These Editor-Approved Garage Heaters Are the Answer to Warming Up Your Space This Winter

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If you plan to spend time in your garage this winter tackling projects at your workbench, raising the ambient air temperature is must. Most garages get so cold in winter you can see your breath when you exhale. Even down south, it’s not unusual to find your garage—which isn’t insulated, like the rest of your house—somewhere in the range of 40 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit until it warms up a bit in the late afternoon.

But heating the garage is no small matter, since most aren’t designed to keep heat inside what with the unsealed doors and drafty windows. Luckily, there are specially made garage heaters just for that, but not without their challenges. There’s wiring to consider, and other complexities regarding installation and safety.

Read on for our in-depth reviews of the best garage heaters, followed by the most important things to know before buying.

For more ways to beat the chill this winter, check out our picks for the best space heaters and the best patio heaters.

The Best Garage Heaters

• Best All-Around: Dr. Infrared Heater DR-975

• Most Affordable: Mr. Heater Portable Buddy Garage Heater

• Best All-Season: Dyna-Glo Electric Garage Heater with Thermostat

• Best Portable Electric: NewAir Portable Electric Garage Heater

• Best Smart: Heat Storm Smart Outdoor Heater

How We Selected

Although we haven’t tested the heaters below ourselves, we spent a great deal of time vetting their features and specs, looking at manufacturer websites, gauging prices, and consulting user reviews before we decided which ones made the cut. We spoke with experts in mechanical and electrical engineering to understand what makes a great garage heater, and we considered a range of heat types (electricity, propane, or kerosene), as well as whether the heaters are permanent or portable.

Heavy-Duty Garage Heater

This 240-volt compact garage heater is the best all-around choice for most spaces, with 7,500 watts of power and the option to mount it on the wall or ceiling.

According to the manufacturer, it warms the typical garage or unheated building to between 50 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and should be installed with a foot of clearance from combustable surfaces.

The garage heater’s adjustable louvers allow you to direct air where you need it most, and there’s a remote-controlled thermostat right on the front of the heater. A wall-mounted thermostat is available for the unit, as well, but it’s sold separately.

Portable Buddy Garage Heater

For a compact and affordable garage heater that’s ideal for targeted heating, this propane-fueled unit from Mr. Heater is your best bet. Small but mighty, it offers two heat settings—4,000 and 9,000 BTUs—using a single one-pound liquid propane canister. It can heat up to 250 square feet and works great on the floor by your workbench or desk.

It can run for up to three hours on high, or if you need it to go longer, you can upgrade to a 20-pound tank with an adapter that’s sold separately. The heater’s size and weight makes this unit convenient to reposition, and it’s easy to bring with you out to a shed, campsite, or other workspace.

Electric Garage Heater with Thermostat

Thanks to its wide range of temperature settings, this garage heater from Dyna-Glo is the unit we recommend for all-season use. It has 24 options for heating or cooling spaces from 50 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, plus it offers a fan-only mode for summer.

There are two power settings—7,500 and 10,000 watts—and it’s able to heat spaces up to 1,000 square feet. The garage heater also has adjustable angles for horizontal and vertical airflow, and it comes with a convenient remote control, as well as a built-in timer.

Big Maxx Natural Gas Garage Heater

If you have an uninsulated wood garage or an otherwise minimally insulated space, this large ceiling-mountable garage heater is worth a look.

It runs on natural gas (a propane conversion kit is included) and, with the help of a built-in electric fan, it can warm areas up to 2,000 square feet, thanks to its impressive 80,000-BTU output. It also has a powered exhaust that allows for vertical or horizontal venting.

Note that the Big Maxx does not come ready to install; you’ll have to purchase a thermostat, gas hose, fittings, and regulator separately. For all but the most mechanically advanced, it’s best to have a licensed heating-cooling contractor install this garage heater.

Portable Electric Garage Heater

For a powerful 5,600-watt portable garage heater, we recommend this model from NewAir. It’s designed to warm spaces up to 600 square feet, plus it has a 6-foot cord that neatly wraps into a coil on top of the unit, with brackets to hold it down.

Its fan that has two settings: automatic (which comes on automatically when the heating element is activated) and continuous, and you can manually switch between the two.

Use the continuous to keep air moving in spaces with high ceilings or if you’re operating an air-cleaning appliance, like a bench-top air filter, as it’ll help push dusty air through to speed up the process.

The garage heater is relatively lightweight at 16 pounds and requires a 240-volt outlet for operation.

Smart Outdoor Heater

Thanks to its Wi-Fi capability, you can operate this heater from virtually anywhere to ensure your garage is warm when you get home, or to heat up the space in advance of spend time at your workbench. You can turn the unit on and off and set recurring schedules through the app.

The garage heater is rated as capable of warming a 1,000-square-foot area, with an adjustable output of up to 20,000 BTUs. (There’s a 3,000-watt low setting and a 6,000-watt high setting).

