Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[ukdave2002]

I have been building a workshop from scratch, with a lot of reclaimed materials. I needed something separate from the garage, where I can house my machines. I wanted it to be a comfortable space to work in, so good lighting and decent heating was a must.
I'm in the process of moving stuff in, a pain because its 100 yards down the garden and everything has to be moved over grass!

Anyway the low temperatures today gave me an opportunity to test the heating, the workshop is approx. 5M x 4M, it is insulated, heating is provided by a Chinese diesel heater that cost £50 delivered!



With the outside temperature at -1? this morning I gave it, its first proper test.



I have housed the heater outside of the workshop, it has a mains 12v supply that has a battery back up, these heaters need a cool down process when they are turned off otherwise they can be damaged, so a battery backup protects against power cuts, which we have several times a year.



The exhaust is visible at the bottom, the fuel tank situated behind the heater housing.

Inside the workshop is a bit of a mess as I move stuff in and figure out the best layout.







Back to the heater, after 45 mins the temperature was a toasty 18? I have not measured fuel consumption yet, but a visible check of the tank indicated not much oil was consumed.



Very pleased with the results my previous garage had a couple of 7KW storage heaters, whilst they took the edge of , they were never brilliant and cost a fortune to run, even with Economy 7 tariff.

There is loads of info on YouTube about these heaters, generally positive results, they will run on anything from used cooking oil to premium diesel, we have oil heating for the house, so have a good supply of relatively cheap fuel.

[Vintage Fly Guy]

That's a great looking little workshop/shed, well done for building that. Best of luck with the diesel heater too, I have a similar diesel powered pre-heater on my Land Rover Discovery 3 (factory fitted) to speed warm up when the temp is below around 4 degrees C. It's located on the inner wing under the bonnet and the exhaust vents downwards, so on a cold day I get bit of smoke/vapour coming out from the front of the car when it's on its cool-down run (it carries on running for around 4 mins after I've turned the engine off), and I've had a couple of people point this out to me in car parks, thinking my car is on fire! The steam/smoke smells a bit like an oil fired boiler flue too, which I suppose adds to their concern!

[Rootes75]

That is looking superb. Very impressed.
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Various Rootes Vehicles.

[badhuis]

Very good that you have installed a heater. It makes working in the shed so much more pleasurable.

I had an industral heater in my garage when we used the space for a small company, but when we moved from my garage the heater went with it. So what now?
Used industrial were hard to come by or too expensive so I bought an old home central heating unit. Also I found an old big radiator which had a leak. Repaired the leak and connected the radiator to the heating unit.
At the back of the radiator is a huge fan which just had an on/off switch. On meant much too much air and too much noise so I bought a regulator for it. Very pleased with the set, has been working for 12 years or so.








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a car stops being fun when it becomes an investment