Anyone used there vehicle for heating there garage???
 

I have a idea that I have been kicking around for some time now.

I'm going to take my work truck that I use most of the time driving 8 hours a day, and install a 50 gallon water heater tank in the back that's connected to the coolant system. I have noticed during freeway driving that the fuel mileage changes very little with this truck even when I have large loads (mixing equipment)

It will help me with two different things.

1) Keeping our water born automotive paints (Automotive Paint Jobber) warm during my 8 hour drive in route to deliver them. Has a canopy already.

2) At the end of the day hook it up to my garage (20' 6"W x 20' 6"L x 8' 6" tall) water radiator with a small fan to heat my garage.

If a third of the energy in a ICE is lost to cooling, I figured if i can store some of that energy in a 50 gallon water heater I can use it the rest of the night to warm my well insulated garage.:)

I'm thinking about a couple solar panels and a small wind generator to run the garage small pump for circulation and the garage fan???

I wish I would have installed a in ground concrete floor heating unit but its to late so it will have to be a air unit.

The truck and garage pics.
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps3640117e.jpg

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps6bec18be.jpg

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps721ea821.jpg

I wondered about such a thing with my car, but I use it so little and the car is so little I kinda dropped it. Don't want to carry a big heavy vessel in the car either.

But for you and a big truck, there might be enough easily recoverable energy to be worth it! :thumbup:

I was going to do this with my Talon but 417 lbs worth of water plus the weight of the heater and the space the tank would take up I would only be able to deliver one pint of paint.LOL

My truck has always bother me trying to figure a way to make it eat less fuel and keep it mostly stock. So I figured why not just transfer some energy to my garage with it since I'm paying for the fuel anyway?

My well insulated garage 35X21 is under the left side of my house. Parking the cars in the garage allows the cars (and bikes) to heat the garage in winter. In summer when it is already hot enough, I have a $4 yardsale squirrel cage fan I used to keep myself cool when working in the garage when it is hot. It also serves to blow out the excess heat from the vehicles in summer. The garage seldom drops below 50 degrees in winter, even when outside temps are in the 20s.

Just park the larger vehicle in the garage and let all of the heat warm up the garage.

Heating up a 50 gallon reservoir would cause the truck to run cold for a very long time and cost you a lot more in fuel overall. The heat in the vehile that you would lose anyway is basically free energy if you can utilize it for garage heating.

A simple solar thermosyphon heating system would also help, if you have enough sunlight to justify the cost.

regards
Mech

You brought some very good points.:thumbup:

My first problem is the truck won't fit in my garage. My garage is 20' 6" long and my truck is about 21' 3" due to the ext cab and long box.

Last year I did notice how nice my wife's car would heat up the garage during winter months. So her car will contribute to heating this winter. During summer months I have her park it out side until it cools down at night then bring it in to keep the garage temperature nice and cool around 70 degrees.

As far as taking along time to heat up the water on the truck my thoughts are to run a tee with a smaller with control valve on the heater hose return line. So most of the flow would return back to the radiator. It would take some time to heat the 50 gallons but I usually run the truck for 8 hours or more on my longer routes and on the shorter routes I would deactivate the system. I would also incorporate a massive grill block during the winter months.

"thermosyphon heating system" not to sure what this is???

We don't get to much sun light during the winter. But I do get a lot of wind I could use.;)

I'm with old Mech on the point of don't get too efficient at removing the heat from the tank, just let it naturally radiate heat all night, it will probably keep you above freezing just by being there. As for heating the water in the tank, you probably want to rig a way to send a portion of the coolant into the tank, you certainly don't want the tank to be in series with the coolant system in such a way that the engine doesn't warm up until the tank in back of your truck does......

Although, if we think this through, the thermostat won't open if the water is cold, so maybe this would sort of self regulate, route the water from the outlet of your thermostat, to the water tank, then to the radiator.

Would the tank be subjected to the pressure of the cooling system would be another thing to consider, or would you just run a loop of coolant hose through the tank which would be under pressure to heat the water/antifreeze in the tank which would always be at atmospheric pressure?

Which brings up another thing to bear in mind, if you leave the truck outside on a sub-zero/freezing night, you darn sure better have some sort of anti-freeze mixture in there, which could be quite expensive.

