Garage Heaters

The number one thing that you want to look for in a garage heater is a heater that can heat your garage quickly. You’re not going to be running the heater when you’re not in the garage, so you don’t want a heater that you have to wait to get warmed up before it really starts working. This means that you’re going to be looking for a specific type of heater called a radiant heater. Allow me to explain what that means and why.

There are two basic types of heaters: convection heaters and radiant heaters. Convection heaters work by using the thermal properties of air to heat a room. To put things simply, they heat the air, the air circulates around the room, and in doing so, moves the heat all around the room. This is effective but slow. Convection heaters take a while to get going because the air takes a while to move around, even if a fan is involved.

Radiant heaters, on the other hand, emit heat via infrared waves that travel through the air until they contact a solid object, such as a human body or a piece of furniture. These waves are not absorbed by the air; they travel through the air and send the heat directly where it is needed. This means that radiant heaters, or as they’re sometimes called, infrared heaters, start working the second they’re turned on, and you can feel the effects almost instantaneously. This is great for heating your garage, because things start to get warm very quickly, and you don’t have to wait for the air currents to move the heat around. This type of heater would also be great for many similar situations. For example, if you were doing a basement remodel and were working long hours in a cold, unheated basement, a good quality radiant heater would go a long way towards making that room more comfortable.

Types of Garage Heaters

The most common type of garage heater is an electric garage heater like the one pictured to the right. The horizontal bars behind the grate will heat up and emit the infrared waves (the bars are a bit hard to spot in the picture, but they’re in there behind the grate and the wire mesh). The bars get very hot so the grate is there to keep you from accidentally burning yourself or setting something on fire.

That actually brings up an important safety point. Radiant heaters get much hotter than convection heaters do. You can pick up a small bathroom heater and touch pretty much any part of it without getting burned. Radiant heaters, on the other hand, get extremely hot in places and you will get burned badly if you touch them when they are on. You need to be aware of this not only for yourself, but for any children or pets that will be around when you’re running your garage heater. They won’t know not to touch the heater and could be badly injured. Another thing to watch for is potential fire hazards, such as oil or gas in your garage, stacks of newspapers, or anything else that’s flammable. Make sure to keep the area around your heater clear.

Other options for these heaters are a propane garage heater or a gas garage heater. These heaters will work much the same way as electric garage heaters but will generally be a little bit bigger. The propane garage heater to the right is a good example of this. Not only is the heater itself bigger, but you have to factor in room for the propane tank as well. A natural gas garage heater will work much like this propane heater.

Buying a Garage Heater

When you get right down to it, just about any small, portable heater would work as a garage heater. They’ll all get your garage warm eventually, even if it takes them a couple hours to get the job done. However, if you want a dedicated garage heater, then I suggest you look for the things I mentioned above. Get a small, powerful radiant heater – I recommend electric just for the convenience, but you can go with whatever is easy and available for you – and you’ll be happy you did the next time the weather is cold.

Price is always going to be a factor in what heater you end up getting. Prices for garage heaters start around $100 and can go as high as $1,000+ for the high end models. If the heater you’re looking at costs more than $750 then you’re really looking at an industrial warehouse heater, and chances are good that you don’t need anything near that powerful. I would recommend going for something in the $200 range for most people. That will get you a great heater without breaking the bank. If your garage is unusually large or small, then you can adjust your price range accordingly.

Power Source

Infrared heaters can be powered by a couple of sources: you can have electric infrared heaters as well as natural gas and propane infrared heaters. They come in several different styles, but the most common style is a wire mesh that is heated by the power source and gives off the radiative heat. The heat is emitted via electromagnetic energy waves which largely pass right through the air (a negligible amount of heat is actually absorbed by particles in the air, but this is less than 1% of the total heat emitted).

Indoors Use

Infrared heaters are a good choice for indoors heating and can even help you save some money on your heating bill. The best thing about infrared heaters is that they work very quickly – much quicker than a convection heater) since they don’t have to heat the air in a room before you start to feel the heat. You can generally feel the heat from an infrared heater as soon as you turn it on. Many people are turning on to infrared heaters for indoors use and choosing a quartz infrared heater has become very popular lately.

Outdoors Use

In addition to being useful for many indoors heating situations, infrared heaters are also a great choice for outdoors heating. Due to the uncontrolled air currents outdoors, conventional heaters that use convection to heat the area are inefficient and ineffective outside. As the heat given off by infrared heaters is independent of the air currents – and even passes right through them – infrared heaters are both efficient and effective for outdoors heating. This makes them a popular choice for heating outdoor areas, like patios, gardens and waiting areas (such as outside restaurants). Reviews of infrared heaters in these outdoors situations have been very positive.

One attribute of infrared heaters is that the heat they give off dissipates quickly when the heater is turned off, due to the fact that the air itself has not been heated. This is useful for situations where the temperature needs to be strictly controlled, such as food preparation. Turning the heater off effectively ends the heating process, allowing for more responsive and immediate temperature control. This also means that infrared heaters are generally not the best choice for areas that need to be heated indefinitely. If you need to heat a room or building all day for several days at a time, then an electric or propane convection heater would most likely be a better choice.

Overall, infrared heaters are somewhat situational and not suitable for every heating need, but they are also very efficient and quiet, and can prove to be effective heaters in the right spot.

Spelling

Quick note on the spelling: it’s infrared heater, not infared heater.

