Garages are no longer just places where we store motor vehicles. In many instances they are work areas as well. Working with cold fingers and tools is not only numbingly unpleasant - it can be downright dangerous. And if mistakes are made, it can be expensive too. So a garage heater will have to do two jobs. Firstly the garage heater will need to provide low-level background heat to keep that damp air away from your pride and joy. Secondly it will need to deliver enough warmth to heat you adequately while you are at work in the garage.
There are several different ways to heat a garage including fan heaters, gas blower heaters, and radiant gas or electric heaters. Most garages are poorly insulated and draughty so heating your garage by warming the air is likely to be expensive and ineffective. If you need to have the garage door open, e.g. to increase ventilation while working with spray paint or solvents, any heated air will immediately escape, leaving you once again, in the cold. Another problem with warming the air in a garage is that when the warm air reaches a cold surface - like car bodywork - condensation can form. This is just what you don't want from a garage heater.
That leaves radiant heaters. Radiant heaters work like the sun's rays, cutting through the air to warm you directly. Portable gas radiant heaters run on propane gas. Propane gas is much more expensive than electric radiant heating. Of course, there is also a potential fire risk to consider when working with solvents or storing flammable materials. In this respect, gas is far from ideal for garage heating. These days, one must also consider that propane is a fossil fuel, the gas burners are relatively inefficient, and you will have to mess about with gas bottles. The final nail in the coffin is that much of the infrared produced by gas heaters is sensitive to air movement.
There are several different types of radiant electric heaters of which ceramic plaque, halogen and quartz halogen are the most widely known. The heating characteristics are all quite different:
Ceramic plaque heaters emit medium wavelength infrared, which is not readily absorbed by people and, like gas, is sensitive to air movement. The heat doesn't project very far and it also takes a minute or two for the heater to warm up. Despite these drawbacks, a number of ceramic plaque heaters are marketed for as garage heaters. On the plus side, there is no fire risk when used near solvents etc.
'Halogen' and 'quartz halogen' heaters are often confused. You can buy a free-standing halogen heater for around 10 - 20 Pounds. However, would you want one of these in your garage? While they work more or less instantly, the heat produced is mainly medium wavelength, which is not absorbed into your body, doesn't project very far, and again, is susceptible to air movement. In our experience they are worse than useless.
That leaves quartz halogen infrared. Quartz halogen is by far the most effective type for use as a garage heater. This is because the kind of infrared that comes from a quartz halogen heater does not heat the air directly, and the infrared heat is not at all sensitive to air movement. So the warming effect will not blow away if the garage door is open.
From the point of view of protecting your car or bike, quartz halogen infrared is ideal; because condensation is reduced and humidity is maintained at a more even level that with any other type of garage heater.
An ideal solution for heating a garage is to install quartz halogen heaters and control them using an Energy-Saving Comfort Controller. These can be mounted on a stand or out of the way on a wall. The controllers work just like lighting dimmers except that they save energy when turned down. Using a Comfort Controller, the heat can be turned up whenever you want to work in the garage, providing maximum warmth instantly. Or it can be turned down to provide gentle background warmth 24x7, keeping damp at bay in the garage for just a few pence a day.
A final crucial point: the motor trade uses quartz halogen heaters routinely to accelerate paint drying. So a quartz halogen garage heater has one extra use that other types of heaters cannot emulate.
