Looking for advice on a garage heater…I was thinking about putting in one that many people use in a fish house. I built my home last year, and fully insulated the garage…I have a gas line already out there. I wanted to put something like the picture below in a oversized two stall garage. Any reason why not? I don’t know if I want to spend all the money on a vented furnace and have to cut a hole in the roof.
Thanks for any and all help…
What are the dimensions? Hieght width length?
30 deep x 30 wide, ten foot ceilings…attached to the house.
I’ve googled a bunch…maybe an infrared unit is the best?
I had an insulated oversized 2 car garage. At first, I went with one of those ventless propane wall heaters, cause I didn’t have gas line ran out there. Worked, but by the time it was up to temp, no oxygen left in the garage. I finally bit the bullet, put in a ceiling mount, Modine 45K btu unit. They are powervented, so you go right out the wall with the exhaust. It was great, clean, heat. Go for it, you’ll be glad you did.
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Looking for advice on a garage heater…I was thinking about putting in one that many people use in a fish house. I built my home last year, and fully insulated the garage…I have a gas line already out there. I wanted to put something like the picture below in a oversized two stall garage. Any reason why not? I don’t know if I want to spend all the money on a vented furnace and have to cut a hole in the roof.
Thanks for any and all help…
We have one of these units from Pro Com (ventless) in our 1100′ sq cabin. Last weekend it got down to 29 degrees. We had it on the lowest possible setting and it was 60 degrees down stairs and approx 70 upstairs. That thing pumps out the heat. I can’t wait to see how well it heats in -20 degrees. 30,000 BTU Pro Com, Blue flame, ventless heater
I have a Reznor heater mounted to the ceiling of my garage 32×32 insulated…works great.
I have a vented furnace too. My first choice was floor heat, but couldnt quite swing it after building the garage. I have a 125k btu furnace vented out the wall, 26x44x10 and it takes no time to go from 40 degrees to 70. I considered infrared too, but nobody locally would install them with less than a 12 ft ceiling. I park my plow trucks in there, and have a lot of combustibles with lawn mowers, gas cans, snowblowers, etc, and they simply wouldnt put in the infrared.
I have a neighbor who has a vented blower unit. I think it is too expensive and too loud…I do have a gas line already ran out there…I am looking at a 30,000btu wall mounted heater…so it would run off of natural gas rather than propane. Will that solve the oxygen problem? The one I am looking at has a low oxygen shutoff protection system…
All I can add is that I am very happy with my vented Modine Hot-Dawg 75k BTU. Set it and forget it. It dries things out very well which I hear is more of an issue with non-vented.
It also heats up the garage extemely quickly so you can work out there with little lead time.
I have radiant in-floor heat in the garage. Keep the concrete warm and it should keep the garage warm. This winter will be my first with it, so we will see.
Cal, is that in the attached garage? Or the man garage? Do you know about how much a month to keep it comfortable out there? With the wife in doctorate school, I’m on a tight budget…
I would strongly second and suggest the Reznor ceiling mount if you can afford it..Mine was $700 for a 75,000BTU and about $200 to install. Now that was 10 years ago but. I will tell you I have a 36 x 26x 10ft well insulated garage and I heat up in about 10 minutes tops from ice cold to 60degrees. Best thing I ever did…Now if the wife would just let me leave it on all the time. 
FISHINFOOL
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I’ve googled a bunch…maybe an infrared unit is the best?
It depends on how you want to use it. The infrared take a long time to heat a space, but are excellent and efficient for maintaining a temperature. The ventless or vented will heat your space quicker if you want heat sporadically.
I also went with the loud and vented Modine due to the safety reasons mentioned above. I put in a low temp range thermostat so I can maintain the garage at 35 all the time. When I want to do some work out there I bump the thermostat and once the temp is met it runs off and on to maintain (so the noise is not constant for hours on end, more like your house furnace as it cycles).
No matter what you go with install a CO detector near the floor level too…as CO is heavier than “air” and collects near the floor first. Better safe than dead anytime..
For a 900 sq ft garage I wouldn’t even consider a ventless heater. Ventless heaters produce a lot of moisture, and in the winter moisture really increases when snow melts off of cars, etc. That’s a lot of air space to heat. The ventless heater would probably run non-stop in cold weather and deplete the oxygen quickly.
I have an 864 sq ft garage and heat with wood. Once I give up on wood, it’s a large forced air ceiling mount gas (like the Reznor and others have mentioned).
I have run ventless in a fishhouse with plenty of air supply and in a small insulated workshop area.
I would splurge and do it right the first time and not taking the cheaper route.
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Cal, is that in the attached garage? Or the man garage? Do you know about how much a month to keep it comfortable out there? With the wife in doctorate school, I’m on a tight budget…
That is in the man garage. In the winter it will only run for a short time when I open the main garage door (s). Mainly coming or going with vehicle. My yellow Lab lives in that garage so I keep it at 65-70 all times for her, but it doesn’t run unless I leave or enter with a vehicle. I would say it adds very little. I don’t know the price difference as we are on a budget plan with Xcel. It doesn’t take long to heat the garage, I have also installed a ceiling fan to blow heat down towards floor. 6 years ago I paid 900 total for the heater and installed. The gas line was already ran, and vented out the ceiling as well.. When the heater kicks on it runs for about 2 minutes at the most then my garage is nice an comfortable.
The best option would have been to put in floor heating when it was built. Since that is not an option, bite the bullet and install a 75,000 BTU hanger or find someone the is replacing an 80% from their house. The wall mounts will not produce enough heat, low oxygen and slow recovery. Good luck.
I agree with the 75K hanging furnace, that’s what I installed. Installation is easy and most now power vent out the wall. I have a Mr. Heater brand and have had really good luck with it going on 5 or 6 years now. The hot dawg is also a nice unit (I have that in the garage at the cabin) but the Mr. Heater does the same thing for less money.
My garage is 28 X 40 and 11 foot ceiling 2X6 walls R19 and R38 in the ceiling. I picked up a used high efficiency gas furnace dirt cheap $150 run PVC exhaust and intake my whole set up cost me $212.
An unvented wall furnace will cause condensation problems on the ceiling, windows, doors, every thing will be wet if it is run very much.
Edited to add Pretty darn quiet when the fan is running
First of all, if I had to cut a hole, it’s way easier through the roof than through the wall. I would suggest some sort of a vented heater.
I had that same heater (pic in original post)in my garage for two years and while it heated ok the moisture was off the charts. I actually had to run a dehumidifier just to try and compensate. The amount of moisture was incredible and I think I did some damage to the garage. I now have the vented Reznor as some have mentioned above.
I would NOT put in that heater due to moisture and while the cost is more, put in the overhead vented heater.
Eric 
There’s a reason why ventless heaters are not code in many cases, use at your own risk, the hot dog heater vented either out the sidewall or roof is by far more safe.
Al
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