Moved my tractor repair endeavours from under the maple tree to inside this year with great pleasure BUT the cold and damp are getting the better of me this week and I am thinking heater. Can't do anything permanant but could do one of those portable heaters. Stick it outside and point it under the door where I am working. I see kerosene and propane and was wondering if anyone had an opinion on which is better? Only need heat for a few hours here and there and won't be out there at all in the real wintertime. Suggestions?

Propane is somewhat cleaner, but an electric heater might be a less expensive and more breathing friendly option than either. Combustion gasses are not good. A 20 amp electric heater will cost less than either to buy, and less to run as well. It will not be as framatic a heater, but it will take the chill off. JimN

tryed the herman nelson htr. and it just gave me a headache from the fumes. i would go electric also. those small kerosene infared htrs. arnt to bad. could use one as backup on chillyer days with the electric.

This style works good. Used one like it with two burners last fall to heat up an addition. After about a half hour we were turning if off got to warm.
mrheater

I've got a little 30,000BTU propane salamander type heater that works pretty well. It'll run 15 hours or better on a 20-lb tank of propane (at local prices that's about $0.85 per hour plus whatever electricity the fan uses).

Like the use it sounds like you would put one to, I generally run two or three hours at most. It's nowhere near big enough to heat my entire two-car garage, but it's plenty to warm up the quarter or so of the area that I might typically be working in. That also helps disperse the fumes over the whole area. Where CO is about the same weight as free air, I'll usually raise one of the roll-ups a few inches and crack a window at the end opposite just to keep a little fresh air cross ventilation going. I've worked around it for as long as five or six hours that way with no ill effects.

I've found it more effective for heating a little larger area than a convection/ceramic type heater, making things more comfortable whether I'm just puttering, or actually working on something. The only gripe I have with intermittent heating is the condensation that will form on the tools if it's quite cold out. My way around that is to organize whatever I'm doing so that I'm not warming up the area with the tool chests so much. It means a little extra walking (What? 10 feet?) for the tool I forgot to get out but not a problem. The tools I use on a job are going to get cleaned up and wiped down anyway.

HTH.

This is slightly larger than mine (by 5k BTU), but the same design. Link is to the manual, which describes the necessary ventilation for safe indoor operation.

They're a nice little rig.
35k BTU Mr. Heater

Dave: I agree with the salamander, they are efficient and relatively clean. I've used them completely indoors in large areas, not solid air tight building. We used one finishing a truss roof building 46x200 with 12' ceiling, -10 to -20 out side and we were quite comfortable on construction work and no effect from fumes. As the insulation and finish got put in we did start the forced air ventilation system. My burner was oil fired. I expect propane would be better.

I tried kero, now there is a headache for you. I couldn't stay in there, come to think of it, no one else did either.

Well fellas, I think that answers it for me. I don't need to heat the whole place, just take the chill off me while I put a tractor back together. Time to go shopping! Thanks!

I've got a three-burner version of that.

I can heat a 12x24 lightly insulated space with 10 foot ceiling to 65^o at shoulder height from the teens in about 45 minutes. A ceiling fan to pull the heat down off the ceiling helps.

Can't STAND the fumes from kero heaters, propane is odor free. Puts a lot of moisture in the air tho, so not a great idea when finishing woodwork or painting.