The choice of a method for heating a garage depends on the following factors:
- length of stay of the owners in winter;
- cost of equipment;
- energy availability, price;
- the convenience of use.
We suggest considering various options for resolving the issue and figuring out how to make the most economical and efficient garage heating with your own hands.
The better to drown or the choice of energy
In 99% of cases, centralized heating networks or main gas are not connected to the garage buildings, so owners have to choose autonomous heating methods. For heating the garage, you can use 4 energy groups:
- various types of solid fuels - firewood, coal, briquettes, agricultural and other combustible waste;
- diesel fuel, waste oil;
- electric power;
- liquefied gas in cylinders.
Tip. When you begin to choose the option of heating the garage in the winter, consider an important pattern: the more expensive the energy source, the easier and cheaper it is to arrange heating that is convenient in operation. And vice versa, cheap or free fuel in the form of waste and garbage will bring a lot of trouble - labor costs and primary financial investments.
Solid fuel combustion
Wood and various wastes are the cheapest fuel for heating, and in some cases it comes at all for free. In the southern regions, which are not rich in forests, another type of fuel is widely used - small agricultural wastes.
For reference. Agricultural debris is made up of small particles sifted from cereals on current. These are pieces of stalks, weeds shredded by the combine, straw and other waste. The price of energy is very attractive and starts at 20 y. e. for 1 ton.
If you decide to heat the garage with solid fuel in the winter, get ready to solve the following issues:
- purchase or manufacture of a furnace (ideally a boiler);
- installation of the chimney;
- storage of stock of firewood, coal or waste;
- labor costs for procurement, firebox and soot cleaning.
The gain is in money and excellent heating of the premises of any size, the losing moments are listed above. Add time for kindling and warming up here (0.5-1 hour). Hence the conclusion: cheap heating with solid fuel is suitable for owners of garages and boxes, staying there daily 4-6 hours or more.
Use of mining and diesel fuel
It is expensive and extremely unprofitable to heat a box or garage with diesel fuel purchased at a gas station. An exceptional option is heating a small area of the room where the work is being done using a portable heater, whose characteristics are described in a separate material.
Oil mining is a more economical energy carrier, although not the cheapest one. This option can be taken seriously when used oils can be obtained at a reduced price. What are the features and pitfalls here:
- To burn liquid fuel, homemade potbelly stoves are used to test various types. The safest is the oven - a dropper, which can be ordered by craftsmen or made with your own hands.
- A chimney device is required.
- Oil containers take up less space than firewood. Usually they are placed in the basement.
- The development must be defended and filtered.
- The inevitable satellites of liquid fuel heating are smell and dirt, although this is not critical for a garage.
- Homemade waste oil stoves are considered flammable.
Note. Due to their cheapness and simplicity, the oil miracle stoves shown in the photo became especially popular. They tend to shoot with flame when a small fraction of water or antifreeze is contained in the fuel, which causes a fire.
The advantages of working out are high heat dissipation, quick ignition and warming up of the garage box, and ease of use (adding oil is easier than chopping and carrying firewood). The conclusion is: if the fuel is cheap, or you spend a little time in the garage, then liquid fuel is a good option. Initial investments are comparable to wood heating.
When using diesel fuel, it is worth considering the option of a factory-made diesel air heater of the Planar type shown in the photo. With a fuel consumption of 250 ml per 1 hour, the unit develops heat transfer up to 2 kW. There are heaters and more powerful - at 3 and 4 kW with a diesel consumption of 0.37 and 0.5 l / h, respectively. Price - within 330 y. e.
Electric heating
Heating with electricity is the most comfortable and cheapest option in terms of initial investment. But in the process of operation you will have to pay at the full rate - it is pointless to set up a dual-zone counter, you are not going to work in the garage at night.
We list all the advantages of electric heating:
- It is convenient and safe to heat with electricity. Dust, dirt and odors are absent, no need to carry firewood and barrels of fuel.
- There is a wide selection of various air-type electric heaters for sale: convectors, oil radiators, infrared panels and heat guns.
- You can make a water heating system with an electric boiler (if the power limit allows).
- Garage heating starts immediately after the heater is turned on, a comfortable working temperature is reached in just half an hour (again, when there is enough power).
There are only two cons, but critical: the price of electricity and limiting the limit of power consumption, which does not allow to establish an effective heat source. For example, if in the contract with the management company the number 3 kW is indicated, then a convector of only 2 kW is placed, which is not able to heat the garage normally in winter.
