Heat my garage for the snake, 1489.00!??

[kgrif]

Just had an estimate to put a heater in my garage (30x20 3 car) bid was 1489.00! Included running a 240 line from the fuse box (about 80 feet), a 42000 BTU electric heater and a thermostat! Seems a bit high to me. What do you guys think

 

[Shelby3]

Your contractor must have known you had a Viper.

 

[FrankBarba]

Why not bury a propane tank-usually free if you go with a company that will supply you the propane. Dig a trench for the line. Bring into the garage. Home Stores usually sell a wall mount propane heater for couple of hundred $$$. Run a 110 electric for quick start up. Should not be expensive if you do the work yourself & then have the propane company check for leaks upon delivery of propane.

 

[Edward 96GTS]

Well, I think the easiest way to heat the garage is o use a Dehumidifier. It will heat and remove moisture at the same time.
Sears sells them for approx $300.00.

 

[andrew8896]

This is how I went...

I have a 3 car garage with 10' ceilings... I installed a natural gas ceiling hung 75,000btu unit. The install was pretty easy.

Its actually the best thing I have done for my viper in a while.. total cost to do yourself is about $1k. $1.5k installed by a contractor...

http://www.dibble.net/~aromanow/images/garage_heater.JPG

Reznor Website

 

[jimandela]

Andrew,
i have same story on the newbuild. 4 bay shaped like an L
just bought the 75,000 unit had builder run gas line and outlet for me as well as chimney
cost total $500 unit itself $500 (wholesale, dad does refrig/heat commerically)
total$1k too.
builder wanted $1.5k

I hope that it works out well...

 

[Jay Herbert]

These look pretty neat too:

Hot Dawg Hanging Heater.

 

[Roland L-Ocala FL]

I got one of those Hot Dawg heaters for our 1 1/2 car garage that the Viper sits in for the winter. It is the best for heating the garage. My unit was like $450.00 plus the chimney was another $125 or so, and I did the install. It keeps the gararge at 50 degrees F, and that's all I want, uses natural gas, others can be set to run on LPG. Great heater for the money, I think that Home Depot carries some of these models, or check out the internet for prices.

 

[V10 MOJO]

thats ridiculous. i just put in a heater, 17K BTU ceiling mounted centered 38x22 3 car garage for about thirty bucks in parts. heater is a Dayton and i got it for 300 bucks. mounted in centerd, fished line through ceiling into attic, ran in down to basement to breaker box, hooked it up, took all of a couple hours for everything and Voila' in four to five hours after turning it on, the garage is warm enough for shorts and tanktop. i was doing work on my truck yesterday in shorts while freezing rain was blanketing the town

 

[Jay Herbert]

That's sort of why I suggested the Hot Dawg Heaters, they are pretty cost effective and they can be vented horizontally.

Sample Hot Dawg Prices

Hot Dawg Installation Info

The initial heater in this thread is sweet, has very high efficiency, and is certainly a "Caddy" of garage heaters. I all honesty though, you ought to be able to find and install a residential gas furnace/air handler for $1500-2500. In a garage, the ducting and intake would be rather straight forward.

The Dayton, and most electric heaters, are certainly easier to install (if you have a circuit available) just pull wires. A thread a while back a fellow put in an in-wall electric heater and it served his needs fine.

Gas heaters are not that bad to install if you already have gas running into your house for the furnace and hot water heater. In the past I would say a gas heater would be cheaper to run... but with the games Enron played a while back and gas prices this winter.... I would be wrong right now!

Maybe best to have both

 

[Steve 00RT/10]

I bought a vent free 30,000 BTU natural gas, wall mounted heater for our garage. It also has a 110v blower on it. 7 years ago, it was $140 dollars. I installed it myself. You can get them either natural gas or propane. Your local furnace shop will make a flexible gas connection pipe to the length you need. If you put a vented 'Modine' type heater in, there are clearance requirements..........like in Michigan, you have to be able to walk under it. Ceiling height may be an issue. Our garage is under the living space, insulated and about 900 sq. ft. This heater works well enough when I need to work out there, but I don't run it except for work. If you live where roads are salted heavily like we do, keeping the garage heated causes salt to do it's nasty deed faster on your other vehicles. Our garage temp is typically between 30&40 degrees with no heat. I can raise it to between 50&60 with the outside temp no lower than 20 or so. I do have another natural gas outlet I put in the back of the garage where I could throw in another unit, but don't feel it necessary.

Steve