Interesting idea here, I just moved from Montana to Florida, so it is just a thought exercise for me at this point.

I noticed my garage stays relatively warm and its not even insulated. Un-attached 2 car garage 24'X20' stays above freezing all night even when the ambient temp is in the low 20s.

When it's -40F the garage gets cold.

In my case I was thinking of piping heat into the house after a drive... but yeah, for a garage, just park in there; maybe open the hood if you want the heat out faster.

It's an interesting idea, but seems like too much effort to just warm a garage. You aren't sleeping in there are you? :p

If you run the vehicle inside make sure you have an exhaust hose from the tailpipe to the outside. An auto parts store should sell these. GM did a project on this years ago using V8 stationary engines. A transmission engineer from Chrysler designed a windmill to create heat by compressing air.

If your garage is attached and well insulated... shouldn't it already be pretty warm?

You can keep that cold with you, I cuss when it gets close to 0ºF. Coldest I've ever seen was -15, that's pretty rare here but it will usually go below 0 a few times. Typically in the teens and 20s.

Good info, these are the the things I'm looking for. I will be running the tank at engine coolant pressure. My question also is would I need a extra pump?

I'm also going to be running antifreeze in the tank.

I need this to be around 60*F so i can work out in my garage on my projects. So it defiantly needs to be way above freezing.

The problem I have is my truck won't fit. The garage is only 20' 6" My truck is over 21'

Nope well so far so good with the better half. lol I need it to be warm for the Talon constant needs.

The truck will be not running after a long days work, only the pump to bring the water to the garage.

It never gets below freezing even at outside temps in the -20*F

Keep in mind this is just an idea to see what if someone took a large vehicle and used a secondary containment for water over a days running you could use that energy to help heat a home or garage.

For me I try to spend at least two hours a day working on my projects. I'm constantly pulling my engine or pistons and rods and changing them to try a different design on my Talon. So I need a comfortable environment to work in. Around 60*F. It is not fun busting your knuckles on something at 40*F or less. LOL

Maybe this would work if you didn't hook the tank to the coolant lines directly, but instead bypassed the radiator and hooked a heat exchanger with a separate loop/pump to the tank:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ger_1-pass.PNG

That would allow the regular thermostat system on the truck to function as designed (you're just cooling the coolant loop with a liquid-cooled exchanger instead of the original air-cooled radiator.

You would be limited how far you could go before the tank water started to boil off though.

I'd be quite concerned over that much water shifting around while driving. A higher center-of-gravity for the truck should take precedence in this. I don't see it being free heat as the truck still has to accelerate that non-paying mass/weight to speed and back down again. A one-two punch.

A propane garage heater would be more cost effective given proper installation.

Decreasing the service life of the vehicle and components plus higher fuel cost plus handling/steering deterioration is expensive on several levels.

.

Thanks guys for the input. This is what i wanted for other people to give me there inputs.

The weight only drops the trucks mileage by 1/2 mpg or less. But a 1/2 gallon is a i/2 gallon.;)

The wear and tear on the truck is something that might kill this project. Good point on high CG.:thumbup:

I like the idea, but that seems like a lot of work/complexity just to heat a garage. I vote for natural gas or propane.

Get a shorter pickup or extend the garage a bit.

https://www.google.com/search?q=gara...w=1280&bih=699

My thoughts were to see if it would work first by testing it with the garage. If it was successful then start using it to help heat the house.

I'm using a 1500 watt portable heater in the garage now that keeps it nice and comfortable at 58*F to 62*F even when its -10*F outside. Keep in mind I work out in the garage two hours every night.

Our total electric cost house/garage last year during the month of January was $74.00 with the electric garage heater running, thermostat controlled.

Our gas was $87.00 for the month of January This is what heats our house and the water heater, stove/range is electric.

So the gains would be very small I know.:o So this project would be more about how warm would the garage get 20 x 20 x 8 ft. ??? Would it be feasible to integrate it into the house heating???

It just bugs the living day lights out of me knowing that my truck could possibly be a extra heating source since its used for delivery 8 hours a day.