Power Sources

There are two main methods for classifying heaters: the power source they run on and the method in which they heat a room or space. Let’s look at the different power sources heaters can run on first. There are three varieties of heaters in this category: electric heaters, gas heaters and propane heaters. All heaters use one of these power sources exclusively and cannot be run on another power source.

Electric heaters run solely on electricity and this can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, depending on your situation. The advantages to using an electric heater are the high efficiency of those heaters, the low costs associated with running them, and the ease and convenience of using electrical power – anywhere you have a plug, you can use the heater.

The main disadvantages to using electrical heaters are that they are limited by the availability of electricity – you will have a hard time using one in the outdoors, for instance – and if your power goes out, your heat will go out with it. This can be a very bad thing if you live in a place that has a lot of winter storms. You don’t want to have your power go out and take your only source of heat with it.

Gas and propane heaters run off of natural gas (methane) and propane (which is a petroleum derivative), respectively. The primary advantage to using gas and propane heaters is that they can continue to run even if there is no power. For this reason, it is generally recommended that you use a gas heater or propane heater as your primary heat source, and have an electric heater as a backup. In addition, if you want to use a heater outdoors, for instance at a job site, then a propane or gas heater will be much more convenient.

The disadvantages to using gas and propane heaters is that they can be less convenient than electric heaters (especially indoors), they are generally more difficult to install and set up, and gas and propane often cost more than electrical power.

Method For Generating Heat

The other way in which heaters are classified is the method they use for generating heat. There are four varieties here: convection heaters, fan heaters (also called forced air heaters), infrared heaters, and radiant heaters. Convection heaters and fan heaters are similar in how they work, as are infrared heaters and radiant heaters. Let’s take a look at what makes them tick.

Convection heaters use the principles of thermodynamics and the convective properties of air to heat a room or space. The power source (whether it’s electricity, gas or propane) is applied to the heating element in the heater (usually a metal bar of some sort) which then heats up to a significant temperature. As the temperature of the heating element increases, it gives off heat into the surrounding atmosphere, which is absorbed by the air. As we all know, hot air rises and that is what allows convection heaters to heat a room. The air that is warmed by the heater rises and displaces cooler air. The cooler air flows down to the heater, becomes heated and then rises itself. This cycle then repeats indefinitely.

Advantages of using convection heaters are that they are very efficient, virtually silent, and do a very thorough job of heating a room. In addition, since convection heaters actually heat the air in a room, the heat they give off remains in the room after the heater is turned off. This allows for more efficient use of the heater, as they do not have to be running constantly. Disadvantages of using a convection heater are focused primarily on the length of time they take to heat a room. Since they rely on natural air currents to heat a space, it can take some time for the heat they generate to reach all of the corners of a room. (Or to be more correct, the heat they generate can be felt quickly, but it is going to rise to the top of the room first. This can be good to know if you are trying to heat a very high-ceilinged room.)

Fan heaters are similar to convection heaters in that they also use the conductive properties of the air to transmit heat, but fan heaters use a small fan to force the air through them, rather than letting the natural air currents carry the heat. This means that convection heaters can heat a room more quickly, but it comes with a cost of lower efficiency and some noise from the fan.

Radiant heaters are fundamentally different from convection and fan heaters, and use different scientific principles to emit their heat. Rather than transferring heat into the air, radiant heaters emit heat in electromagnetic waves (also known as infrared waves) which travel through the air until they encounter a solid object, such as a person, a wall, or a piece of furniture. The object then converts the electromagnetic waves into heat.

The main practical difference between radiant and convection heaters is that the heat given off by radiant heaters is not absorbed by the air. It travels through the air until it is absorbed by a solid object. This means that the heat given off by radiant heaters is felt much more quickly than convection heaters (almost immediately), as the heater does not have to heat the air in the room first.

That point is the main advantage to using a radiant space heater. The space or room you need heated will feel warm much more quickly. Other advantages to radiant heaters include greater efficiency outdoors, as the heat they give off is not carried about by the wind, and a greater ability to direct exactly where you want the heat to be applied. There are a couple of disadvantages to radiant heaters. First, in contrast to convection heaters, the heat radiant heaters emit dissipates quickly when the heater is turned off, as the air itself has not been warmed. This means the heater has to run pretty much non-stop as long as the heat is required. Second, although the heat emitted by radiant heaters is directional, people and objects closer to the heater will be much warmer than people and objects further away. This can lead to people close to the heater sweating, while people on the other side of the room are still shivering.

Infrared heaters are essentially the same as radiant heaters – they use the same scientific principles and generate and emit heat in the same manner – and the main differences are simply marketing decisions. Most heaters that are called “infrared heaters” are powered by gas or propane and are designed for commercial or industrial use, while most heaters called “radiant heaters” are powered by electricity and are designed for home or personal use. They may look different, but other than the power source there is very little practical difference between the two.

Other Heaters

There are many other names under which heaters are sold, but these names usually just refer to the specific purpose they are designed for, and don’t reflect a new or different power source or heating method. Space heaters simply heat a space (or room or house or building), patio heaters heat a patio. Wall heaters are installed on the wall, and baseboard heaters are wide and short and run along baseboards.

Deciding On A Heater

When you are ready to buy a heater, consider both the power source and heating method used to make a wise purchase. If you are going to heat indoors, then an electrical heater might be the best choice, unless it’s going to be the only heating source available, in which case you might want to consider a gas or propane heater. If you are going to heat a room for long periods of time, then a convection heater is probably best, but if you only need the heat for a short amount of time, then a radiant heater might work fine.