Technical radiant heaters who has a tube heater

Who has a radiant tube heater in their garage? Do you like it? Economical? Thoughts?

 

I have had 2 Roberts-Gordon 38 foot radiant heat tubes in my shop for 18+ years now!

One is in the main part of my building & the other is in the paint booth/wash bay. They are fired by propane & Knock on wood...NEVER had a problem with either one of them. They warm the contents & floor instead of the air. Highly efficient, I honestly don't believe I could spend less on heat with any other type. The shop is set to never drop below 55 degrees or above 50% humidity.

I may be able to do pictures if needed later!

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/

 

@fastcar1953

Hello,

Are you sure you want a large radiant heater in your garage? It might heat up the whole garage but a flame, gas and electricity does not sound very safe. We all had to think of ways to cope with “garage visits” as a way to talk to family members during the original year(s) of the pandemic, as it was going into the full mask coverage days and social distancing rules.

One of the ways was to use the wide open garage area with the door open for such visits. The air circulation was ok for a short visit and as the chairs were separate and across the open space, near the open door, it was deemed safe for visits. Plus, instead of a ceiling heater or m***ive wall heater installed, we used our portable floor radiant heaters. They faced the family members for heat and to the open door facing the street. The flow of air went outside, while we were all inside of the garage.

We used several models of safe “radiant” heaters. A Vortex fan/heater and a tall slender unit for easy cabinet storage in the garage. Both had safety tip over switches and gave off plenty of heat for us in the garage. No, the whole garage was not heated, just where we all were sitting.

For those folks that have three car garages, the extra space is for cars and not for people or piles of boxes for storage. Our cars were outside and the whole small two car garage was empty, but the area where we were sitting was the warm area. No need to heat the empty areas or for the folks with huge garages, why heat all the way across the vast areas where no one is sitting or working?

Jnaki

Even today, when I am in the garage for long periods doing “garage counter” work, if it is during cold weather, the space heater is brought out. It is pointed directly at where I am sitting doing work, not the cars in the two car garage.

Our space heaters are fast, heat up a certain area and keep the heat as set by the thermostat. Plus, they can be stored easily or moved to another room for heat.
The Vornado/Vortex unit move more heated air.

The other one was our first, an easy, tall space saving storage after cooling off unit. A simple on off Lasko tower unit. Both 1500w capable and they heat up the working space quite well.

But, we had to remember where the remote was when we were not using it the rest of the time…garage drawer or house cabinet drawer. YRMV

 

I've had a 50k btu propane tube heater in the 36'x40'x12' workshop portion of my shop for years. Absolutely love it, very efficient. Best pro's are that the concrete and the items in my shop are heated, and retain heat, so if you have to open a door in the winter, it doesn't feel like all your warm air disappears like forced air does. It also doesn't blow all the dust around like a forced air unit does, keeps my shop much cleaner. Only downfall i would say is they don't "heat up" a space quickly. I leave my shop around 45-50 when I'm not working in there, and turn it up about an hour before heading out there to actually work to give the system time to heat things up a bit. The taller the ceiling (to a point) the more efficient they are as well, they have a limited radiation angle coming off them, so for a "shorter" ceiling like I currently have (12'), I actually installed mine offset from the center of the room (bias towards my welding/fab/ workbench side, and angled the unit slightly towards the other side of the room.
Currently planning on moving my shop and to my property up north in a 40'x40'x14' space and plan to install a propane tube heater there as well.

 

The overhead tube heaters are excellent for heating a shop, and are not unsafe. To the contrary, the placement up high gets them above heavy combustible vapors at floor level. The heat is gentle and even-feels like sunshine on your back. Nearly silent and quite efficient, anyone who has the required ceiling height and who lives in an area that needs more than wimpy plug-in 1500w heaters would be well advised to look into one.
If we're (needlessly) worried about flames, gas and electricity why would we be working on cars?

 

Have them in my shop for 20+ years with no problems , piped in combustion air from outside so no issues with painting, exhaust can be vented through wall or ceiling because draft is not required. I have 12 ft ceilings, heights lower than that it can get warm underneath when heater is running

 

I have had a 30' 120,000 BTU tube heater in my shop for the last 20 years. Heats objects not the air, so your car and tools get warm fast, and feels like the sun is on your back. Eventually the air heats up from the objects radiating heat. Mine uses air from my attic so no problem with spray painting, vents out the side wall. I have 11' ceiling height. The higher up the better. I took it down to clean it this last summer. There was about 3/4" of carbon/rust in the bottom of the tube after 20 years of use. I would buy one again if needed.

 

EXACTLY!

Completely safe as there is NO open flame. I have a little gl*** eye on the bottom side that you can see the pilot light to make sure it is lit. It is completely enclosed inside the unit. Air intake comes from up in the rafters & the exhaust goes out the front of my building.

