haha, luckily I am blessed with cheap hydro electric at $.03500 (NOT $.35 like other places, lol) a kilowatt hour and a TON of insulation. Heater dosent come on to much as the 240v 2hp pumps and 4000 watts of water heaters seem to keep the room warm for me, lol. Our tanks also have a combined water volume of around 4000 gallons so when its up to temp its take a long time to drop or rise.
Heating a tank in the garage during winter?
- Thread starter aeri
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haha, luckily I am blessed with cheap hydro electric at $.03500 (NOT $.35 like other places, lol) a kilowatt hour and a TON of insulation. Heater dosent come on to much as the 240v 2hp pumps and 4000 watts of water heaters seem to keep the room warm for me, lol. Our tanks also have a combined water volume of around 4000 gallons so when its up to temp its take a long time to drop or rise.
A couple of thoughts:
Keep the stock tank off of the floor...a concrete floor will suck the heat out of it.
Insulate on all sides, including the top. I'd build a conder block and plywood stand and set the tank on 1" styro, wrap insulation around it, and cover it with insulation (it will lose a ton of heat through the top if not covered / insulated).
You'll have to play it by ear, but with this set-up a couple of 300w heater should work.
Matt
Keep the stock tank off of the floor...a concrete floor will suck the heat out of it.
Insulate on all sides, including the top. I'd build a conder block and plywood stand and set the tank on 1" styro, wrap insulation around it, and cover it with insulation (it will lose a ton of heat through the top if not covered / insulated).
You'll have to play it by ear, but with this set-up a couple of 300w heater should work.
Matt
This is one time where I wish I wasn't able to "one-up" you. That 10KW heater would cost $4 an hour to run where I live.
$.035 per KWH?!?! That is insane! Or maybe I'm insane for living where it costs $.40...
This is one time where I wish I wasn't able to "one-up" you. That 10KW heater would cost $4 an hour to run where I live.
$.035 per KWH?!?! That is insane! Or maybe I'm insane for living where it costs $.40...
Nice uh? We have the worlds largest hydro electric damn Grand Coulee damn and our power company is non profit/public owned co op (Grant County PUD). I think China may have beat us with that new damn they built though.
I built my 220 to live in my cabinet shop. It is only heated to around 50f in the winter so I insulated the tank with 2" rigid foam, raised it off the floor and made an oversized, airtight hood to insulate the top, and will have 600w of heat in the water to start with. I am just now cycling it so haven't endured one of our -20f winters with it yet but should be fine. Of course a blackout of only a couple hours will kill all fish :-(
Thanks everyone for your input.
The stock tank is actually oval shape.
But making a big box (and top) out of plywood insulated with the styrofoam panels is a great idea. That would address concerns from having the filter and lights sitting outside in the cold. A tarp would be a good addition as well.
I will set the tank on some cinder blocks too because I'd like to have some canisters running in addition to a wet/dry DIY that I'd like to stack above.
Insulating the whole garage wouldn't be the best option in my case because this is in preparation for the house to be sold.
The stock tank is actually oval shape.
But making a big box (and top) out of plywood insulated with the styrofoam panels is a great idea. That would address concerns from having the filter and lights sitting outside in the cold. A tarp would be a good addition as well.
I will set the tank on some cinder blocks too because I'd like to have some canisters running in addition to a wet/dry DIY that I'd like to stack above.
Insulating the whole garage wouldn't be the best option in my case because this is in preparation for the house to be sold.
Hello; Good luck on wintering the tank and on the sale of the home. When I sectioned off an area of a basement for my tanks, I used double layers of old bed sheets as door ways as they are soft to move thru. To keep the tarps in place when opening and closing the garage door, I found that it was necessary to add weight at the bottom. I eventually fastened sections of PVC pipe to the bottom edge in some areas. This allowed the tarp to be rolled up out of the way when necessary and simply unrolled to seal off the area. On a cold day The difference between the area where the car sat and the tanks was noteable.
