Heating garage

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joshc21

Exodon
MFK Member
Mar 21, 2022
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Hello i really need some help on this, i have all my fish tanks around 15 in the garage and want to figure out a way to heat the garage, i have my washer and dryer in there so i need to have a vent in the corner so that there is not a gas build up. does anybody have any good tips/tricks they use to keep their garage warm? i really wanna try and not have to resort to heating each tank individually
 
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If your garage is a "working" garage, as in you have your car in there and the doors are opening and closing all the time to allow your car in and out, then heating it, and keeping that heat in there, is going to be tricky, especially in the cooler months, and even more so if your cooler months are brutal. That's one thing to consider.

If it isn't a working garage, maybe your car(s) are constantly parked on a driveway for example, then the next thing to consider is, is your garage very well insulated, especially draught prove around those big doors?

And also the size of the garage. Our UK garages tend to be small spaces, enough for one car and a bit of shelving on the walls for storage. Whereas US garages for instance, can be huge sprawling garages. Bigger = more expensive to heat.

Ideally, cost wise, you'd want to be heating a small, non working, well insulated garage. A small electrical heater with a thermostat would be ideal. Set it to 25°C for example. Once it heats the room to said temp it will switch off. Once the temps go down to say 23°C the heater will automatically come back on, and so on and so forth. How costly using an electrical heater will be, given the energy costs, relies solely on how insulated and toasty you can make your garage.

And then, depending on your summers, that well insulated space could work against you. It may become too hot. Leaving the doors open and having fans in there may help then.

That's how I'd do it given the criteria I mentioned. But your criteria could be totally different and my suggestion simply would not be cost effective.

I'm sure others will chirp in, good luck.
 
Everyone I know uses separate heaters.

However, I met one guy who framed, insulated, and dry walled a small section of his garage to make a fish room. He installed a small window air conditioner and floor heater and plugged them to a thermostat. Very little energy consumption
 
Interesting post as my tanks are in my UK garage too and in the winter it gets cold meaning I use a load of electricity heating tanks up when I do my water changes twice a week with cold water
 
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I have short winters and very large fish sheds. It's relatively easy to create a temporary sub - room with 40mm polystyrene sheets. Silicon or tape the sheets straight to back of tank racks which is easy to remove later. The sheets are easy to cut with a sharp knife and join with PVA glue.

Green board used for home insulation seems the cheapest source of polystyrene for me.
 
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I have tanks in the garage but they are all individually heated. When we moved in we had the garage fully insulated, sheet rocked, new vinyl window, and an insulated garage door. Since my washer and dryer are also out there we wanted the garage comfortable enough to go out to get laundry so we just ended up tapping into the furnace line and adding a couple vents. Not warm enough to keep tanks heated without an additional in tank heater but comfortable enough to be in garage in winter without feeling cold. If I hadn’t done that I probably would have just wired a couple electric heaters in.
 
Interesting post as my tanks are in my UK garage too and in the winter it gets cold meaning I use a load of electricity heating tanks up when I do my water changes twice a week with cold water
Don’t do water changes with just cold water in winter. The increased cost of mixing hot water into the water is far outweighed by the cost of the individual heaters. Even if you have to run a seperate hosepipe from the hot tap to the garage. I plumbed in a hot tap outside and can now mix to water to my fish House to avoid the same issues and it saves time and effort now.

I do however still have all individual heaters on a well insulated fish house (10 x300w) as this seems actually cheaper than trying to heat the room (and the ambient temp (24)keeps the1200ukg pond around 20 degrees) and they are not all on together and if one fails the others still keep the tanks and hence the room warm. If one room heater failed the lot go cold.
 
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