Heating an garden office - Recommendations

[GSXRMovistar]

Hi All, with autumn/winter approaching I’m looking for a way of heating my home/garden office.

The room itself isn’t massive 4x2.5m, timber construction, cedral cladded and fully insulated.

Needs to be something standalone, i.e. not installing a split heating system, and ideally something that can run whilst I’m not there for automation purposes to heat the space early morning (wouldn’t want to leave a fan heater unattended).

Looking for peoples recommendations based on their experiences.

Thanks

 

[koolpc]

Hi All, with autumn/winter approaching I’m looking for a way of heating my home/garden office.

The room itself isn’t massive 4x2.5m, timber construction, cedral cladded and fully insulated.

Needs to be something standalone, i.e. not installing a split heating system, and ideally something that can run whilst I’m not there for automation purposes to heat the space early morning (wouldn’t want to leave a fan heater unattended).

Looking for peoples recommendations based on their experiences.

Thanks

Have you thought about installing a woodburner?

 

[Bickaxe]

We have a small oil radiator in a
converted garage. Leave it on a timer and it works fine. Been using it for 6 years now.

Not needed it recently as we both work from home out there and the room heats up pretty quick in the summer to the point its too hot on the afternoon.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Helps if you know how much sort of temp you really need to heat it
Does a fan heater easily cope, or do you need more or less

Our H&S prefer we use tube heaters and if there is a risk of someone placing something on them with one of the small cages over them. They keep taking fan heaters away but people buy new ones

Tube heater such as a dimplex one
As also said oil filled rads work quite well. The tube heaters are in effect sort of in between a fan heater and an oil filled heater, they often use them in gyms etc as can be tucked out of the way nicely

 

[GSXRMovistar]

Have you thought about installing a woodburner?

Kinda misses the requirement of being unattended/automated.

We have a small oil radiator in a converted garage. Leave it on a timer and it works fine. Been using it for 6 years now..

An oil rad is something I considered, plus I can then unplug/move into the garage during the warmer months when not required.

Helps if you know how much sort of temp you really need to heat it
Does a fan heater easily cope, or do you need more or less

Our H&S prefer we use tube heaters and if there is a risk of someone placing something on them with one of the small cages over them. They keep taking fan heaters away but people buy new ones

Tube heater such as a dimplex one
As also said oil filled rads work quite well. The tube heaters are in effect sort of in between a fan heater and an oil filled heater, they often use them in gyms etc as can be tucked out of the way nicely

I think a fan heater would make the room more than toasty very very quickly to be honest, I'm not one for extreme heat so really just need it to feel warm when its 0 degrees outside. Will take a look at tube heaters.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Kinda misses the requirement of being unattended/automated.


An oil rad is something I considered, plus I can then unplug/move into the garage during the warmer months when not required.


I think a fan heater would make the room more than toasty very very quickly to be honest, I'm not one for extreme heat so really just need it to feel warm when its 0 degrees outside. Will take a look at tube heaters.

They are great for background heat and very helpful to keep above the dew point.
I used one (60w) in our greenhouse and it was surprisingly good (6x4 greenhouse) they warm quite quickly (can feel them warming up within seconds)
It was more than enough to keep the frost out of the greenhouse so I would say 3-4 times that wattage would be the sort of amount I would be looking at in our gym which is similar sounding to your room (4x3 log cabin, semi insulated)

 

[stuie]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WLIm4XLPAE

clean your rad

 

[joey1211]

Oil filled radiator with a timer and thermostat

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Just one comment if you do go down the oil filled route, their strength is also their weakness, they take time to warm up but seem to hold the heat well, but if you get too hot they take ages to cool down which can make getting and maintaining a decent temp quite tricky

 

[sovietspybob]

Oil heaters are really good at keeping a place warm but as above it can be a bit of a game to keep it a nice temperature during the day. We have oil heaters at work and in the winter i need to make sure i turn it off at about 11-12AM otherwise i'm roasting with the windows open after lunch, but then i need to turn it on before i leave in the evening or it takes a good hour to heat the office up again in the morning.

 

[joey1211]

Oil heaters are really good at keeping a place warm but as above it can be a bit of a game to keep it a nice temperature during the day. We have oil heaters at work and in the winter i need to make sure i turn it off at about 11-12AM otherwise i'm roasting with the windows open after lunch, but then i need to turn it on before i leave in the evening or it takes a good hour to heat the office up again in the morning.

Oil filled radiator with a timer and thermostat

 

[sovietspybob]

The one i have has a thermostat but as has been said once it turns off as the office is warm enough the residual heat in it keeps heating the office up for ages, don't know if the ones we have are particularly rubbish or what but i find the thermostat on them pretty useless. They're the big Dimplex panel kind.

 

[MadMan-JaMeS]

+1 For oil filled radiator.

Buy a timer switch and you should be fine. Might take a few days to get it sorted i.e What time u want it to come on etc, but by far the easiest and safest option.

 

[joey1211]

My De'Longhi has the timer built into it. It's an analogue dial and to be fair, it's hard to get it to come on exactly when you want it to. But it's accurate to about 10 minutes.

Looking at the newer ones, they have digital controls.

 

[GSXRMovistar]

Thank all, seems an oil filled rad may be the easiest thing to try first. Will have a look to see if there are any Smart ones that can factor in things like outdoor temps/forecast to trigger when they heat up etc.