Re: Garage heat with a 9.6 kW electric heater

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 16:52:43 GMT, Ignoramus24987
<ignoramus24987@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>I have a approximately 20x20 ft attached garage. Sometimes I want to
>make it warm quickly. Often I am there for relatively short periods of
>time (because I am constantly interrupted).
>
>I bought a 9.6 kW, 240V duct heater on ebay. It has a 24V control and
>various overheat protections.
>
>My plan is to enclose it into a welded frame and sheet metal (found a
>few nice sheets in a hospital dumpster), add a fan to it and a 24V
>control system using a thermostat. I also have a grill type thing that
>I can use to protect the coils from little curious fingers and
>flammables.
>
>My idea is to make something relatively compact (say 2x2x1.5 ft), that
>I would set on the floor, turn on and get the garage warm in a few
>minutes rather than wait for a long time. I would save some
>electricity by only heating the garage when I need it, rather than
>warming it up "just in case".
>
>What I am looking for is some feedback on safety and such.

Make sure you test the overheat switches, and they kill the heater
power when tripped. A sail switch as a draft prover from the fan
before the heat coils can kick on would be a good thing to add - could
be rigged up with a spatula on a hinge pushing in a microswitch.

Unless you have a diaphragm pressure switch handy rated at a few
inches Water Column operating pressure. Connect the high side to the
heater plenum and leave the low side exposed to atmospheric.

Use a squirrel-cage blower, if you have a power failure they spin
down slowly enough to mostly cool off the heating coils. And put a
furnace filter on the inlet to trap the larger chunks, before you have
to smell them burning on the heater coils.

And hook up individual toggle switches to each separate heat coil
inside, so you can vary the load...

And when you get all done building this, set it aside and save it
for use as a 10KW generator load bank - and look for a Propane or
Natural Gas fired heater. ;-) You'll spend a WHOLE LOT less on fuel
than you will for the equivalent amount of electric resistance heat.

Myself, I have a little propane radiant heater on a 20-lb bottle.

--<< Bruce >>--

--
Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
Spamtrapped address: Remove the python and the invalid, and use a net.
.

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