For reference. Sometimes motorists use homemade "goats" and fan heaters in the boxes, despite the limitation. Why this cannot be done: there is a danger of a wiring fire, the voltage drops among the neighbors, and in the event of a check by the employees of the electric networks, a large fine or a shutdown awaits you.
Electric heating - an option for a short stay in the garage. They came - turned on the heater - did the scheduled work in 1-2 hours - turned off the heating and left. If you turned the premises into a workshop where you spend working time, you will have to pay significant amounts for the consumption of electricity.
Gas heating
This method of heating the premises for car storage is acceptable for residents of the Russian Federation, where the retail price of liquefied gas is quite low. Ukrainians stoke garages with propane will be too expensive.
Autonomous heating from gas cylinders is as safe and comfortable as electric. Moreover, in Russia the cost of energy is lower. But here lies a number of pitfalls:
- you need to place a propane cylinder somewhere so that it does not interfere with work;
- You will have to periodically bring the tank to refuel;
- for the production of propane, factory-made equipment is necessary; it is categorically not recommended to do gas burners on your own;
- you need a chimney to the street.
If you add up the financial costs, the problems of organizing such heating and refueling, then the negative aspects will block part of the positive from the ease of use.
A comparison of the cost of 1 kW of heat received from various energy carriers in the conditions of Russia and Ukraine is published on this page.
How to organize air heating
This method of heating involves direct heating of the air in the garage from the selected heat source. Any of the listed units can act as such:
- solid fuel stove;
- furnace - a dropper at working out;
- electric heater - convector, oil cooler or heat gun;
- gas convector.
Note. We deliberately do not include heating units that emit combustion products directly into the room — diesel stoves of the Savo type, direct-acting heat guns and gas infrared heaters. Browse any automotive forum and make sure that users in the reviews complain of headaches and poor health from inhaling exhaust fumes.
Installing a wood-burning stove
Direct heating of the air in the garage by burning cheap fuel - firewood and various wastes - is the most economical way of heating. But it is necessary to organize it wisely, otherwise the heater will warm one corner of the room, and the opposite will remain cold. It is clear that you can’t install the stove in the middle of the room, which means that the issue of heat distribution must be solved differently.
To make efficient air heating of your garage or box with your own hands using a wood stove, use our recommendations:
- Order, buy or make an economical potbelly stove yourself, and not just an iron box with a pipe. Examples of furnaces with drawings, diagrams and assembly instructions can be found in the corresponding publication.
- The area of the heat exchange surface of the heater walls must correspond to the dimensions of the room. The calculation is this: to throw logs at intervals of 3-4 hours and evenly warm up the garage of 20 m², the heating surface area should be 1 m².
- The part of the case around the ash pan is not taken into account (it is slightly heated). But the area of convective ribs welded to the walls outside is taken into account.
- Install a potbelly stove in the chosen place and be sure to organize blowing the case with any fan - domestic, for hoods or a computer cooler. Thanks to the forced movement of air, heat is more efficiently taken from the walls of the furnace and more evenly distributed throughout the box.
- Before leaving the street, lay the chimney horizontally along the wall, so it will give more heat to the room.
- Lift the chimney to a height of 5 m, counting from the grate, and provide it with a gate to adjust the draft. In the lower part, provide a condensate collector, fit the cap as you wish.
Note. The calculation of the heat exchange surface area of the stove is taken from the practical experience of our expert Vitaliy Dashko. The calculation is correct for garages with a height of not more than 3 m.
There are designs of homemade stoves designed for air heating workshops, garages and other outbuildings. Below is a diagram of a potbelly stove made of a gas cylinder and equipped with a separate heating chamber, through which air is blown by a fan. If necessary, water can also be driven through the heat exchanger.
Tip. If you recently replaced a floor gas boiler in a house, do not rush to throw it away. Take the old unit to the garage, connect it to the chimney and heat it with wood, forcing air into the empty water jacket using a cooler (from the lower pipe side). Then you don’t have to cook the oven.
All of the above applies equally to used oil potbelly stoves. The only difference is the placement of the fuel tank supplying the dropper. Keep the tank away from the stove to catch fire. Do not use an ordinary two-chamber miracle heater - it is fire hazardous and consumes up to 2 liters of mining in 1 hour. Use drip burner models.
Placement of electric heaters
The first thing to do is to choose the right heating appliances for power. If you want to warm the garage space as a whole, then measure its area and multiply the resulting quadrature by 0.1-0.15 kW.That is, a 20 m² box will require 20 x 0.15 = 3 kW of thermal power (and it is equal to electric), sufficient to maintain positive air temperature.
