The Perks of an Infrared Garage Heater

No one likes walking into a freezing cold garage and trying to get their car to start. There are a lot of benefits to having a warm garage. Forget having to warm up your car for ten minutes in the morning. We are providing this handy guide to show you how to make your garage warm and comfortable.

Our recommendation for the best garage heater is the Auto-ray infrared garage heater because it is easy to install and runs on natural gas. These radiant infrared heaters can heat a two or three-car garage (500 to 600 square feet) at hardly any cost to you. We’ll go over the science behind infrared, the perks of using natural gas, and a couple of other garage heating options besides infrared.

Benefits of Infrared Garage Heaters

Since the garage is the area of the house that gets the least heat, it’s important to implement a separate heat source that will de-ice your vehicle and stored items in the wintertime. We know how annoying it is when you have to heat up your car every morning so that you can feel your fingers. If you’ve earned the coveted garage spot, you deserve a warm, ice-free car.

Garage heating is the solution. Garage heaters work great for an outbuilding or detached work shed. Plus, a garage heater helps the rooms above your garage stay warm, too.

An infrared heater directly heats people and objects, which in turn heats the surrounding air to the set temperature. An infrared garage heater with thermostat allows you to set your garage to a controlled temperature.

Here are some benefits of a garage infrared heater:

  • Maintenance-Free: With no moving parts, no maintenance is required. There are no motors to wear out or filters to replace.
  • Odor-Free: There’s no burning smell or other weird odors that fill your garage.
  • Instant Heat: Infrared heaters turn on instantly and don’t take time to warm up. They immediately start outputting heat that warms you directly.
  • Silent Operation: Standard heaters heat the air and then use the air to warm you and other objects up with what is called convection heating. They have to use motors to power fans to blow the air and create a lot of noise. Infrared silently emits invisible but warming light rays to directly warm you and objects within the path of the rays.
  • Perfectly Safe and Healthy: Infrared waves are perfectly safe to be under with no side effects; think of them as rays from the sun but without the dangerous UV rays. Infrared heat can promote healthier blood circulation. It does not remove humidity or oxygen from the air, nor does it dry out your sinuses and skin.
  • Energy Efficient: Infrared heat uses almost 100 percent of the energy used to create heat, and independent studies have shown that infrared heat uses 20 to 50 percent less fuel than a standard warm air system. Propane and natural gas models offer even more energy efficiency than an electric infrared heater, with up to 50 percent less energy used.
  • CSA Certified: The infrared garage heater is also CSA certified, meaning an accredited third party has reviewed this product for safety and performance. Certification reassures retailers, regulators, and consumers alike that this product does what it’s supposed to.

Anthony PHCE offers a one-year warranty on gas control and a three-year warranty on the burner, so you can rest assured that these systems will last you a while.

How Infrared Heating Works

Before you invest in a garage infrared heater, it’s important to know how it works. Similar to how the sun heats our planet, electromagnetic waves make the molecules oscillate and release energy as warmth. These systems produce sun-like heat tuned between nine to 14 micron meters, ensuring safe heating but without the potentially harmful UV rays.

Where traditional heating systems pump expensive heat into the air only to have it rise to the ceiling of the garage, infrared garage heaters are up to 50 percent more energy efficient. This type of heating doesn’t suck the moisture out of the air, and it prevents heat loss through ventilation (i.e., heat escaping through open doors and windows). In other words, you don’t have to worry about your garage losing all its heat just because the garage door is open.

Infrared light is visible because our eyes can’t access the spectrum it’s on. The same works for an infrared heater; the heat is a product of the light that we can’t see. Since our skin and clothes absorb the heat, these heaters aren’t wasting energy on the spaces that don’t need heat.

Powering Your Infrared Garage Heater

Infrared heaters can use propane, natural gas, or electricity.

  • Propane Infrared Heater: Propane is beneficial for residents who live too far out to access the natural gas line. It is very energy efficient but doesn’t burn quite as cleanly as natural gas.
  • Electric Infrared Heater: Infrared heaters powered by electricity do not need any combustion or gas lines installed. Electric infrared heaters are the easiest to install, only needing to be mounted and plugged in. They are more efficient than a standard forced air system but not as efficient as propane or natural gas.
  • Natural Gas Infrared Heater: Natural gas burns cleanly and efficiently, is widely available, and is very cost-effective. A gas infrared heater is the most energy-efficient of the three.

Our preferred infrared garage heater uses natural gas because it’s the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly option.

Other Types of Garage Heaters

If you’re not sold on infrared, there are other great options you can look at, such as zoning and geothermal heating. While neither option has the cost-effectiveness of infrared garage heaters, they may be the better choice if you’re looking to change up the heating of your entire home.

Zoning lets you customize the temperature for different parts of your home. This means you can funnel extra cooling or heating into the rooms that need it the most without wasting energy changing the temperature of the entire home.

The system uses automatic dampers and an electronic monitor to send individual temperature instructions to each of the rooms that are set up in the system. It’s a great option for homes that have multiple levels, have a bonus room off the back or over the garage, have finished areas in the basement or attic, or have a portion of the home built over a concrete slab floor. If you want to heat your garage from the same system as your home heater without using up the same amount of heat, this is a great option.

Geothermal heating works by tapping into the renewable energy in the Earth’s surface to heat or cool your home. This option negates the need for burning fossil fuels at all. Instead, we set up a system to collect the Earth’s temperature via underground water pipes and a ground source heat pump. This saves you up to 70 percent on your utility bills compared to a conventional system. This is the most environmentally friendly option for heating or cooling your home and has been approved by the U.S. Department of Energy.

They even save homeowners money by lowering utility bills, cutting out about $129 per month. They end up paying for themselves within five to ten years, and the government offers a 30 percent tax credit incentive for purchases of energy-efficient products.

You can easily access indoor components, and the geothermal heating system lasts 24 years. Not only do they have a longer lifespan, but they also have fewer moving parts to worry about (no maintenance!). Outdoor components, like the ground loop, can last upwards of 50 years. This lowers the amount of energy needed to heat up your garage and the rest of your home.

If you’re looking for a garage heater that will make the most of your budget and harness the warming capabilities of the sun, an infrared heater is the way to go. Contact Anthony PHCE for infrared garage heater system installation in Kansas City.

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