I have one of those Eden-Pure electric heaters in my office & love it for a space of 12x6 but could not imagine trying to heat a shop or garage, but then again I couldn't imagine wearing a face diaper or not being around my friends & family either

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/

 

My youngest son had one in his garage when he bought his first house. He owned the house for ten years and loved the radiant tube heater. I was visiting him in Saskatoon when he wanted me to help him with his SUV. It was -30F with a wicked wind. He only turned the heater on when he wanted to work in the garage. He turned it on before supper then we went out an hour later it was fairly warm and after a half hour we took our jackets off . His heater used outside air for combustion so it is a closed burning cycle. I wouldn't say they are explosive proof as true explosive proof equipment have a pretty high bar to meet. Using outside combustion air makes it safer to operate but a person has to be reasonable when working with volatiles and maintain a low explosive environment with ventilation.
My oldest son decided to put one in so he did one better than his brother and got a modulating radiant tube heater with outside combustion air. The heater is set to 40F all the time and he turns it up when he is in the garage. He has owned the heater for 5 years with no issues. It gets to -40F or -40F here and it has no problem keeping the garage warm. The nice part is there are no fans needed to help make the garage comfortable. The local snowmobile clubs big shop is heated with a pair of radiant heaters and it is always comfortable. The nice thing is it heats all the surfaces so when a 12 ft door is opened in the middle of winter the heat recovers very fast as soon as the door closes. The only thing is I don't know if give percent of efficiency as they publish for furnaces.

 

Here are a few of pictures showing air intake from above/outside & exhaust out the front. the first two pics are of the one in main part of the building & the 3rd is in the paint room. These were taken around the time I was finishing the addition in the back, hence the unfinished areas.

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/

 

I have a 60x30 shop with 14' tall ceiling. I have had mine for about 20 years and really like it. I leave it set on 65 and the most my gas bill has been a little over a $140 when it was 34 to 25 degrees for a long period of time. I have worked in shops that had several kinds of heat and radiant is the best in my book. The radiant floor heat might be a cheaper heat per month. In my opinion force air ****s once you open a big door, it takes forever to get caught back up and the heater drowns out the music in the shop. I can leave the door open for 10 minutes and after I close the door the shop feels warm. I installed everything myself, I have replaced 1 igniter since I have installed it and that was caused by the neutral wire getting knock of the phone pole by a tree branch during a windstorm, it caused my heater to start and stop repeatedly and burn up the igniter.

 

Many years ago I worked for a truck leasing company. We had about 150 shops. This is the heating system we used in all the shops we owned. The brand name we used was CORAYVAC, don't know if they are still around. In really cold climates it works best with slow moving ceiling fans. It is very good, even heat.

 

The heat recovery when you open an overhead door is a big deal that has been mentioned that I forgot about. Since it heats objects, when the door is opened you loose some of the heated air, but it reheats fast because the objects have already been heated up.

 

The only thing you need to be watchful for is the distance between the tube to tall objects. There needs to be about 4' between the tube and any surface that you don't want cooked. My buddy's shop had a 50' "C" shaped tube, but his 2 post car lift hoist was under part of the tube at one end, and the hoses on the lift that ran across the top of the lift got really warm and he had to replace them after about 5 years, those hoses were pretty crispy. He only had a couple feet between the top of the hoist and the tube.

My 1st experience with them was at one of the factories I worked in. They had the tube heaters in one of the warehouses. I loved working in that warehouse. Even when it was 0 degrees with a strong wind blowing in through the 20' wide x 18' high door that was opened for a half hour, as soon as the door closed, it was nice and warm in about 10 minutes.

 

You can angle the reflectors to direct the heat away from objects that are too close, or make heat shields to protect things you don't want to get too hot. It is a concern though. A friend of mine put a car on a hoist under the tube with the hood up and fried the paint on the hood.

 

Mine will be a u tube style. 15 foot long. putting it toward the front of shop and in the middle front to back.
I will have 2 lifts. It will end before the lifts and be in between them .
I know about height versus cooking anything under them. That's why I will install it where that won't happen.
My shop is 32x45 with 12 foot ceiling. Installing a 45000 btu propane heater.
Pretty well insulated. Central Missouri .Will keep it about 60 degrees .
Curious about how much cost will be to operate. Will a 500 gallon tank get me thru winter?

 

I have a 30x50 pole barn that I work in..12ft walls. Not much insulation. I have a 40 ft fuel oil radiant tube heater. Best money I ever spent. You can eat on the floor in half an hour if you're so inclined. You will not get better or cheaper heat. I have had it for close to 20 years. Cars on the lifts never get too hot. Picture for demonstration only.

 

****py picture but maybe get the idea.

 

I honestly believe you should be able to go all winter with one 500 gallon tank.

I also have a 500 gal tank with two radiant heat tubes as mentioned in my earlier post. My building is 88x56, well insulated & set to never go below 55 deg. in Northern Ohio. I generally go through 2 full propane tanks per winter.

