Things for Your Garage

Reviews

I purchased this heater to heat my 1100 square foot garage/shop in California. Although the weather here is generally mild, it does get down to about 20 degF in the winter months. The heater easily heats the shop up quickly and keeps it warm. I mounted the heater to my 10 foot ceiling by installing two lengths of predrilled angle iron to the ceiling and hanging four 5/16" all thread rods with a hook on one end. I attached the all thread at the four corners of the heater and then lifted the heater and hung it from the angle iron by passing the hooked ends of the all thread through holes in the angle iron. My only complaint about this product is poor workmanship in assembly. When I opened the box, I found several of the screws which were supposed to hold the fan protection cover in place laying in the bottom of the box. I was able to find all of the missing screws and nuts and install them correctly. There was also damage to some of the sheet metal on the unit structure that occurred during shipping. I was able to straighten out the metal and avoid a return.

This thing heats very well. In fact to well. My husbands garage is sometimes to warm. He did not seem to have to much trouble put it in either.

I recently purchased this heater after reading the one review.I live in canada and had it shipped to a border store where I picked it up . The box was damaged from some kind of strapping , although the heater LOOKED ok.Once I got home and opened the box I was very UN- IMPRESSED ! The right side of the front panel was pushed in at both upper and lower corners,not too bad , I could straighten it out , not that I should have to.Upon further inspection I could not find how to hook up the vent. WHY ? BEcause of the 3 small screws that hold the vent blower motor to the heat exchanger 2 were gone ( to be found in the tubes when I tipped it over)and one was barely holding on. It was flopping all over during shipping consequently destroying the heat proof gasket between the two parts.some DISSASSEMBLY required!I repaired the unit by purchasing a fire retardent material and making a new gasket and using a better quality stainless steel sheet metal screws.next I had to tighten 80 % of the sheet metal screws that hold the unit togethor inside and out. 2 nuts had come off the blower fan motor that holds it to the shroud, remove shroud and blade,replace 2 nuts and washers ,tighten all then reassemble!!!! WHEW ! NOW I AM READY TO START INSTALLATION. I HOPE it works better than , the condition it was in for a NEW heater. VERY poor quality construction if you want my opinion..

Ordered the propane model to put up in a Morton Building workshop. Package arrived quickly with minimal damage to outside cardboard box. Nice unit and fairly easy to lift (I am 6' 190 lbs. average jock) but recommend two people to lift in place on ladder or other device. Things to consider for installation: Installed two joist between trusses in the attic to hang the unit from (time consuming). Venting horizontal is easier but I perfer vertical. Think this process out. This unit requires a 4" exhaust vent. I went through a metal roof and used a Dektite on 4" double wall exhaust pipe. Make sure you have the appropriate tools, fasteners and sealers before starting this part of the project. Hooking the exhaust vent to the unit should be well planned too. It is not easy and you should have the exhaust vent pieces you plan to use to take some rough measurements prior to fit up. I hung the unit using threaded rod on C channel so I could adjust the unit up or down, side to side, and back to front (I used 19" center to center from side to side, could use 20" too). The brackets in the kit require a small amount of grinding to avoid the strain relief on the blower fan and if you use the top 1/2" knockout on the back of the unit for electrical connections. Electrical connections are easy. The unit has two 1/2" knockouts on back for electrical connections. I used 16-3 cord for power and 18-2 (solid) for the thermostat. I have it on a 15 amp circuit breaker. Use a strain relief for the power cord. The gas pipe connection is 1/2" female. I already had propane gas pipe in the shop. I used various elbows, cross, and 1/2" pipe lengths for initial plumbing. A union was used for the final connection. Exhaust vent was connected first and then the gas pipe was fitted. It is easier to make adjustments to the gas pipe than the exhaust venting. Once all connections were checked, the unit powered up, the appropriate green light flashed on the circuit board and the unit fired right up. The only problem with the heater involved the two top burners were allowing flame to reach and burn the section between the heat tubes. A call to technical support (30 to 45 minute wait on a Monday) stated to pinch the two pieces of metal that form the burner closer together in the area involved which solved the problem. This would not please the average joe. It involved removing 6 screws that hold the panel that the circuit board is on and 4 screws that hold the two burners in place. It took me two time to get it right. I didn't mind as I like to tinker and I have an above average selection of tools. The unit is quiet for a forced air heater. It works great and heats up my 1800 square foot workshop quickly. It took two weeks of various evenings and weekends at a leisurely pace to get it installed. This review is being written two weeks after installation so no comments on longevity. Good luck!

Reviews

I installed this myself in a new 900 sq ft detached garage workshop. Installation was straightforward and it works as advertised. More quiet and vibration free than I expected and has operated for a month so far without any problems. 45000 btu model is well matched to this size building (note that the building is well insulated R19 walls and R30 ceiling and tightly constructed). No problems maintaining 60F above outdoor temp even with strong winds. You'll need two fairly strong installers or some clever lifting devices to mount it to the ceiling since the unit is about 65 lbs. It's built just like an 80% eff home furnace only smaller.

We were looking for a solution for heating a 700 sq. ft. guest space with high ceilings. It's an architectural house, as they say, which means you can do odd things (like putting a garage heater into a living space) and everyone accepts it as part of the master design. Prior to Mr. Heater, we tried two other heating solutions for the space. One was a glass-front heater that looked like a wood burning stove, and the other was a gas baseboard heater. The first one worked well. It heated the space in about twenty minutes. The problem was that it took up too much floor space. The baseboard heater was a bust; our portable heaters did a better job. Mr. Heater is, as it says in the summary above, fantastic. It can heat the room by 11-degrees in about five minutes. It's not nearly as quiet as our first heater but, oddly, it's much quieter than our failed baseboard heater. Whatever noise it makes isn't annoying, unlike the baseboard heater that generated an odd pitch and vibration. Given how fast Mr. Heater heats the space, we have no need to preheat the room and we can run it for short stretches. Point of reference: We live in Los Angeles, so 50-degrees is freezing on our scale. p.s. We called the factory before buying the unit. The reps were quite helpful.

I assumed that installing out of the box, it would work and was surprised reading the install instructions to lower the thermostat to it's lowest reading and could not find the thermostat. There is none. It is an optional purchase. Without one, the unit is either on or it is off. Will update this review when installed.

I picked this up half price at the end of season last spring. I hired someone to hang it and sheetrock my garage and hired a plumber for the gas. I waited till this fall to wire it up in preparation for my 2nd Minnesota winter. I had some self induced pain getting it wired correctly but customer service was wonderful and got me parts I needed extremely quickly without any grief. I put a programmable thermostat in my house and took the old Honeywell T8400C and wired it to the Mr. Heater and it seems to work just fine. I'll update this if anything changes but I'm looking forward to having a useable garage this winter.

I got this heater for my garage office. It works as described and no problems thus far. Installation was easy and remember to bleed the lines first before attemting gas hookup.