit they are normally at all the big box hardware stores there around $.50 each. Get those and that should stop the rough conduit ends comments.

Nice build post

Tyler_RN_EMT

I just recently installed that exact heater in my 28x32 detached insulated garage. Couldn't beat the price I think I paid $130. Works amazingly well! I live in central Indiana and we see temps as low as single digits at times. Heats the entire garage from 35 to 60 in about half an hour!!! If I let it run higher it would easily get garage to 75 or 80 degrees!! Couldn't be happier with it!









Tyler