Model A Heated Garage Question

B

Bill Lee/Virginia

Senior Member
Why is this? I have my Model A in a heated 8 ft ceiling garage with temperature set at 68F. If I open a small window near the ceiling, the temp stays warm. If I close the window the garage cools off slightly. Please explain. Thank you and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Bill Lee/Virginia Peninsula
 
Thermostat location is important.

No doubt if you put your thermostat in an ice chest your garage will get warmer.

So if your thermostat is located near a non-sealed garage door, when the window is opened, hot air exits, & cold air leaking through your garage door tells the heater to come on.
 
I keep my garage at 70. I discovered years ago that the air In my garage striated - warm at the ceiling, cold at the floor. I solved that by putting in a ceiling fan that ran quite slowly. It made it quite comfortable to work under the car now as it brought the floor temp up to the air temp. The fan runs so slowly that it isn't noticeable.
 
The garage is attached to the house. The thermostat is located on a wall of the heated house across the room from an insulated semi-sealed garage door. The floor is tiled and cool, I use a small blanket on the creeper when I am under the car. Thanks for your info and replies.
Bill Lee/Virginia Peninsula
 
Where does the heater draw its air from?? Does it recirculate within
the garage or draw it from outside the garage?

Bob
 
Like Mr. Chauvin said, location of they moscato is very important..You say it stays warm but at what additional cost ? Does the heater run longer ?
Wayne
 
Hot air rises, if the supply is high the warm air stays high and cools as it falls searching out the cold at the floor. Opening the window is completing a draft issue from the partially sealed garage door, moving the air faster from the ceiling, hence feeling warmer. As stated above, a ceiling fan should help push the heated air from above, but all voids need addressed that are working against the heat.

What heat source is in the garage? hopefully it is self contained and not utilizing house system, as this would be a huge no-no.
 
It is always interesting to witness all of us concerned Forum members trying to "guess" at what is going on thousands of miles away. LOL

Not to make matters more complicated; however, just suppose one has a thermostat where you describe, & to measure the temperature in your garage, you have a thermometer on a wall in a different location from that of the thermostat.

So now you open the window, it causes a draft & air turbulence; hence, hot air exits the window, but passes by the thermometer which makes the mercury rise.

Something tells me you already figured it out & know exactly what is happening. LOL
 
pgerhardt said:
Is it an attached garage? If so, venting from the top would draw in warm air from the house.
Click to expand...

If it turns out to be an attached garage your answer would only be correct if there was an open door,window,or void in the wall between the garage and the house and the temperature inside the house was warmer than that of the garage, none of which is mentioned in the members query. Bill did mention that it is a "heated garage" but did not state what source of heat is used,or if the heat source uses a thermostat located within the garage. If so, the elevated open window would allow the warm (Hot air rises) air in the garage to escape, thus lowering the room temperature, but then triggering the thermostat to call for more heat from the heat source and raising the temperature in the room.This would be particularly true if the thermostat was located near or directly below the open window. My second guess ( me thinking this might be a riddle ) since you live in the south, is that the ambient temperature outside the garage is warmer than inside the garage !
 
Last edited:
Bill, The thermostat is staying warm because it's attached to the wall of the heated house. The open window is cooling the thermostat and then it's calling for heat. The garage would be warmer if the thermostat was mounted to an exterior wall.
 
I'd hate to pay your heating bills. I keep my shop at 50 and only warm it up to 60 or so when I'm working there.
 
Heat flow.

While it is impossible to be sure as I have no clue what your garage is like, I will offer the following example.

For example, I extended the back of an oven to allow larger parts. I wrapped it with insulation hoping to have it nice and warm. When I brought the oven up to temps it was like 100* cooler at the back. I scratched my head for a second and looked it up.

The serious ovens have piping to get heat circulation with an external mounted motor and a fan inside. That seemed a bit complicated for my little oven. So then I found out I could just open up some holes at the back and let the hot air circulate to the rear. One hole got the temp up some. I added a couple of more and got it up enough.

So it could just purely be needing to better circulate the air. Opening the window works, but is probably not energy efficient.
 
My guess, only a guess, is that opening the window causes a loss of heat. This causes your heat source to run, thereby producing more heat to be supplied. With the window closed, the heat runs less often.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top