I'm in the process of sealing up my attached garage with the idea of heating it to about 50* most of the winter...and cranking that up to 70 or so if we have a large gathering and want to set up tables and chairs out there on rare occasion. The garage is well insulated, 22x24 with a 10' ceilings, a 16' insulated door, uninsulated floor, good windows, and a good entry door. My plan is to tie into my main loop on the cold side of the DHW heat exchanger with closely spaced T's to make a secondary loop. I'll add a single zone controller and small circulation pump with a thermostat in the garage. What I'm undecided about is what type of emitted to put out there. I can buy a cast iron radiator on CL for under $100, or I can buy a unit heater (radiator and fan combo) for a lot more than that. Unit heater would be nice for when I need to heat it up quickly....radiator might not recover fast enough? Thoughts on either?
Cast iron radiators usually cant be beat for steady even heat I think they are the most efficent heaters and they do not require any upkeep or electric to operate
I know someone that used a couple of car radiators and electric fans, 12v, that came with them. worked well in a 24x24 garage
There is one guy that has a HWC with a box fan for the distribution. Sounds cheapy but he's had it close to 30 years now and works amazing! Of course, he does have a small plenum for the HWC; the fan is placed under the coil and it blows up and out. If you are going to tee into your lines, maybe something like this will help?
I don't think I need those directional T's since I'll be pumping through them with a circulator....I don't think they make them in PEX anyway.
And here's your thermostat https://www.grainger.com/product/6G...20200&ef_id=V2cuLQAAAJeOdcYg:20191212011955:s
My house was built with a heated, attached garage. It has water, baseboard heat. I always worried about it freezing and had antifreeze added because a pipe in the house froze. Anti freeze lowers the efficiency of your boiler and creates small leaks on valves, fittings, etc.. I wish I just had a hanging propane hot air furnace out there. Whatever you get a ceiling fan will help with that 10’ ceiling. Good luck!
After having a heated garage you can never go back! It's so nice keeping it at 55-60 or so...all your tools are warm, your paints, sprays, chemicals etc stay good. No worry about outboard motors or pressure washers freezing up because you left a little water in them...car is toasty warm in the mornings...so great!
x2... very grateful for a heated garage too. It has an old blower that gets the temp up to 62, from 50, in about 2 hours. When it's really ugly outside, it sure is awesome to be able work in a warm dry shop...
