Advice on heating small shop

[Aaron Wakeling]

I would like to find a way to heat my small 325 sq ft shop(180 shop area and 145 crawlspace/storage). The last few winters I have been heating with a plug in oil filled radiator heater but since I know you should not leave space heaters going unattended I shut it off for long periods of time overnight and when not using the shop therefore the temp drops down to around 32 and takes forever to get the temp up to 50 and cant get it much higher then that. Running a gas line is not something I want to do so I am stuck with electric heat. I am looking at either a forced fan in wall heater or a forced fan heater that mounts to the wall like "the hot one" from cadet. I would hardwire this heater and mount a thermostat on the wall. Would I be wrong to suspect a heater installed that way can safely be left unattended and on all winter since it is permanetly hard wired the same way it would be when installed inside a house? I would turn the heater down low when not in use and turn it up when in the shop as long as it can recover fast enough. Thanks for any advice.

inwallheater.jpgcadetheater.jpg

[jared herbert]

you could always get a small, 110 gal propane tank and put it beside your building. I have used one of them for a shop before and a fill will last a long time heating a small space, saves digging in a natural gas line from somewhere else.

[Brice Rogers]

I didn't see where you are located. The choice of heating source depends on the climate you experience and also the cost of electricity, propane, etc.

Some thoughts:
1. Make sure that your shop is well insulated, has good door and window seals, etc..
2. I used to heat a 600 square feet cabin in northern Mn. using electric in-wall heaters. I was only keeping the cabin temps in the 30's or 40's while I was gone. The in-wall electric heaters are safe and work well. But in some areas, the electric costs can be substantial.
3. Jared's suggestion is good. On my cabin, I used a propane heater in the basement. It was hooked to a couple of 100 gallon tanks. Heating with propane was much cheaper than with electricity. I had both - - it was kind of a redundant system in case one stopped working. It was in an area where -30 to -40 F happened every year.

[Ben Rivel]

Yea I was going to suggest one of the highly rated portable propane heaters you can find on Amazon. Why does it have to be electric?

[Ray Newman]

Agree with what Brice Rogers about insulation.

[Rich Riddle]

I utilize a small Mr. Heater "torpedo" heater. They sure do the job quickly.

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[Brad Seubert]

I have this heater in my garage for a couple years now and am very happy with it.

https://www.amazon.com/Comfort-Zone-.../dp/B009F1SWH8

I was curious how much it cost to run so I installed an in-line power meter this year. Turns out it really costs less than I was thinking to run. I have a detached 20'x20' garage. R60 in the ceiling and R13 is about 50% of the walls. A double garage door takes up one wall and is not sealed very well. Keeping it at 45 degrees in there cost me $21 for the month of December. I was opening the big door twice a day to park my truck in there as well. Sure was nice coming out to a warm truck in the morning. I'm in southeast Wisconsin and we had below normal temps for most of December including some below zero days.

I was originally looking at running a gas line to the garage. I figured for the gas line, ceiling hung gas heater, venting, etc it would cost me about $2000. I got the electric heater on sale at fleet farm for $75. So even if I pay $30 more per month over what natural gas would have cost me. The payback on the natural gas unit would be 12 years (assuming I use the heater 5 months of the year). I won't be in this house that long so It was an easy decision.