176 Re: Woodshop Heaters
Description
This article is from the Woodworking FAQ Collection 5, by multiple authors.
176 Re: Woodshop Heaters
From: sgs8r@hagar5.acc.Virginia.EDU (Steve Strickland)
Date: 5 Nov 90 20:23:47 GMT
I think it is pretty futile to expect one of these 1500 watt heaters to put out
enough heat to do much more than warm your hands over. 1500 watts translates
into around 5000 BTU. For comparison, typical Kerosene heaters put out around
15,000 to 25,000 BTU. My 18,000 BTU heater was able to warm a detached
Massachusetttes garage enough to work without gloves (barely, once my hands got
used to it), but I still wore many layers of clothing. The torpedo style
heaters come in sizes like 50,000, 80,000, 100,000 BTU which gives you an idea
what it takes to REALLY heat your garage. A friend told me that with one of
these blowing at him, he was able to work on his car with the garage door open.
I think Consumer Reports did a story a while back on these "miracle" ceramic
heaters and said that they could maybe get you 10 degrees, but that was about
it. Of course it depends on the amount of insulation. In any case, watts are
watts and 1500 is about what a blow dryer puts out. You might consider duct
taping one of those to a post before springing for one of the other types.
Also, note that the radiator style oil heaters rely mostly on convection to
move the heat around, which tends to result in uneven heating.
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