A basic rule of thumb for forced air heaters is 45 000 btu to heat a two to 2 1 2 car garage and a 60 000 btu garage heater for a three car garage.
Btu needed to heat garage.
Check your garage s insulation.
To choose a heater that will turn your garage from an oversized refrigerator into a comfortable.
Air conditioners and heaters use units of btu to describe their cooling or heating capacity.
Insulation quality x total cubic feet x desired heat rise 1 6 btu required.
One btu is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by 1 degree fahrenheit.
Calculating the number of btus needed to heat an area.
For this step you ll need to determine how well the garage is insulated to get the last variable for the equation.
How many btu you need depends on variables such as the garage size your climate zone and the temperature you want to work in.
If your walls are insulated the same way as your home and you have a finished ceiling that is also insulated you can use a smaller fewer btu heater than if you have no insulation or open rafters which accelerate heat loss.
If you took one pound of water and raised its temperature by one degree fahrenheit you would have used one btu of energy.
Keep scrolling to use our easy free btu calculator when a garage is ice cold in the wintertime it can be hard on your vehicles and anything else that you store in there.
The measure itself is very small but it is the base calculation upon which energy use is built.