Tips For Heating Your Garage During Winter

Posted on December 14, 2020

Many people will use their garage for many different uses – workshopping, repairs, the list goes on. However, what happens when the weather gets colder, especially during the winter? Most garages aren’t insulated to keep both the cold and the hot weather out. In the case of winter, lack of insulation or heating can make your garage prone to the cold, to the point that many people will avoid their garages during the colder months.

The good news is, there are several ways to easily – and inexpensively – heat up your garage. Here are just a few of them:

Use An Electric Space Heater

Electric space heaters are bigger versions of their portable counterparts, and they’re mainly used in offices and bedrooms. Depending on the size of your garage, you’ll need an electric space heater that fits in there. Or, for limited garage spaces, heaters that can be mounted on the wall or from the ceiling are also available.

Although electric space heaters may pose the following cons:

Takes longer to heat up a garage than other heaters
Not recommended for garages with few outlets, AND
Not for uninsulated garage

…these heaters are energy-efficient (for most models), useful when needed, and they don’t need ventilating.

Choose The Right Heating Source(s)

It’s important to choose one or two heat sources that are sized for the garage’s square footage. While many home improvement stores will have small and large portable space heaters for sale every once in a while, most of them aren’t powerful enough to heat an entire garage.

Your best bet is a ceiling-mounted forced-air heating unit (which we’ll talk about in a later section). With an adequately-sized heating unit for the square foot of your garage, as well as pointing it downward at a 45-degree angle, it’ll provide the best warmth distribution.

Or, you can opt for a hydronic baseboard heater, which contains liquid-filled tubes that are heated to a high temperature. Cool fan air goes over the tubes to heat it, and then the returning air flows out nice and warm at floor level.

Use Proper Insulation

Properly insulating your garage will help it heat up easier, and it’ll help you to save on energy costs. Here’s how to insulate your garage:

First, insulate the garage to seal off air leaks.
Replace any damaged weather stripping in the garage.
Fix any holes that are present, even extremely small ones, with expanding foam insulation.
Add insulation (or blankets) to your walls, and this would help to keep the cold air at bay. Or, have professionals add fiberglass to the garage.
Finally, insulate your garage door, which can take up much of the wall space. Go with a garage door insulation kit, which you can find at most home improvement stores.

Remember: If your garage has drywall on the inside, then it’s probably already insulated.

Heating For The Floors

Don’t like being on a frigid concrete garage floor when it’s cold out? No problem!

Just install a radiant floor heating system to aim at the floor, whenever you’re working on the floor. Though, this solution works for:

Those who are building a new garage, OR
Those planning to tear out an existing garage floor and replace it with a new concrete floor

In fact, this isn’t a DIY project, and must be done by professionals.

However, the resulting system is ideal for heating the garage workshop, without blowing dust and debris around as forced air heaters would.

Ceiling Heating

But how can you continuously keep your garage warm? In other words, are there any permanent solutions to continuously keep your garage warm?

A set of radiant heat ceiling panels can mount either to the wall or ceiling of your garage. As a result, these panels can radiate heat into the garage. And, the best part is, unlike space heaters or garage heaters, the panels take up little space, so they won’t get in the way.

Conclusion

So, heating up your garage is essential to ensure a comfortable atmosphere to work and spend time in during winter. Plus, insulation is important to help you preserve the heat and save you money. By implementing some of these 5 tips, you’ll have properly (and inexpensively) heated the garage.