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5 Mar ’12
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It's called an air handler -- it blows air over the water that our wood boiler heats up. My forced air furnace and water heater already benefit from this and I wanted the garage to be warm in the winter. We don't have any outbuildings so the 3 car garage has to fit our 2 cars, tractor, and provide the functionality of a small shop.
These go for $200 new on eBay.
I already had valves in the basement that would allow for this expansion. I tied into that plumbing...
Ran it into the garage...
And bingo. I've insulated the pipes since this picture was taken. The garage is a nice 62 degrees now and I can easily change the temperature whenever needed.
I used this outlet thermostat. Very easy to set up and funny enough I already owned it and never used it. I was going to try and figure out a way to have it control heat tape up at the cabin and never got around to it.
qid=1446835231&sr=8-1&keywords=outlet+thermostat
I'm insulating the garage doors and then I should be done.
The following users say thank you to PorkChopsMmm for this useful post:
DangerDuke
27 Aug ’14
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Nice work! So you're just pumping hot water from the hot water heater through this unit which has a fan attached?
Do you have to pump the water from the hot water heater or is it just part of the loop on the way to a fixture?
5 Mar ’12
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Sorry for the slow reply. The water is held in the wood boiler in a closed loop but is vented -- so no risk of explosion. There is a pump in the back of the boiler that circulates all of the water.
15 Feb ’12
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I wonder how well that would work with a car radiator, should be the same principle shouldn't it?
27 Aug ’14
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That's what we did for cooling some computers as work. Surprisingly cheap and very effective. You just want to make sure that you can regulate the fan speed (constant flow rate in radiator +variable speed in the fan lets you dial it in, you can have a lower fan speed and get warmer "wind" or you can have a higher fan speed and get a less warm "wind" but the same BTUs, depends on your gating factor).
5 Mar ’12
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K, yes, a car radiator would work. I guess that is a pretty common thing to do but I was able to buy an already made unit with a fan so went in that direction.
icanreachit -- interesting thought. This fan unit had wiring built in, but no controller, for changing fan speed. I just left it at the default which I think is full speed. It's loud, not too loud, but I wonder if there would be some thermo-benefit for running it at a slower speed. I don't think I know enough to figure it out.
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