Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - Heating a garage

Not sure if thisisthe right forum, but here goes:

I am putting a workshop in the garage, and want heat in the winter (house is in Long Island, NY).

Since there will be wood and metal dust in the air, I'm thinking about running a NG line out to the garage and putting in a sealed combustion heater (the kind that has takes the combustion air in from the outside).

Any suggestions on the brand of heater to use? How do I know how big a unit to get? Any way to pipe it out the side of the garage rather than through the roof (I hate messing with the roof - receipe for leaks)?

I'll have pros do the work, but I'm trying to get any idea for what unit to look for and what it should cost...

Thanks,
Juliean.

With wood & metal dust in the air, I would prefer hot water heat to warm air. If you already have a boiler, you might be able to add a zone for the shop.
If you want to use warm air, most sealed combustion equipment can be sidewall vented.

I initially thought about running a hydronic loop from the house, but it's a fairly long outdoor run, and the zone for garage would probably double my heating load (it's not really insulated). I figure it's probably more efficient (not to mention easier) to just use a sealed combustion unit than to have to double the size of my house boiler just for the garage.

Wouldn't a sealed combustion unit be safe enough, since there is no contact between indoor air and open flame?

Also, if anyone knows a plumber in Long Island, NY who would be willing to do this job, please let me know, as my regular plumber won't.

Regardless of what you do for a heating system, you need to insulate. By doing so, you can reduce the heat loss & therefore save money. Most house boilers are grossly oversized anyway so I would not be at all surprised if the existing boiler would handle the additional load. I don't blame your plumber for not doing the job as warm air, I wouldn't either. I think you are treading on thin ice from a safety stand point.

It's not that - my plumber just doesn't want to run an outdoor gas line. The problem is that the house is about 50 feet from the garage - it would be a very long hydronic loop...

You are right on the insulation - I'm going to go ahead and insulate the roof with fiberglass batts (the walls are filled with vermucellite, which is OK insulation, I might add some ridgid foam to it as well...)

With the vermiculite insulation, I presume this to be a block building. If it is, I certainly wouldn't want to be the one to have to go thru the block filled with vermiculite. I've seen want a problem that can be. Talk about a mess, when all that vermiculite comes pouring out.:eek: If you end up with a furnace, you might want to seriously think about venting thru the roof to avoid the vermiculite problem.
The fifty feet out to the building is no big deal if the pipe is sized right.

No, it's frame, but they poured some sort of vermucelite/gypsum mix into the stud bays - very weird construction. That's only in the bottom part of the garage, not in the "triangles" that form the sides of the roof, or the roof itself. I'll put in batts in the roof and triangles, and I think that the venting for a furnace would probably be best through the triangles, so as not to need to break up the vermucelite.

I put a Rezor in mine, hanging from the ceiling with through-the-wall venting. Looks like this: http://www.reznor.co.uk/hvac_space_heaters_v3_udsa.htm
(The color on the website is off. It's actually a cream color.)

Works fine. Reasonably quiet, efficient.

You can buy a mounting kit for it, but I just used angle aluminum.
Another mounting tip. Make "washers" out of scrap rubber (like a truck mudflap) to isolate the mounting from the unit. You won't get any vibration noise transferred to the ceiling.