Geothermal

---

Gnothi Seauton.

I built a 24 x 24 stand alone man cave just a few years ago and went with the tubing in the concrete floor. The contractor talked me into it and I now believed it was a bit of a con job to make extra money. Unless you're going to be laying on your back under a car with no shirt or walking around barefoot there is little reason IMHO for it. I have never even hooked mine up. Instead I got one of those hang 'em from the ceiling $500. propane heaters with a outside tank and its been more than adequate, even here in the GWN. I did use 2x6 framing rather than 2x4 with high rated insulation. Over the winter I keep the temp at a steady 50 F and then crank it up which only takes about ten minutes to summer temps when I go out there to play. If you're in the rust belt you could consider the flooring option, but I'd weigh it out against other options. Maybe some day I'll actually hook mine up, but haven't missed it as of yet. If you're in a warmer climate its not worth it.

Old electric baseboards will be expensive. I've had wood stoves and in a garage they're a pain in the ass. You have to carry in the wood which is always messy, carry out the ash and then its hard to control the wood stove temps plus you'll walk into a cold garage, start the wood stove and have wait at least half hour to heat it up on a cold night. With propane my garage never goes below what you set it at and within ten minutes its brought up to speed even on the coldest nights.

My advice is to seriously look at propane. My house is on natural gas, but my man cave is on a propane tank. I tend to think, based on your description, that it could be your best option.

Why heat it at all? Ours keeps the car from being frosty or snow covered in the winter which is all I need. If for some reason i need to be in there for a while or work with my fingers I use a space heater aimed at me. So I guess if you must heat I would likely go the electric baseboard heaters, I would think while these aren't very efficient it would still be better than a water heater and a pump that are both electric as well.

Ben

Depends what the OP wants the garage for. If its just a place to store your lawn mower, etc over the winter then I agree with you about why even bother heating. In my case I work on motorcycles and classic cars as a hobby. Keeps me sane over a Canadian winter. Again, I'm not a fan of baseboard electric heating as its just not cost effective, at least in our area.

I am pretty sure my area of the GWN is colder than yours. I do plan on laying on my back underneath cars, and kneeling working on motorbikes, things like that. I have had access to shops with heated floors in the past and like working in them.

Even though I have a very large lot (almost 8 acres), it is mostly mountain and forest. The actual yard is pretty crowded, not much room for a bulk propane tank. I live right along a natural gas line, and at some point will get a line run to my house but it isn't in the budget yet.

---

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Starting from scratch...

Parking and general maintenance on my vehicles; rebuilding a motorbike; reloading ammo; office space when the kids are being too obnoxious.

The baseboards are only being considered because I have them and can wire them in myself for almost no cost. I don't like the cost to run them, and I don't like the way they heat (or don't heat) the room.

---

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Starting from scratch...

Actually, I use a propane bottle tank that is about four ft tall and maybe three ft wide and it tucked up against the outside garage wall. Very compact. The propane guys come around and top it up every month and show up with a truck with a super long hose since I don't bother plowing that driveway in winter. I'm in eastern Ontario and we usually get fairly decent winters. My average garage heating bill is about $400 or so a winter. Even if I was using the boiler for the flooring I'd still go with propane as the heating source. Propane is just basically natural gas in a bottle. Seriously, investigate propane.

For some reason I was thinking you were another one of the Vancouver Islanders, you probably do get colder winters than I get in south-eastern BC.

There are a lot of areas around me that don't have gas, so we do have a lot of propane. Most yards have tanks that are about 6' long and 4-5' diameter.

Do you know if I could get a system set up for propane, and then convert it to gas in a few years when I get around to calling the gas company to start providing service to my yard?

---

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Starting from scratch...

Wish I lived on Vancouver Island. My son does and assures me that he's never ever returning to Ontario. :-)

In our area natural gas lines are run underground. In my case its directly in front of my house. I'm in a small village of 1800 but anybody outside the village has to go with propane. They don't run natural gas lines into the boonies. Many rural people use propane because its cheaper than heating oil and less hassle than wood. Its really quite simple. The propane company set me up with my tank for free and then they deliver it every month. I don't if or why it would be any different in B.C.

My garage heater can be used for either propane or natural gas. On mine all I have to do is change a monitoring unit or something simple like that in the unit. I'd be surprised if its not the same on any large size house furnace.

I see the propane option listed, but why not a pellet stove? You can set the temp low, use little to no pellets, and it can start up and turn off based on desired temp. Super consistent heat, easy to use and reliable.

I have a boiler that heats the basement and garage slabs ( independent zones). It is great. No cold feet and because heat rises it takes care of the entire space. R20 walls, r34 ceiling, r12 garage doors. I think that if you wanted to go from propane to natural gas you would need to change out the regulator and the burner orifices. Should not be a large expense. We get -30c routinely in the winter (Calgary)

---

Less is more.

I’m not so sure the garage floor is a bad idea. That would be radiant heat and suppose to be the best type of heat. Wood burning stove would only heat the garage when you are in it, you can’t really leave it at a constant temp. Electric baseboard heat can be expensive to use. A gas furnace is best, like a Modine Hawt Dog. Although, probably most expensive to install.

I had a furnace in the last house, it was great. Current house, to save money, I have an electric that mounts on the wall and has a fan to recycle the air over the coil. It runs on 220. I heat it and can supplement with a propane heater that I use connected to a barbecue grill size propane tank.

I think the trade off is, constant heat verses cost. You can get by with cheap methods to just heat your garage for the day, here and there. Heck, it helps when I just leave the door to my house open and let the house heat circle into the garage. Do what you need to do, but gas furnace is best.

I had the same dilemma when I built my garage. I'm a bit 'ahem' down to earth. Meaning I hang & butcher my own animals, floor heat creates a very real problem in that scenario. My solution was to go with a Gordon Ray type tube heater. Fast pick up from cold plus I don't have a slab keeping the air warm for an extra day if I shut the heat off after a successful day of hunting.

Access to water? The radiant flor heating will work fine but will be very slow to heat up and cool down. If your ok with having it at a constant temp even when your not using it then use that. You may be able to get away with using a hot water heater instead of a boiler as the heat source this whould be far less expensive. If you need to get warm fast then just go with the propane options or even a portable kerosene heater if you only need it when working in there.

In most systems it’s just a change of an orifice which is a cheap part. But the ease of conversation should be part of your decision. Propane has more energy per volume, and it generally runs at 2x the pressure of NG (still under 1psi) so the orifice that lets the gas to the burner is smaller, but not by much. Youd need to get a pretty fancy heater for the burner to have to change

Depending upon how much you use it they have even smaller tanks than CG mentioned, think a BBQ tank but 4-5’ tall.

In Skinny's situation I would absolutely not use water. If the system were to go down for a few days in the winter he'd be dealing with an absolute wreck.

It would be a water / antifreeze mix.

---

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Starting from scratch...

True. Didn't think of that. Unless he has a reliable generator.

I heat my 24x40 2 story outbuilding with just a cast iron natural gas stove. Which would be easy to convert to propane.