Now let's move on to the recommendations:
- If your work in the garage is periodic and short-term, it is better to save and buy a portable fan heater or infrared panel. It is located in the right place and warms up only part of the room. Thermal (also known as electrical) power of the device is 50% of the calculated one.
- Try to use heaters equipped with a turbine or fan to better and faster distribute heat.
- A rational solution for convectors and other wall-mounted appliances is to put several small heaters at different points instead of one large one. Then the garage warms up evenly, and if necessary, half the heaters turn off.
- Do not follow up with sellers trying to slip a more expensive device under the guise of an innovative and high-tech product. The efficiency of all electric heaters is the same and equal to 98–99%, the difference is in the method of heat transfer.
Different heating methods can be combined. For example, above the workbench, it makes sense to suspend an infrared panel that provides local heating. Heat the rest of the garage with a stove or heat gun - which is more profitable. Do not forget about the ventilation of the garage - it is necessary when burning any kind of fuel.
Water heating system
You need to understand that installing water heating makes sense when you are in the garage constantly. Otherwise, the costs will not justify themselves, because in addition to the source of heat and fuel you will need to buy:
- cast iron or steel batteries (as an option, weld registers from pipes);
- circulation pump;
- expansion tank;
- pipes on the highway;
- non-freezing coolant - antifreeze.
For reference. The garage room is heated periodically, so you cannot fill the system with plain water.
Knowing the need for the amount of heat to heat the room (calculated in the previous section), select the power of the radiators or determine the length of the pipes of a home-made register according to the table:
The calculation procedure is as follows. We take a steel pipe DN 80 (Ø89 mm) and find out from the table that 1 m of length is enough to heat an area of 1.37 m². We take the garage quadrature, for example, 20 m² and divide by this figure: 20 / 1.37 = 14.6 m - the total length of the heating part. We distribute it into 2-3 heating devices and cook the registers according to the drawing.
Take the circulation pump at the lowest pressure (4 m water column), the expansion tank at the minimum volume. The pipes are polypropylene, steel or metal-plastic with a size of DN 15. Then install the radiators on 2 opposite walls and assemble a simple two-pipe closed-type heating system connected to a heat source according to the scheme:
As a hot water installation, you can apply:
- a wood-burning stove or a water circuit, shown above in the diagram;
- a heat exchanger is an economizer of a samovar type installed on a chimney;
- an electric heater mounted in a vertical steel pipe, as shown in the diagram;
- full electric boiler or solid fuel unit.
Tip. Do not forget to add a dirt filter and ball valves to the circuit to cut off the heat source and drain the water from the system. At the top point, put an automatic air vent, and on batteries - Mayevsky taps to bleed air.
Why do not we recommend making an open-type system in the garage, as simpler and cheaper? The reason is antifreeze, which will evaporate from an open tank, which is unsafe for health (ethylene glycol is toxic), not to mention the price of the coolant.
Western European experience
If you type in the search phrase “garage heating” and look at the pictures on English-language sites, you will not find any wood and oil stoves in Western European garages. What are the motorists warming themselves with:
- portable electric heaters;
- infrared pendant heaters;
- air heating units (heaters).
The first 2 options we have already considered above. The third method is also far from a novelty: the water heated in the boiler passes through a radiator, blown by a powerful axial fan. Ideally, the unit is suspended from the ceiling and distributes hot air throughout the room.
The advantages of this option are compactness, heating speed and the possibility of conditioning in the summer (chilled water is sent to the radiator instead of heated).
One minus is the increased cost of equipment, because the heat carrier must be heated in a boiler and piped to the air heater. But if the garage is attached to a private house, then the problem can be easily solved by connecting the radiator to the building’s water heating system.
Conclusions and Tips
From the foregoing, as well as on the basis of practical observations, the following conclusions suggest itself:
- Despite all the difficulties with burning solid fuel, firewood and other wastes occupy a leading position among energy carriers due to an affordable price.
- For the same reason, most garages have air heating. It is simple in execution and allows you to quickly warm up the room.
- Efficiency of air heating is given by forced blowing of a heat source or pumping air through a heating chamber.
- Water heating is more appropriate in workshops and garages, for a private box the system is expensive.
- Electric garage heating is an auxiliary or short-term option that is easy to implement, but difficult to pay during operation.
Whatever method of garage heating you choose, the degree of insulation of the building will play a big role. An iron box with slots in the narthex of the gate absolutely does not keep heat and does not lend itself to heating, so it is expensive and pointless to heat it. Another thing is the walls of foam blocks or insulated with foam from the outside, savings in heating such a garage are quite achievable.