Garage heat

[HondaKiller]

I've heard about heaters you can buy that burn used motor oil, you just change the filter every month or so. It sounds like a good idea, since I always have old oil sitting around...anyone else heard of such a thing?

[1QUICK4]

I just use two large electric radiator plug in type heaters. (old school)
They take about 20 minutes to get the garage up to temp but once they do they are very efficient. They also don't produce a flame which is good when your garage is full of fuel/chemicals.

[AJ]

how cheap are you talking about? and whats the fuel?

-E

corn. I've seen them, pretty good idea actually.

[tpunx99GSX]

or just get a barrel and some wood and throw a match, it seems to work fine for homeless people.

[520Talon]

I know of several used oil heaters. They work very well and are the choise of enviromentalists. Do a google search on it and you will find a bunch of do it yourself styles useing old water heaters and new ones with climate controlls.

[Alpine TSi]

I use this little LP heater that I got from menards last winter. It is about the size of a small stool and it runs on full blast on a 20 pound tank for about 40 hours. Nice and portable, no mounting or drilling through walls to run LP lines like the ones you are looking at (that I once looked at). I have a very poorly insulated 1 1/2 car garage and you wouldn't even be able to wear the lightest of sweaters while in the garage. And including the tank it only cost me 100 bux.

[unreal808]

Go bigger so you can change your oil in your t-shirt and boxers, even if its
-20 deg out side.

[IndiEP]

My friend has a torpedo kerosine heater and I can't stand 'em. Burns my eyes and I swear that garage is gonna blow up the way that thing ignites and then the fumes in the air, not good. The used motor oil one sounds good, definetly gonna look into that.

[520Talon]

One more vote for Kerosene suxs balls. I use one in my uninsulated 3+ car garage with open second story. All the heat just goes up unless you are infront of it and it is 250,000 BTU. Used to be able to be infront of it for hours, now I can only stand it for a half an hour.

[IndiEP]

I started looking into used oil heaters and so far it seems like a wash. Now I didn't dig to deep but they seem to typically use a gal of oil per hour and didn't see any from major manufacturers that would be good for a garage. Smallest/lightest unit was 250lbs and most, if not all require an air compressor too.