a heated garage, what an aventure. - Snowmobile Forum: Your #1 Snowmobile Forum

fr0st · 12-31-2005, 08:46 AM

aaah a heated garage, the holy grail of wrench jedis, a must for a sled owner, the fun to heat up the place, then drag a few beers in and work on that ol' sled to get her fixed up right... alone or with friends.. hey what else can you ask for right?

well i have that already, i got a small oil pot furnase that i fuel with diesel..i would fuel it with oil no.1 but it costs as much as diesel so .the maker is fawcett i think...works great.. in keeping up the heat, but very weak to get it to 65- 70.. at -10 F it takes about 2 -3 hours to get to a confortable temperature..and at - 30 you need a good coat or you wait 4 -5 hours unless you want frostburn with the tools. so i got bored of it.. oh and one time, the cheminee clogged you should have seen the mess when fuel was still going into the pot, but no air was so it was "accumulating"when i unclogged it and open the little door to light it up it was like an erupting volcano!! smoke and fire everyhwere, so much that i open the garage door and went in to get the keys of Lola ( my kawa Zx9) and get her out and then the sled out too ... finally the eruption ceased.. anyways.

si decided to upgrade to something that would heat up faster and give me that same even heat for hours, don't get me wrong i lgota big wood stove in my basement in my house... so on a last saturday morning the phone rang, a friend of mine called me up and said he found something...so him and i go see what it was... and then i saw it, a big M****** F****** house oil furnase with a burner and fan .. working on 120 volts(just for the fan and burner) and packing 125 000 BTU out of the duct... and it was free.. yes you have seen right, FREE.. the cost was to get it out of the house, it was swapped for an electric unit and guy wanted it out but was not equiped for it.. and i was.. so i got my trailer, and got that thing out in 3 pieces..which one was VERY heavy.... and got it back home. and heated up the old oil pot furnas for the last time... or did i.. .. after a few hours it was time to swap.. the problem thi thing is HEAVY.. had to drag it in place and rig up the wiring for the controls and thermostat.... then was about to rig my 45 gallon drum of diesel to the furnase and bam! i puled on it by the hose a little too much on the output valve and it came out, imagine a 45 gallon of diesel fuel with a 1 inch hole on the side... believe me you kinda RUN LIKE HELL to find something to recover the fuel... had about 6 -7 gallons in it.. so i mangle with a few 5 gallons to recover it... but it took time and ALOT was on the floor...after spending a few minutes looking at my own private little exxon valdez incident, the words "cat litter" came to mind.. bought 6 pouches of it and used them all.. so now i had a gravel paved garage.. i managed to clean the whole mess up and still ended up ( of course) with a nice diesel perfume scent... which stinks and reminds me back of the days i had my diesel vw golf.. anyways..my 45 gallon barrel was f*cked and i needed something that would not leak.. i tryed to fix the barrel but after 30 minutes the a leak returned.. ( the barrel always had a small leak and i never got to fix it.. so i needed a new container for oil.. smaller wouldn't hurt since i only use oil when im in the garage fixxing stuff. the rest of the time no heat there. so i went to canadian tire and bought a 6 gallon boat fuel tank for outboards.... it has a hose with a pump you squeeze.. installed this that it was perfect.. cost 75$ CDN but well worth it.

so now it's show time.. i started up this monster which i named chernobyle... aster sputtering up a few air bubbles and the oil pump ceased to make that cavitation noise when there air in it.. i heard the blower fire and the fan started.. this thing blows away like i have never seen, at -15 degrees Celcius outside i heated up the garage in 10 minutes... REAL 10 minutes.. i had to take off my coat and all the snow on my pantera was melting to water.. i had puddles of water around the sled... i was VERY surprised that it would be THAT effective...

if you would ask if worth it, yes it was..

anyways heres a pic of before and after

oil pot furnase ( for sale btw)

heres a pic of Chernobyl ( installation if not final due to lack of time so wires everywhere will disapear and tank will be place elsewhere... it took me 2 days to get this swap done.)

Fr0st.( who has a terrible back ache)

IndianRvrShiver · 12-31-2005, 08:56 AM

Great story, fr0st!! Just about as good as the Teflon tape one!! LOL
I once had an oil space heater in my cabin that had a minor leak in the oil line.....has since been replaced, but it took forever for that distinctive aroma to go away!!
Are you going to add duct-work?? Anyway, looks like a great place to wrench!!

fr0st · 12-31-2005, 09:08 AM

hey what can i say, i prone to situations like that

yeah the smell will me there a while.. again.. it's the second time i had problems with spill.. but this one was BIG

the garage is made totally of concret bricks.. those big ones.. and like the house, it's old and solid and straight

yeah the onlyt problem is it lacks a bit of space and the old couple i bought the house from, had the great idea of putting asphalt to patch the cracks and holes in the cement floor, so in spring im getting a 2 inch of new dement with metal grid everywhere.. ( oh f*ck, im gonna need to get the furnase out again ...bummer) ..the other problem with it is size, i can get a car in but not much moire.. but for sleds and bikes... its alright

even better with improved heating.

