A total gas
About a month ago I discussed my decision to install a gas heater in my shop. Well, the deed is done, and I couldnt be happier. Thought youd like an…
About a month ago I discussed my decision to install a gas heater in my shop. Well, the deed is done, and I couldnt be happier. Thought youd like an update.
After several years of using a sooty, smelly, always-in-the-way kerosene heater in the winter for comfort in my shop, I finally put out the bucks for a wall-mounted natural-gas heater. My garage shop is about 22 x 22 with a 10 ceiling, so I chose a 700 BTU heater. It required a small amount of redoing what I already had on the wall where I installed it, but that put it close enough to the gas source that the plumber who did the job took less than an hour to burrow around in my houses crawlspace, run the gas line, hook up the heater and fire it up.
Man, what a difference. It heats the shop fairly quickly, bringing it from its overnight chill to shirtsleeve warmth in about a half hour. Once warmed up, I can cut it back to its very lowest setting and it maintains the shop at a comfortable level. (For that matter, if the outside temperature is above 40 degrees, I can shut it off up to two hours and more at a time.) The units blower is a bit louder than Id like, but because its thermostatically controlled, for my convenience it turns on and off automatically. If I want I can even forgo the units fan and just put my shop fan in front of it turned on low, and it spreads the warmth quite nicely and quietly.
It took a couple days for a slight new furnace smell to go away, but now that its broken in the unit produces almost no smell at all, theres no soot, and Im not tripping over it. (Or, as I did once when receiving a long piece of stock coming out of my planer, backed my rear end into it. Ouch.)
Because half of making my living takes place out there, I can write the heater off my taxes this year. I dont lose time running to have a 5-gallon can of kerosene filled up constantly. Theres nothing to spill, because theres nothing to fill. And Ive regained a bit of floor space where I used to put the kerosene heater (and that 5-gallon can, which is now long gone).
All in all this turned out to be a win-win-win-win decision for my shop. If youve been debating upgrading your shop to include a gas heater, my advice is to go for it.
Till next time,
A.J.
A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.