Show off your garage or workshop!!

Finger ported and 2 piece head 3120 Husky. I use it mainly for milling.

 

Finally, 240v in the garage(and 240v by the saw shop…feeling juiced!). And no more main panel weird buzzing sounds whenever I welded in the garage. The Morenos kicked some serious butt as the garage is about 100’ away from the house, mostly bedrock too.

Now it’s time to make the garage look goooood and proper.

 

Damn! I wish my shop had one of those in it! Looks like big fun.

 

The only regret I have in selling my last house was my back shop.

 

I like my setup.

 

I love my workbench.

 

Never put the couch set up in. If I did I would have never got the projects done!

 

Lol, mine is 70% man cave. 30% work. I have a bay behind the sofa where I can work on stuff but no room for long term projects at home.

 

Getting ready to do quite a few projects this winter, so had to do some prep work.

Hung this:


Picked up a new 56" box:


Did some deep cleaning and reorganizing:




Now I just need to find some strong friends to help me mount this over the tool boxes:

 

My garage is currently a complete mess. Had ankle surgery so can’t do anything and winter hit so everything is just thrown in there. Just starting to get stuff put back where it goes!!

 

the garage got heat this christmas! it'll be nice to not need to dick around with the torpedo heater all the time when i need the garage above freezing...








minus diesel fuel, i'm only about $150 into this, which is far cheaper than a 220v electric or natural gas heater and trenching 100ft of lines from the house to the garage to feed either of them..

 

I have heard really good things about these heaters.

 

That is pretty sweet. To be clear, you only had 120V to your shop or 240 too expensive to run?

I have a 240V heater not so bad, don't run for super long though.

 

i've watched more reviews than anyone should care to admit. and i've been following pricing on them via Amazon, aliexpress, and ebay for at least the last 4 years now... it's been a long road to this point.

but all of them are basically the same, and are all built very simply, so parts are somewhat easy to come by, and repairs are simple if something goes wrong. control boards are likely the largest question on interchangability. it seems most are custom-made, which if the control board or the main display go bad, can require replacing all of the control electronics, but not much different from any real furnace system anymore.

this video from deboss garage helped a ton, and definitively decided for me to not waste money on the 8k version, despite 8k being likely better for heating a large open uninsulated space like i'm doing. i really want to do the same cast iron radiator idea he shows there, but am also severely space-limited as well, so i'm hoping the heater alone is good enough for now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfzCeXlDq0A


main issues i had while setting it up was priming the fuel pump, using the corrugated exhaust tubing included, and trying to keep the muffler within the enclosed space of the garage(the goal for that was to try to keep extra heat-creating components in the more controlled space within the garage, where they could passively add to the heat output-- .

the muffler has a weep hole at the bottom, which is supposed to eject liquid/moisture from it. main problem is that if it's in the enclosed space, it's a gap for exhaust gasses to exit... and the included flex exhaust tubing doesn't seal all the way-- the muffler back pressure was enough that it used the spiral corrugations as an exhaust exit point.

combined with priming the fuel pump, which involved allowing it to dump fuel into the combustion chamber, first startup had a ton of raw fuel entering the exhaust. which then leaked through the corrugations of the included exhaust tubing, as well as the weep hole on the muffler, giving me quite a smoke show on the wrong side of the wall... i switched the tubing over to a different version with smooth connections, and flipped the muffler to the outside, and everything is good.

this spot on the floor is from priming it with the muffler on the inside. the new tubing setup is entirely leak-free



now the heater i got has jacked the price back to $140

maXpeedingrods 12V 5KW Diesel Heater, with Bluetooth App Remote Control, LCD Switch All-in-One Style for RV,Car, Outdoor Camping, Big Truck

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6RCGS4B

but the 12v power supply has remained the same at $20

$20 JOYLIT 12V 20A Power Supply Adapter 240W, AC 110V 220V to DC 12 Volt 20Amp Universal Regulated Switching Transformer, 12Vdc Power Supplies for LED Strip, CCTV Camera, Lighting Project

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01955JDG2

and the exhaust port and tubing, $12 and $17

$17 ZTUOAUMA 316 Stainless Steel Straight Thru Hull Exhaust Skin Fitting Kit 24mm Tube Diameter Socket Hardware for Webasto Planar Eberspacher Diesel Heaters var4

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SG4BM73

$10 23.6"es Stainless Steel Exhaust Hose, 2.5cm/ 1 In Fuel Tank Diesel Gas Vent Hose Length, Flexible Exhaust Tubing Diesel Heater Exhaust Pipe Inner Diameter Air Heater Exhaust Pipe-2 PCS

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CLS2CFM4?th=1

correct. i have only a single 120v/20A circuit going out to the garage--meets code, but doesn't meet my requirements trying to do things in the garage.

frankly, i've been curious about these heaters since they blew up on youtube and similar back before covid. but the hype caused massive price fluctuations that made them unreasonable to purchase. youtubers were initially buying them for $50, but the hype made them closer to $300-500, which makes upgrading my garage a better/cheaper expense. this one i got for $90 as part of the christmas sales, and is supposed to be a more premium model with a remote, phone app, as well as upgraded fuel line, and upgraded quieter fuel pump.

the other thing i like about going this route is that there will be less forecasting on my part to what it costs to heat the garage when i need it. either i have diesel to heat it, or i don't, but i'm hoping this is far more efficient overall than propane/ torpedo heaters, and less future-panic using the local utilities and getting a massive bill 3 weeks later.



while i was an electrician in a previous life, and know my way around a shovel, last time i added up the parts needed to get a minimum 60A/240v to the garage, i was nearing $1500, and a really long weekend of digging.

but i'm also one of those guys that has major problems with project bloat. and once "i'm already digging a trench", suddenly, it's rational to install a natural gas line, and if i'm putting in the gas line, i might as well do hot and cold water and sewer back into the house as well... now i'm looking at $5,000+ in materials, a big hole in my backyard, and multiple weekends of work including coring through the foundation for connections, on a bare-bones garage built on 24" centers and exterior-grade drywall for wallcovering. none of which is difficult for me, just more added time for a planned small project, and likely poor use of expenses on a low-cost garage that would be far better spent building a newer garage...

so to trade all the 'while i'm there' materials, costs, and time, for $20 of 5 gallons of diesel, and a $90 heater with some random pieces thrown in is an absolute bargain, even if it's only a 5,000-btu heater and doesn't heat the space as fast as the official electric or natural gas options..

in my playing yesterday it brought the garage space up from 30 degrees to 50 degrees in about 20 minutes, which is more than adequate for my needs. if i get a cast iron radiator later, i might even be able to boost it further, which would only help more.

 

My shop shrank with the addition of a project car





Also, this just happened

 

Blessed to have 240 80A to my shop. House built in 2014 we bought in 2020. Previous owners never used the shop. Didn’t even store stuff there.

We built a breezeway cover from main shop to garage I posted about it 2021-22 I think hahaha

That said I might also add a secondary heat source - diesel, wood, LP maybe. 2 of those get insurance attention if you follow

 

Ever wonder why municipal taxes can be so high? I wonder how much replacement signage costs per year.

 

Congratulations!!! Nice to be legit