don't keep the garage (24x32 barn) heated regularly but when I need to do some work in the middle of a michigan winter I use a 175k btu jet heater. It warms the barn up from 20 to 70 in about 15 minutes.

 

For my 3 car garage, electric baseboard heat was the cheapest install.
But I rarely use it.

 

Not worth heating without heating it all the time.Otherwize the heat/cool cycles will fill all cavities with water.Been there Done that!

 

Gas Heater, hung from the ceiling. The prior owners did wood working in the garage and installed the heater.

 

I have a double car (and 4 motorcycle) garage, with no insulation, and I heat it with a 240 volt, 5800 watt King electric heater with fan that hangs on brackets from the ceiling. I think I paid aobut $270 for it, they've been making them for years in Seattle.

When it's 14 F outside I can easily get get the garage temp into the 60's, which is plenty hot enough to work out there.

Along with the fan, especially if you don't have a garage ceiling (I don't) it's important to have a good sized box fan mounted further out in the rafters, blowing down all the hot air that wants to hang around the roof. The fan doesn't need to be turned on high...low speed works fine.

This would be a very expensive way to heat an uninsulated garage if you wanted to keep it warm all the time....but I'm only interested in warming it up a few times a week to work on the bikes. Works just great.....for the hunters out there it's just like heating up a wall tent....the walls are thin, but if the BTU output is high it doesn't matter.

 

Not my garage, but FYI, I installed my new pellet stove in the basement this weekend. Works beautifully so far, and puts out a great deal of heat from a small handful of pellets (at any given moment). Clean, quiet, efficient, and you can get pellets at the Home Depot (or about anywhere else). I think these things are one of the best kept secrets around today....

 

So I ALMOST bought one of the 125,000 btu kerosene torpedo heaters tonight but thought I'd ask here first. Are they safe? Fumes an issue? 3 car garage...how many btu's do I need?

 

By keepin the garage below the 27° 27' North Latitude Line...

 

Hell, I just open the garage door. It was 84* today outside...

Sorry, you probably don't want to hear that.

 

I heat my shop with in floor radiant heat powered by my outdoor wood boiler. There's nothing like working on a warm floor. I only need a couple hours of heat per day and it maintains 45-50 degrees depending on how cold it is outside. If I plan on working in there A few extra hours prior to working brings it up in the mid 50's which is o.k. with a shirt on.