Using hot water to heat a garage versus electric heaters.

[Mike]

Hello
After a failed attempt to utilize a hot water heating system using an
interior woodstove to heat water and pipe it to radiators in my detached
garage (not though out) someone suggested that I make a "water heater" with
an electric element and use this to heat the garage. The water heater would
be in the house basement complete with a pop valve. He said that if I had a
storage tank that this would be more efficient than using an electric heater
in the garage. There are approximately 150 feet between the house and
garage with 2 insulated 3/4 inch lines buried between the two. My gut
feeling is that the electric heat is 100 % efficient so it would work better
to simply buy a heater for the garage- buttttttt- if I use the tank in the
basement any lost heat would simply add to the house heat anyways so that is
not really a loss. I don't know how the storage tank (thinking of a 30
gallon heavy plastic barrel) and the loss from the ground would come into
play. I already have two finned rads in the garage. Also there is 220
available in the garage. I guess that I would have to put a new breaker in
the basement for the element if I go with that idea. The garage is a single
one with insulation and lining. Right now it is 30 below celcius that
helps.
Anybody out there that would like to give me their ideas on the plan "or
lack of".

Thanks in advance
Mike

 

[Ecnerwal]

in the garage. There are approximately 150 feet between the house and ....
to simply buy a heater for the garage- buttttttt- if I use the tank in the
basement any lost heat would simply add to the house heat anyways so that is
not really a loss.

However, the 150 feet which made the wood stove method not work will
have the same effect on the water heater, and also suck out lots of heat
between house and garage which really _is_ a loss. Put the electric heat
in the garage, where it will be 100% efficient. The size and insulation
of the piping was more of your problem than using the woodstove to heat
the water was, as far as I could tell from your descriptions of plan A.

 

[SQLit]

Hello
After a failed attempt to utilize a hot water heating system using an
interior woodstove to heat water and pipe it to radiators in my detached
garage (not though out) someone suggested that I make a "water heater" with
an electric element and use this to heat the garage. The water heater would
be in the house basement complete with a pop valve. He said that if I had a
storage tank that this would be more efficient than using an electric heater
in the garage. There are approximately 150 feet between the house and
garage with 2 insulated 3/4 inch lines buried between the two. My gut
feeling is that the electric heat is 100 % efficient so it would work better
to simply buy a heater for the garage- buttttttt- if I use the tank in the
basement any lost heat would simply add to the house heat anyways so that is
not really a loss. I don't know how the storage tank (thinking of a 30
gallon heavy plastic barrel) and the loss from the ground would come into
play. I already have two finned rads in the garage. Also there is 220
available in the garage. I guess that I would have to put a new breaker in
the basement for the element if I go with that idea. The garage is a single
one with insulation and lining. Right now it is 30 below celcius that
helps.
Anybody out there that would like to give me their ideas on the plan "or
lack of".

Thanks in advance
Mike

How about a waste oil hot water heater in the garage? Solves two problems
for the price of one.
Lockinvar has oil heaters.

ww Grainger has several oil heaters that would help
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/productdetail.jsp?xi=xi&ItemId=1613541203&ccitem=

I realize that I am going off on a tangent (something I do well, might help
you think of a solution)
A water heater does not recover fast enough for what you want to do, EVEN if
it is in the garage.
You need a boiler in the garage or a forced air heater (salamander like link
shows).
A boiler from ww Grainger is going to cost 1500 bucks plus the piping and
radiators the salamander will cost you less than $500.00.
just my thoughts spend the difference in 2 inch thick polyurethane sheets
and line the garage.

 

[Mike]

Thanks guys for the replies. Putting an oil heater in the garage is not an
option or a wood stove. I think the reason the other system didn't work is
that I could not extract enough heat out of the woodstove with the coil I
put into it. The 3/4 inch hose is insulated and buried but I did make a
mistake of putting the two side by side within the Styrofoam insulation. I
still don't think that this would make too much of a differance in the
system. Someone had previously said that it would act like a heat exchanger
and I would lose some heat from the supply line going to the return line.
This may be true but I know most of these systems have the water in the
return line coming back fairly warm anyways. A lot of radian systems simply
use a small hot water heater with a couple of elements so I think they would
be easily able to supply the heat.

Mike