Best Garage Heaters

Heating for the garage: What should you pay attention to?

The garage serves many house inhabitants not only to protect their vehicles: Many also use the garage as a hobby room or workshop. Regardless of whether you work on wood in it or screw on your vehicles: sensitive machines, paints, adhesives, water pipes, and also overwintering plants should not be stored too cold. Not to mention that it is simply better to work at pleasant temperatures. In this article, you will learn how to ensure your desired temperature with a heating system in the garage.

Good reasons for heating in the garage

The garage can be a real multifunctional room. However, it often fails because there is no heating system. Yet there are many options to ensure comfortable temperatures in the garage with a retrofitted heater. However, the requirements for a heat generator for the garage differ greatly depending on the planned use.

Depending on what you plan to do with the garage, you can easily and affordably retrofit a heater. But the other end of the spectrum is also possible: If you want to keep the garage permanently at a temperature well above freezing, you can hardly avoid more elaborate measures.

Different requirements for garage heating

Creation of a hobby room:

• Fast heating up when needed.
• Low acquisition costs.

For cars:

• Ensuring low humidity.
• Permanent frost protection.
• Low acquisition costs, low operating costs.

Gain of living space:

• High energy efficiency.
• Tightness and insulation of the building envelope.
• Low operating costs.

Garage heating also beneficial for cars

• Even if you own a car of a newer model year, a heated garage will come in handy.
• In this way, you can prevent excessive stress on the starter motor and battery even in newer vehicles.
• In addition, you prevent the interior from cooling down considerably overnight.

Planning variables for garage heating

Regardless of whether it is a prefabricated or solid garage: As a rule, no garage is characterized by special airtightness and thermal insulation. So if it gets cold outside, the temperatures in the garage will inevitably drop as well.

In principle, when choosing a heating system for the garage, it is a matter of finding a compromise between partially opposing goals:

• High comfort.
• Low running costs.
• Low investment.
• Sustainability.
• Operational safety and reliability.

Retrofit heating for the garage

If you want to convert an already existing garage, then you may be faced with extensive measures. If you are thinking about building a garage, we recommend that you consider the future use of the garage at the planning stage. After all, some work is more difficult to make up for than others.

While the connection to the central heating system is only successful if several conditions are fulfilled at the same time, the subsequent insulation of the garage is comparatively easy to manage. The main thing here is to close doors and gates airtight. A retrofitted insulated masonry wall alone will not achieve the desired effect unless you also insulate the garage door or replace it directly with an insulated model.

Practical tips for ventilation:

• But thermal insulation also brings problems.
• If the garage was previously well ventilated, you now have to actively ensure air exchange.
• The same dangers loom as in the home: mold growth and inefficient heating due to excessive humidity.
• For cars, in particular, this can become a problem, because a lot of moisture gets into the garage through snow or ice.
• Damp air accelerates the formation of rust and this is precisely the sore point of older generation vehicles.

Garage Heater – Best Choice

Table of contents:

1. Mr. Heater Buddy Portable Propane Radiant Heater
2. Heat Storm Phoenix Infrared Space Heater
3. Comfort Zone Digital Fan-Forced Ceiling Mount Heater
4. Briza Infrared Garage Heater
5. Fahrenheat FUH Electric Heater for Garage

Best 5 Garage Heaters

How to find the right heater for your garage

Let’s summarize briefly: Whether you are building your garage from scratch or adapting an existing one to your changing usage patterns, and what the heating requirements are, these are the key criteria for selecting the right heating system. Retrofitting becomes particularly complex if the garage is to become a living space. Depending on the use, various garage heaters are suitable, which differ in terms of function, installation effort as well as purchase price, and operating costs.

Electric heaters for the garage

A heater for your garage workshop must be able, above all, to quickly bring the room up to temperature. With a tendency to shorter service life, operating costs take a back seat. In this case, electric heaters are the means of choice. These devices require only the supply of household electricity for operation. They can therefore be easily retrofitted almost anywhere. However, the selection of a suitable device is not as simple as the installation: there are electric heaters with different operating principles.

On the one hand, there are fan heaters or electric convectors, which heat the cold air and distribute it in the room. Especially in less airtight garages, a lot of heat is lost here. An unpleasant side effect is that heating up the entire room air takes a comparatively long time.

More interesting for you are the so-called radiant heaters, which do not directly heat the air, but emit harmless electromagnetic waves. The infrared radiation heats solid and liquid bodies in the room, and these in turn transfer the heat to the air. Of course, heat loss also occurs in a barely insulated garage. For the do-it-yourselfer, however, an infrared radiator will quickly provide a comfortable temperature at the workplace. You can mount the flat radiators directly above you on the ceiling or next to you on the wall and thus heat your work area in a targeted manner.

Advantages of an infrared radiator at a glance

• High durability.
• Easy and flexible installation.
• No maintenance effort.
• Low purchase costs.
• Comparatively, low energy consumption compared to other electric heaters.

If you want to resort to heating, which directly heats the air, electric fan heaters are also a good choice for temporary operation. Alternatively, electric convectors or radiators are suitable to avoid frost in the garage for a short time. You can usually set the devices so that they only work when the temperature falls below a minimum level. In addition, they are mobile, so you can use them in other irregularly heated rooms such as basements or attics.

Gas radiant heaters for fast heating up

Gas radiant heaters are similarly simple and cheap to buy as most electric heaters. In addition, they require a gas cylinder, which you can get in any hardware store. The advantage is that you can operate this form of garage heating without power cables, and therefore flexible installation. Buy a nice gas stove, it is also suitable for cozy evenings on the terrace.

With this heater for the garage, safety is especially important. Make sure that the gas heater is stable, has a good protective grille and piezo ignition. In addition, it is essential that the device is approved for indoor use and has oxygen deficiency protection. The heater will then automatically shut down if the oxygen concentration in the air is too low. If you take these points into account, a gas heater is a good way to bring the garage to comfortable temperatures for a few hours.