Hi, I love working on my MB's, and I just realized most of you out there don't have heat in your garages, or (GASP) are working outside...
anyway, if you are a little handy, and you have a water heater nearby, I can design up some simple plans to get you some portable, comfortable radiant heat. post replies here, and if it looks like something you guys are interested in, I will take pictures and work up a DIY to use.
basically it is a small flat section of cement or even plastic with small tubing in it and you just pump hot water thruough it. great for working under a car.
John

You can make it even simpler by using a sheet of cement board, electric radiant heat wires (like for a bathroom floor), and some big tiles (or another sheet of cement board). With either system you will probably want to insulate underneath it with styrofoam or the garage floor will act like a big ol heat sink.

Write it up.

I would like to have this thread in General Information, so it does not get lost.




Have a great day.

I just wish I had a garage. :(

Just get a crawler, electric socks, and a heater with sealed elements.

Cement backer board comes in 3' x 5' sheets.
For the simplest kit you will need:
2 sheets of backer board (cement, not re-inforced gypsum)- 1/2" thick.
Thinset mortar (comes either premixed or dry mix-your-own)
Wire for radiant floor heat (comes either by the foot or in a kit embedded in silicone mesh material)
A lighting dimmer switch and a plug.


First: this is electric. The radiant wiring is well sealed, but not made for a wet environment. Use common sense
Basically you are going to use the thinset mortar to sandwich the wiring between the two sheets of cement. Follow the directions that come with the radiant wiring. Run a power wire out, put the dimmer switch in line to control the temp, and plug it into the wall.
I would lay this apparatus on a 1" piece of styrofoam insulation and hammer together a simple wooden frame to keep the edges from getting chewed up.

For a more swank look, you can use 12" or bigger ceramic floor tiles on top instead of the sheet of backer board.
This apparatus will be heavy but you should be able to slide it around with a helper.

If you want to make it safe for a wet environment you will want to use hot water for heat and make it with PEX tubing instead. This application will be more permanent. IF you can live with a high spot on your floor do this:
You'll need:
1/2 " Pex tubing O2 impervious
1/2" clips to hold the pex in place
pex connectors
1/2 copper pipe and fittings (maybe not needed, depends on how you plumb it)
Bleeder valve
2 gallon, 1500 watt water heater
small boiler pump
All this should be in the plumbing section of your home center
You'll also need :
cement
styrofoam



build a wooden frame 3" high, big as you want. Keep in mind that PEX tubing only bends down to a 6" (I think) radius. You are going to put styrofoam on the bottom again and then lay in a length of PEX. Zig zag it back and forth with about 8" spacing. Tack it in place with the 1/2" clips. Leave a healthy amount coming out the side of your frame. Fill with concrete. You want at least 1" on top of the tubing.

For the boiler you are going to use your 2 gallon heater. Plumb the pump onto it (it works well to put the pump on top of the heater. Plumb the bleeder valve into the high point of the system, after the pump. Your pex will form a circuit and should include 2 "T"s with garden hose fittings (the ones with an on/off valve). The Ts will be for filling with water. Wire the pump to an on/off switch and just run it all the time when your system is on. Fill with anti freeze if you will not be running constantly.

For a much sleeker system, get a diamond blade for your Skilsaw and cut a rectangle in the garage floor then put this whole thing in level with the floor.

There is a lot of information online about in-floor radiant heat. There may be a DVD at the home center that will give you the basics, there was at Menards when I put my system together for my kitchen. Everything will be in the plumbing section, but it may not be labeled as stuff for radiant heating. You should be able to build a water heated system for about $500, an electric one should be as little as $200.

I don't claim to be an expert, please pile on and add insight anything that I might have missed.

I simply don't work under my car in the winter unless I have to. All work that needs me on the ground is done in April once the garage slab warms up enough.

I just wish I had a garage. :(

ditto

hehe :) I work in the snow on my back.. on long jobs you pack down this nice ice slick with your body heat acting like a zamboni and it makes it really easy to slide underneath :D hands get *REALLY* cold though, but after a half hour you can't feel 'em anyway so it doesnt matter, just makes finger-tightening bolts impossible. If I had the time and money I'd do something to remedy this situation but putting on lots of clothes is a freebie option... nice idea with the radiant heat.

I have a "blue flame" type 28,000btu propane heater in my basement shop that opens into the garage. I also use a "mr heater" unit on top of a gas grille type propane bottle to heat the garage when I need it. I run the mr heater for an hour or so before I start working and the garage will be 50*F+ by then in the dead of winter. Insulated Carhartt bibs and a sweatshirt its pretty comfortable. Blue flame heater and Mr Heater from Northern Tool for @$200 total. Got the big outdoors propane bottles and regulator that feed the blue flame from a buddy for free. RT

when i put in the slab in my lower basement garage i installed tubes so i could circulate hot water. i also insulated under the slab. but so far i have not hooked it all up.

tom w

If any of you are considering the electric mat heater there is one very important part that wasn't mentioned...you MUST power it from a GFCI supplied source. Laying on the ground trapped between your car and an electrical grid could be fatal if a leak developed. The manufacturers of heat mats all require GFCI protection in their installation instructions.

Brian.........Licensed electrician in AZ

get a bunch of card board. enough for about an inch thick pad as big as you need. that will keep you alot warmer than concrete, or snow. FREE.

Ditto on the cardboard. I've been using that for years, regardless of the weather. Even just a single sheet makes it easy to slide around, and keeps you relatively clean and comfortable - especially if you are working in the driveway as opposed to a garage, which has been the case for me these past several years. My garage has, unfortunately, become a storage facility.

yes. cardboard is very luxurious. i also have a 1/2" thick foam mat that we bought for our motorcycle trip through canada in 76. it is like cardoard but a little more luxurious. it doesnt slide as well though.

tom w

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm

This guy has a nice step by step blog style of what he did.
http://www.arttec.net/Solar/BarnHeat.html

-Jim

any of you naysayers, have NO idea how comfortable a radiant slab is to work on. the blast heaters will eventually heat up the garage, but the slab heats JUST YOU AND THE CAR. really, no burns from hot blasts of air, no cold motor parts to touch, amazing really. I am toying with the idea of a 1.5" slab made out of .5" foilbacked insulating board, and a 1" pour of devcon, or urethane with either an electric heater in it, or the .5" pex tubing... I will show tons of helpfull quick ideas, and simple cheats.
John
NC HVAC Mechanical Boiler and A/C tech.

My 12 by 22 shed is insulated and has radiant tubing installed.

I put a layer of construction bubble wrap under the slab. (It is a sandwich of foil, two layers of bubbles, and one layer of plastic. Foil to earth. Plastic to concrete.) I also put a 2 inch thick layer of borated foam around the edge of the slab.
On top of that there is 9 tons of gravel, shaped and sloped. There is also 9 cubic yards of concrete to finish it off. It is a 6 inch thick slab with 1 foot below grade on the edges.

There are 5 solar water heating panels on the roof for a total of 200 square feet of collectors. Inside is a 560 gallon tank of water. It is plumbed up to collect heat from the collectors and I have the tubing run under ground to the house but that is it. I need to hook it up to the tubing in the slab and put a heat exchanger in the HVAC ducting in the house.

This summer I turned on the collector pump controllers and let it run. Within a couple of weeks I had evaporated off half of the water in the tank (the top was off) and my shed was consistantly 170F and HUMID! Since then I have pretty much kept it turned off.

I work too much and can't get it done. I have not found a local I trust to do the work yet.

-Jim