Heating Garage/Shop?

[Rita B.]

Just curious how or if you heat your shop for those of us in the colder climates.   Do you heat it or just retire your hobby for the winter?  What type of heating system to do use?  Lighting can also be a problem in the cold.   I have a two and half car garage and using one and a half for the shop portion.  The walls are covered and insulated but the ceiling rafters are still exposed.  I am trying to think of the best way that I could enclose the rafters using a light weight material (since I would be installing solo)  and closing off the space so that only the "shop" portion could be heated.  I hate the thought of closing shop for those long winter months and if I hope to be able to tinker around a bit this winter, I will need to start planning for it now before the cold is here in Michigan.

[Doug Harmon]

rita     I live in Indiana use a bubble foil insulation for ur ceiling,  standard insulation is better   heat with a hanging gas heater or electric  both need to be explosion proof contact a local heating man, u don't need a high dollar unit.

[Rick]

I have a 2-car integral garage that is part of my basement.  When I bought the place I updated the garage doors to insulated, weatherstripped, windowless ones that qualified for tax credits.  The walls were furred out and insulated with that white foam board, and then covered with T1-11.  For heat I have an unvented "blue flame" heater, 10kbtu/hr thermostatically controlled, which is not the best solution, but so far so good. 

On the coldest nights, it usually won't go below 60deg.  In the summer I have the benefit of opening the door to the house and the garage is air-conditioned.

Whenever I create dust, the flame turns yellow, and whenever I spray solvents, the fumes can be nasty since they are burned too.  So what I usually do is turn the heater off and run my exhaust fan until the air clears up and my wife stops complaining about the smells upstairs.  Ugh!