The heater mounts to the wall or ceiling, and its large digital temperature display is easy to read, even from across the room. For the price, though, it’s a bit disappointing that the garage heater doesn’t include the wiring.

Infrared Patio Heater

This Briza heater is designed for outdoor areas, particularly patios. But it can work in a garage, even a dusty one, thanks to an IP55 rating, which indicates its good resistance to ingress from solid and liquid particles.

It comes with an adjustable tripod that you can set between 44 and 84 inches tall. And selecting between its three heat settings—900, 1,200, or 1,500 watts—is easy using the unit’s remote control.

The heater has a built-in safety sensor that automatically shuts the appliance off if it tips over. A timer provides additional safety (and energy savings) by shutting the heater off automatically after an operating period of one to nine hours.

Two-Stage Garage Heater

This heavy-duty, 240-volt garage heater is ideal for climates with major temperature swings, featuring a two-stage high and low heating system.

Its lower heat output satisfies mildly cool days, whereas a higher stage can handle warming up garages in single-digit temperatures. There’s a fan mode that’s ideal for increasing airflow in a potentially stuffy garage, plus an energy-saving setting that automatically defaults to the lowest wattage to maintain the desired temperature.

A universal bracket is included for easy mounting to a ceiling or wall, and this heater has a remote-controlled thermostat. The only drawback is that it doesn’t offer a ton of coverage for the price.

What to Consider When Shopping for a Garage Heater

Safety

There’s a lot to account for when using a heater to make your garage a safe and comfortable environment. So we picked the brain of Pat Porzio, a mechanical engineer and multi-licensed tradesman (electrical, plumbing, HVAC). He’s also HVAC manager for Russo Brothers in East Hanover, New Jersey. We also spoke with David Shapiro, an electrician, author, and expert on old house wiring who contributes to electrical product and installation standards.

Both agree on one thing: Your overarching concern in heating a garage is safety. The first words out of both their mouths were identical: “Pull a permit.” That is, if you plan to use a permanently installed electric or gas-fired garage heater, you need to file a building permit for the work—whether you do the work yourself or hire a contractor. Permitted installations are inspected by the town or whatever authority has jurisdiction over this work where you live, and this increases the likelihood of a safe installation.

Aside from pulling a building permit for the electrical work, Shapiro steers homeowners away from any heater without a UL (or other safety-related U.S. testing agency) listing.

Using a 120-volt space heater is simpler; same goes for small propane-fired and kerosene heaters. There’s no need for a building permit to use one of these in a garage. Still, there are safe and unsafe ways to use these heaters. For more on that topic, check out our garage heater safety tips below.

Size

“A bigger heater is not necessarily better,” Porzio says. “An oversized heater will short cycle. That is, it will turn on and off too frequently. It satisfies heating demand very quickly and abruptly turns off. A heater that is too small will do just the opposite. It will run and run and never fulfill the heating demand, eventually wearing itself out.”

Before contractors install a boiler or furnace, they perform a series of calculations, called a Manual J, to determine the correct size. While homeowners can get a rough estimation of that figure by multiplying the square footage of the area by 50 to get the correct BTU, Porzio recommends using simplified Manual J forms online or a sizing tool like those on Garage-Heaters.com and Newair.com.

Installation

Regardless of whether you attempt the electrical work or hire it out, Shapiro has two more recommendations. First, don’t install the heater in a manner such that a power cord leading to a machine or tool could have its cord draped directly in front of the heater. The heat can damage the cord.

Second, consider installing a CO alarm in the garage. A CO alarm can make the garage a safer place to work, especially if you’re heating it with gas, and safer for the occupants of the house.

Garage Heater Safety Tips

• Never modify any heater such that it can be used in a manner that the manufacturer did not intend. For example, unless a manufacturer specifically states otherwise, an electric heater intended for hard-wired installation should not be modified so that it can be plugged into an outlet.

• Any permanently installed heater has to be installed so that it doesn’t become a fire hazard. Just one example is that the heater has to be a safe distance from combustible surfaces. Consult the manufacturer’s installation data and local building or fire safety codes for this information.

• Any heater (portable or installed) can pose a fire hazard when it’s used in the presence of combustible liquids and gases, particularly gasoline. For example, don’t refill a snow thrower’s gas tank in a garage with a heater running nearby. Gasoline fumes can be ignited by a heater.

• When using a portable heater, be mindful of pets and children coming into the vicinity of the heater and perhaps into contact with hot surfaces.

• Don’t use any portable propane or kerosene heater in the garage that isn’t equipped with safety features. Among these are a low-oxygen cutoff or a safety shutoff that turns the appliance off if it’s violently jarred or tipped over.

• Every shop needs a fire extinguisher placed in an accessible location.

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