as for docking the furnase, i was going to look at it but after a few hours of testing, the way it throws air up on the LOW celling ( remember , old garage, my NEW garage door is 78 inches, had to have it made custom size $$$) the air go everywhere and you feel a very warm wind( not a draft ,a wind, believe me) where the garage door is so basically i might leave it like that and install grills over it, this thing can dry mitts and boots in minutes !! LOL

Fr0st

letitsnow · 12-31-2005, 01:13 PM

thats cool, my "heated garage" consists of a 350,000 btu salamander heater and a plastic wall to close off the horses side of the barn. i wish the heater was quieter, you have to yell to talk to someone. the good part about it being so big is that you can run it for 15 min. and it will be about 80 degrees and turn it off for a while till its cold, the thermostat doesn't work well.

94zr580 · 12-31-2005, 01:59 PM

ive got this tiny space heater that takes for ever to heat my big garage. it was free and its better than nothin tho.

illwerral · 12-31-2005, 04:04 PM

We're insulating my garage at the moment, and it's a real pain in the arse. I can hardly wait to finish, then we can warm it up and rebuild my sled! We have a 4.8 kW heater, we'll see how it does...if it sucks we can probably just throw a wood burner in it.

mx and sled 41 · 12-31-2005, 10:33 PM

you dont need a wood burner, just burn the sled that doesnt run

fr0st · 01-01-2006, 11:30 AM

update on project chernobyl :

after medlin a full 8 hours in the garage while heated , working on a old 72 elan who had numerous problems,

i decided to add some duct-work since the floor stay VERY cold and the air very warm.. so i need to make myself a duct that shoots 50% of the hot air flow on the floor.. i might take out a little bit of space but will be well worth it.

i also redone the wiring and installed the therrmostat near the door... the power goes through a lumex 14/2 cable which i can plug into a wall at will.. i didn't want to install any electrical boxes since im on a concret brick wall and it was not very easy to do ( for me atleast) and i wanted to keep the heater from working when im not there... like start to heat up at night because it too cold and the thermostat hasn't got an OFF switch... so i installed a plug and just remove it when i dont need.

as for fuel consomption, it kinda low.

now, off to that elan 250 again..see ya

Fr0sT

mx and sled 41 · 01-01-2006, 11:42 AM

i had one of those elan 250's... mine was a deluxe.... i think it was a 73 though... i rode that thing twice cuz it went like 2 feet in 4 inches of snow... and then got stuck cause it decided to try to go under the snow, instead of on top of it...

fr0st · 01-01-2006, 01:45 PM

yeah i tryed it a bit yesterday, it's a friend of mine's and he never got it running right.. so we decided to get it over to my garage and check it out... find out the timing was all the way to one side, then the automatic advance was screwed also, a bolt was loose and kept iot from coming back... then opened up the carb ( made in usa carb.. strange thing.. with a vacuum pump built in) and found that the needle valve is broken.. thetip where the little fork like thing is broken off off so the needle valve cannot be moved and is loose erractically in the hole and makes the carb very rich... to the point that when trying to adjust at first, i was unscrewing the air fuel mix screw on the side and it went well when i REMOVED it LOL... then i twas time to open up this carb..it also needs a few

i'll get pics of it when it have it working... maybe a video clip with sound on my server so everyone can have a good laugh at us in the deep snow with this "tank"...

Fr0st

BangerBoxoff · 01-11-2006, 10:29 AM

i only have a single door garage and is part of the house

and a shed to store my bikes in. Can only fit 1 sled and a snowblower in my garage or my suzuki samari plow truck. I just light the wood stove in the basement and open the door to the garage and/or use a propane tank with the heater attachment, good 20min and the garage is good to go!! we are gonna build a barn style 2 door garage and connect the upper deck to the top of the barn where the car and boat is, gonna take awhile to build but i cant wait. We are thinking about some kind of furnace, house already has 3 woodstoves, 25cord a yr sucks enough

fr0st · 01-11-2006, 10:38 AM

if you dont heat it all the time, and use it only for repairs and all, get yerself a oil furnase like mine....man it's economical on fuel, and heats up like nothing else can ! and there cheap to find too

im gonna need to install a few ducts since it wont heat up the floor fast enough.. and since heat rises i should heat up the floor first.

Fr0st

BLinindoll · 01-11-2006, 10:58 AM

I just went out and bought a 60,000 BTU salamander the other day. Before that, i used one of those white karo heaters with the cage around it. It used to take 2 hours to heat it up, even slightly. I turn this new heater on, and in 10 minutes I'm takin my jacket off. I have a tall 2 car garage too, which is not insulated. im gonna insulate the attic one of these days. Should keep the heat in for longer. I WAS lookin for an old house heater like your frost, but couldnt find one.

fr0st · 01-11-2006, 12:26 PM

yeah well mine was sorta of a lucky find..

the reason people dont sell them is because they last like 30 years..

mine has been rebuilt and is in great shape.

Fr0st