When the thermometer on the Tymber Creek garage wall reads 46 and the varnish won't cure
Most Ormond Beach garages never need heat. The ones that do belong to people who work in them, and the cold mornings come exactly when the project is due.
The symptom
A homeowner in Tymber Creek, off State Road 40 near the interstate, calls in the second week of January. He has retired into furniture-making and the garage is his shop. The problem is not comfort, exactly; it is that the finish on a dining table has been tacky for two days because the garage has not gotten above 50 since the front came through, and the thermometer on the wall above the bench read 46 this morning. He has been running a plug-in space heater that trips the breaker every time the compressor kicks on. Can we put real heat in the garage?
Yes. And he is the right person to ask, because the honest answer to most Ormond Beach homeowners is that their garage does not need a heater at all.
Who this equipment suits here, and who it doesn’t
Garage heat in Volusia County is a hobby decision, a business decision or a collector’s decision, not a household one. The people who buy it:
- Woodworkers, painters and finishers whose materials have minimum cure temperatures, like the man in Tymber Creek.
- Car collectors and restorers, of whom Ormond Beach, the Birthplace of Speed, has more than its share. Steady, dry warmth keeps condensation off bare metal on cold damp mornings.
- Home-based businesses in detached workshops on the larger lots west of I-95, around Hunter’s Ridge and out toward the airport, where the building is too far from the house system to duct.
- Anyone with a plumbed garage bath or laundry on the north side of the house who has seen a pipe freeze once and does not want to see it twice.
The people who do not need it: the family whose garage holds cars and bikes, the retiree whose garage holds a golf cart, and anyone hoping a garage heater will warm the room above it. For a 49-degree normal January low, those garages take care of themselves.
How a garage heater works
A unit heater is a fan, a heat source and a louvered cabinet hung from the ceiling or a wall bracket, aimed across the space. Electric units run on a dedicated 240-volt circuit and need no venting, which makes them the simplest install in an attached garage. Gas units, fed by Peoples Gas where a main runs past the house, deliver more heat per dollar on a cold morning but need a vent to the outdoors and a gas line to the garage. Infrared tube heaters warm objects rather than air and suit tall detached shops where the doors open often. All three bring a garage from the mid-40s to the mid-60s in well under an hour and hold it there with a wall thermostat.
Sizing for an Ormond Beach garage
Garages here are not insulated the way northern ones are, and the door is the weak point. A two-car attached garage with a thin door and a few outlets in the wall loses heat quickly, so the sizing is driven by the door and the floor slab more than the square footage. We measure the space, note the door type and whether the ceiling is finished, and pick a unit that reaches the target temperature in the time the owner expects without short-cycling once it gets there. Oversizing is the common mistake; it heats the air fast and leaves the slab and the lumber cold.
Running cost and rebates
Electric unit heaters cost more per hour to run than gas ones, but with only a few weeks of use a year the gap is small and the lower install cost usually wins. FPL’s HVAC rebates apply to the house system, not to garage unit heaters, and Peoples Gas rebates target water heaters rather than space heat, so plan on no incentive for this purchase. If the shop is used year-round, ask us about a ductless mini-split instead; it heats, cools and dries the garage, and it is the piece of equipment the Tymber Creek furniture-maker ended up with. Call 866-266-5709.
Garage heating questions from Ormond Beach workshops
Is a garage heater or a garage mini-split the better buy for a shop I use year-round?
If you work out there in July too, the mini-split wins: it heats in January, cools in summer, and dehumidifies the tools and lumber in between. A unit heater is the right call when the garage only needs winter heat for a few weeks and the budget is tight.
How many cold mornings a year is this actually for?
The January normal low here is about 49, and the garage inside an uninsulated door tracks the outdoor air closely. Count on a few dozen mornings below 50 and a handful in the 20s and 30s, mostly between mid-December and late February.
Can the heater run from the garage sub-panel I already have?
An electric unit heater needs its own dedicated circuit; sharing one with a freezer, a compressor and an opener is how breakers trip at the worst time. We will tell you what the panel can carry before we quote the unit.
Will the heater help the bedroom over the garage?
A little, by warming the floor from below, but it is the wrong tool for that complaint. The bonus room over a Breakaway Trails garage usually needs a supply duct fix or its own mini-split, not a hotter garage.
Working in a cold garage this winter?
We will size it, wire it and tell you if a mini-split is the smarter spend.