[Spridgets] gas vs electric garage heater?

[Ron Soave]

--- On Fri, 10/3/08, Frank Clarici <spritenut at comcast.net> wrote:
> Total house and garage gas bill isn't too bad, $250 a
> month during Jan & 
> Feb. last year.

Holy Spirite! Mine was less in the worst winter in 100 years here, but we grow the young-ins tough and keeop the house in the teens ;-). But anyway, I use a Modine natural gas heater, the Hot Dawg 60,000 BTU model. I absolutely love it, although I read the other day Modine is in trouble. Flounder and Peter have radiant heat in their shops, and that would be my preference, but I had to used forced air because of the configuration of the workspace. I have a 24x28 main garage with a 15x20 workshop off of it with oversized french doors going into it so I can drive the car through (picture here, upper right corner: http://flickr.com/photos/soavero/2866501870 ) . The thermostat goes down to 38F, is left at 40F, and when I work in there I kick it to 55 - 65. It takes about 2 minutes to pull the shop up from 40, and if I open the doors it will pull the whole shop up to comfort level in less than 10 minutes. I do wish it had a lower fan setting for maintaining
 temps - since I sized it for the whole garage when I'm just in the shop (like Frank, 23.9/6.9) it's 40 seconds of blast furnace followed by 40 minutes of nothing, which gets a little annoying.

Those propane cannons are not suitable for indoor use and are brutally noisy. I have one going on ebay soon. Check www.garagejournal.com for LOTS of ideas.

Ron