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/

 

Mine is a single tube I think 30' building is 40' x 60' with 14' eaves. I think it's the greatest, I have it set at 50 degrees al the time unless I'm in there working. No noise, air blowing around and it feels good. I go through about 600 gallons from November to March. Maybe a lot but the results are worth it.

Pat

 

I think maybe the area on the back side of the lifts might be on the cool side. There is a lot of shop beyond the tube.

 

Mainly storage behind lifts.

 

I worked in an airport hangar which was outfit with the big brothers of those; giant broiling elements which glowed bright red and had a minimum safe distance of 10' below them.
Effective for heating a large space? Yes.
Just remember how they work when you set your shop up, as others have said.
They work by warming whatever is directly below them and that then causes the air around the object to become warm and convect outward. They're mostly silent, which is a nice feature.
They do very little in the way of directly warming the air themselves, apart from the warmth generated by the element heating its housing.
So long as you are aware and ok with the fact that the roof of your car or your workbench is going to get hot like being parked outside, that's good.
If you're not good with that, the second best would be a large fan driven heater, encased and mounted high up in a corner to blow warmed air around the room.

Phil

 

10 years as an HVAC service tech and installer, these are the most durable, economic, efficient and comfortable heat you can install in a shop, without installing in-floor radiant heat (which is a much more costly install)! The best part is that when you open the door to pull a car in or out, the temp recovery is very fast due to the stored heat m*** in the floor, walls, and everything the heat reflects on. The biggest issue is when they get installed with too low of a ceiling. You need 6-8' of clearance to anything combustible, which varies with different BTU heaters so pay close attention to that number before you buy!

 

Another option for smaller garages, like 2 or 3 car is a mobile home furnace. They blow out the bottom, so set it up on a frame about 18" off of the floor, with a curved piece of sheet metal directing the air across the floor. Heats and dries the floor and under cars, and since heat rises the whole garage gets warm.

 

I have used a Gordon Ray radiant heater for 25 years and love it for all the same reasons others have already said.

When I installed it my brother in law gave me some great advice, well more of a
WARNING: Be sure to use a fresh air intake drawing air from Outside the garage.

- He has one in a pig barn that drew air into it from inside the barn and vented the exhaust out the other end of the heater through a pipe and through the wall of the barn. One day there was a very strong wind blowing straight at the wall of the barn with the exhaust pipe exit.... which resisted the exit of the exhaust causing the exhaust to be released into the barn Killing half the pigs.

So I installed an intake pipe. It was cheap and easy to install.

 

One of my long time electrical accounts was a huge machine shop that took up two block footprint, and had several overhead bridge cranes. A very tall ceiling, and up on the rafters were mounted tube heaters about every 20 ft. spacing. Must have been 30-35 ft. to the floor and those heaters really kept the big bays warm down at floor level. But impossible to work on any of the bridge cranes if they broke down under one of them! I always had to release the travel brakes and have one of the other cranes push the broken crane to a spot halfway between heaters to work. Even then the temps at the ceiling were 1oo degrees or more when they were running!
As well as they work, I think a lot of the heat is wasted when it radiates and rises up to the ceiling where it sits until it cools. If I used any type of ceiling heat I'd also have fans to direct it down and keep it circulating.

 

I have been thinking about one of these heaters for my shop. What are the best brands and sizes to look for? Shop size will be 55’x 60’ with 16’ ceiling height.

 

Mine are Roberts-Gordon Brand Model Vantage II but I cannot remember the size. They have been perfect for 19 years now!

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/

 

For starters, the radiant heaters are not the hazard you've painted them to be. The portable heaters are actually more of a hazard, as they can accidentally be left unattended.

From my work life I can confirm that occasionally a radiant heater causes a fire, but there is usually a reason for that in either manufacturing, install, or operation.

I've actually done both ways. At my old house I had a small double garage that I heated on demand with a ceiling mounted electric radiant patio heater and a space heater. At work, we have a radiant heater in our shop space, and at home I have a forced air heater in my 1,200 sq-ft garage with 12 ft ceilings.

I'm not sure where you are, but here we get real winter with very cold temperatures. In addition to garage chemicals, paints, detail products, etc., needing to be kept from freezing, when you have an unheated garage that is periodically warmed and cooled by a warm vehicle, you get a lot of frost and condensation on your tools and everything else in your garage. Add to that having to work with cold tools in your hand, and there's a lot of good reason to keep your garage heated if you ever plan to work in there. Everything in my garage functions better if it's kept above freezing, including our freezer for food and our drink fridge. If it's just vehicle storage, it is probably less appealing.

To the OP's inquiry, I always used to believe in-floor or radiant were the way to go. I can say now having worked in those environments that I prefer forced air. I find when working near the radiant heater (even at a very safe distance) I feel like it's cooking me. I find the comfort of forced-air to be much better, and unfortunately in-floor is supposed to have a negative impact on tire life. Your mileage may vary, but sometimes simplest is best.