[aarvig]

Well, it's colder than you can possibly imagine here in Minnesota. WITHOUT STARTING A PRIMER WAR...I have been priming with NAPA 7220 which is best sprayed at temps above 50 degrees. It was 7 degrees this morning. YUK. What is the best way to heat up my two car garage so I can paint in there. I don't want to build a booth in the house or the garage. I just want to spray paint and have it bond OUTSIDE. I was thinking a propane torpedo tube or some sort of propane convection heater. Any thoughts on the subject? I have also talked to a couple of builders who heat the part up with a hair dryer run outside, spray it, let it flash off and then bring it inside to cure. This is probably the cheapest way but seems like a lot of work.

 

[mcencula]

Infrared heater

I just received an electric infrared heater (purchased off eBay). I'm planning to mount it over my priming rack so it'll heat the parts up. Hopefully I'll be able to report how well it works in the next couple weeks.

Update 1/22/11: The IR heater works well at drying the coats of primer as they're applied. It doesn't start working, though until the first coat of primer is sprayed on the parts. Apparently the aluminum is too shiny and just reflects the IR away. Once there is primer on the surface, it absorbs the IR and the parts warm up.

 

[rleffler]

It will depend on how you garage is insulated. I was fortunate in the my two car garage was fully insulated. I picked up a couple of these heaters from Home Depot for about $30 each. I mounted one over the garage door on each side of the garage.

I also had a small portable heater that I would move around my garage. I was able to heat the garage to 70 degrees without an issue. Once the temp got to where I wanted it, I could shut down the heaters and it would stay at that temp for several hours. Three 1500w heaters were more than ample to keep the garage warm.

I would stay away from a propane and/or kerosene heater, since most garages are pretty well sealed and you don't want to deal with a CO issue.

Now keeping my hangar heated is another story. I have 130,000 btu kerosene heater that struggled keeping the temp at 60 degrees yesterday with an outside temp of 32.

I'm going to bring my cabin cover home over the holidays to install my overhead console and some other fiberglass finishing work. I can keep the temp constant and warm in the garage, but not in the hanger.​

 

[AlexPeterson]

Insulate and heat it?

Aaron,

A low clearance unit heater which vents horizontally through the wall is a really good way to go.

Add a few hundred bucks worth of sheet rock and insulation, and you are good to go. One like this is about 8 or 900 bucks. You will not regret it, and it will add resale to your house. They will heat the air in the garage in a very short time, with all the stuff in there following more slowly. The main problem with all the non venting, fuel powered heaters is the moisture that they add, which immediately condenses on all cold things. Electric is good, but it would take about 60 amps at 240 volts to get the output of a 60,000 btu in, 48800 btu out gas heater like the one above.

Just a thought.

 

[Doug Lewis]

If it's any help, you're welcome to bring parts over and spray in my shop. The NAPA paint dries quick when it's warm.

 

[David Paule]

I had four of the McMaster 1818K72 electric radiant heaters installed and it's way overkill. But it provides relatively even heat, and the control is set up so that there are two banks of two each, on separate thermostats and switches.

 

[diamond]

If you plan on spending any amount of time in that garage this winter, you want something more substantial than a kerosene bullet heater. As already mentioned, the hanging garage heaters are really nice, but can be expensive. Since you probably have a Mills Fleet Farm close by, here's a "poor man's" alternative for a garage heater you might consider.

http://fleetfarm.com/catalog/produc...r-75-000-btu-big-maxx-natural-gas-unit-heater

 

[mculver]

Maybe a dumb question; however where is your furnace located?

Mine is in the garage, so cutting a register into the dict was an obvious choice. (Need to close it back up when I eventually sell the house though, because it's a red-tag on an inspection.)

If someplace else, how hard is it to stub a duct into your garage?

 

[cropdusterdave]

I'm here in Fargo and I've just been using a kersosene fired nipco type heater. It's nothing special and I'd like to put something decent in there...but it's what I've got. I can fire it up in my detached garage when it's -20 out and be working in my sweatshirt in 20 minutes. Wish I'd have gotten one with a thermostat...but you can add those pretty easily. Oh, and it doesn't hurt if you have access to Jet-A waste sump fuel! hehe... I haven't noticed the condensation problems previously mentioned and I have no problem priming. I have a couple of the heaters like rleffler mentioned...but in my insulated garage on the cold days they don't stand a chance on their own.

 

[Sparky]

In Minnesota you need more than a hair dryer to keep a part heated long enough for paint to dry.

I used a gas garage heater much like the one suggested by Alex Peterson and insulated my garage. When the temps remain below 0 degrees F for a week or more at a time like in Minnesota, this is invaluable. I can keep the garage at a very comfortable 68-70 degrees F within 20 minutes of turning up the thermostat. It's actually better working in the garage in winter than summer, when temps reach 80-100 degres F.

Here's what I used:

and here's where I got it:

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200307959_200307959


Notice the plugs in the sheetrock where I blew in insulation since the walls were already sheetrocked.