Shop/Space Heaters - Propane or Keroscene?

[rondog]

I found a guy on Craigslist that had bought a bunch of these for a great deal, and was selling them new in box for $50. Puts out beaucoup heat, but man, does it gobble the propane. Also, buildup of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide can be bad news.



I've since had a Hot Dawg garage heater installed, and it works fine, but I wish I'd bought a bigger one. Permanent installation, natural gas, vented, no pilot light, nice unit. Just not big enough to suit me. Perhaps if I ever finish the insulation and drywalling.

[gnihcraes]

I picked up a small propane 50kbtu unit yesterday at lowes.



Seems to work pretty well. Noisy dang thing. I'll goof around with it some more today and see how well it keeps the garage warm.

Was going to buy the similar product at Home Depot, but apparently it's close to summer so they have removed all but the largest portable heaters from the shelf. What idiots. They said their stock had been moved to another store in Arvada, so I trek up there and they have no idea what I'm talking about... so Lowes got my money...

Thanks for all the input on this, I'll eventually look into one of these Hot Dawg units. I think my garage had one like this in it's past, there is a vent stack through the roof in one corner, so It would be an easy other than the gas line.

kc.

[bjl913]

The bar I go to has two of those hot dog units, one large, one small. There is no insulation on the smoking patio, just roll down vinyl with plastic windows. Most of the time it is actually warmer out on the patio than it is inside the bar!

[gnihcraes]

This has kept the garage pretty warm today during testing for several hours. I did have to set it up with some outside air intake through the garage door, it was getting pretty airless in there with it running! Seems to be reasonable on propane usage. I was warm so I won't complain much about the $$ to run it.

[rondog]

This has kept the garage pretty warm today during testing for several hours. I did have to set it up with some outside air intake through the garage door, it was getting pretty airless in there with it running! Seems to be reasonable on propane usage. I was warm so I won't complain much about the $$ to run it.

Just an FYI - I've had both my Hot Dawg and my propane heater running before at the same time, and the amount of CO and CO2 that the propane heater puts out will cause the Hot Dawg to shut down because the oxygen sensor tells it there's not enough oxygen to run it. Not conducive to human life at that point.

[gnihcraes]

I'm keeping the heater away from the reloading bench... the heater is across the garage so there is no contact with anything else. There are other flammable items in the garage obviously, but I'm keeping it a safe distance from everything...

CO/CO2 - I did have to set it up to get some fresh air intake which seemed to make a difference... it was getting a little airless in there after a while.

Intresting thing though, I did bring out an extra CO detector I had in the house, it doesn't seem to register anything... I'll probably pick up another new CO detector at the store and mount it in the garage.

[GreenScoutII]

Yeah, an additional carbon monoxide detector is a good idea.

The dangers of CO are not to be underestimated. This is something where a guy doesn't want to take chances. Be careful, make sure you have adequate ventilation, and don't leave a running heater unattended...

Trust me on this one....