High CG... any ill effects would depend on how heavy the tank and how high up it is. My Camper Special with the ginormous slide-in camper has a water tank; I can detect when it is full vs empty but it isn't bad, especially considering how huge, heavy, and high the camper itself is. I'd say that's a non-issue, as is the extra weight for accelerating the truck... unless your route is severe stop-n-go urban.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r...psdc41ce41.jpg

Now, since you run so much daily, you are generating a boat load of waste heat. Why not make a trailer for an insulated man-sized tank and really capture it? Back the trailer into the garage and thermosiphon or otherwise xfer the heat out. 250g tank = 2000 lbs water- no big deal- should hold enough heat to help heat the house, let alone the garage. Or maybe a 200g tank on a cheap Harbor Fright trailer. Yes you'd need some hose disconnects but I don't think that's technically insurmountable. Someone more into this than I should be able to calculate an estimate of how much recoverable heat there is...

P.S. OK I'll give it a shot to start things off:
It seems you put on 80 miles per 8-hour day during your route. Is that all urban/really short and frequent hops? There must be prolonged engine-off periods resulting in, oh, about a 1:1 off/on duty cycle (engine is off same amount of time it is on) at 20 mph average speed, to 2:1 @ 40 mph average?

At 17 mpg that's about 4.7 gallons of gas/day; x 114,000 BTU/gal = about 536,000 BTU gasoline input.

10-20% of input energy is lost to coolant and 20-30% lost to exhaust, assuming this guy is right: http://umpir.ump.edu.my/1038/1/Abdul...in_Mohamad.pdf

536,000 x .1-.2 = 53,600-107,200 BTU raw coolant energy; plus 107,200-160,800 BTU exhaust heat energy.

A BTU raises 1 lb of water 1 degree F at atmospheric pressure. If we start with 60 degree water (garage ambient) and heat to 195 (standard thermostat/coolant temp?) and we have 53,600-107,200 BTUs:
53,600/(195 - 60)= 397 lbs;
107,200/(195 - 60)= 795 lbs of water needed...?
... or 50 to 100 gallons of water. But then what if we pressurize it. And use coolant... OK, so probably you don't need my trailer concept but if I haven't screwed up too badly thus far you might want 100 gallons for your heat sink.

It being a large vehicle, fueleconomy.gov suggests a 1% fe hit per 100lbs; 800lbs then being an 8% hit (?) then 17mpg x .92 = 15.64mpg, errr, about 1 solid mpg. 400/16= 25gal/week or 5.0 g/day up from 4.7 or 4.8; .2-.3 g/day x $3.50/g = $0.70-$1.05/day more gas, which perhaps can be hypermiled back out.

But wait! For the electric heater, watts x hours of use ÷ 1,000 x cost per kilowatt-hour = cost of operation; so 1500 x 2 / 1000 x .0724 (?) = 22 cents.
D'Oh!

This calculator http://www.calculator.net/btu-calcul...heat&x=51&y=11 estimates you need 29,120 BTU/hour to keep 60 deg in when it's -10 deg out; at 8500 watts that's quite different from your claim that a 1500 watt heater does the job.

To get the estimator to agree with 1500 watts/hr I have to bump the insulation quality to "good" and the in/out temp spread to 20 deg. Evidently there's a shared wall or two with the house that is helping tremendously, and the furnace and water heater sitting right there must kick out noticeable heat i.e. substantial BTUs too with the ambient temp in the garage being about 40 degrees w/o the electric heater boost.

Anyhoo, 1500watts/hr = 5000 BTU/hr; If you could recover 100% of the coolant energy and dissipate it at that rate (53,600-104,700/5000) it would heat the garage about 11 to 22 hours. That ain't gonna happen so at 50% recovery you'd have 5 1/2-11 hours of heat. And so on.

Imagine how much better this all gets if one could recover the exhaust heat! You could heat the garage to warmer than the house then open the door from garage to house! :eek:

Anal-lytical types please pick the analysis apart for my inevitable mistake! :rolleyes: And/or gimme more info because I had to do an awful lotta guesstimating.

But I think you should get a Transit (garageable, and possibly cut your fuel use 50%) hybrid, or even an EV if you can plug in at lunch time instead. Then you can simply park inside again, or better yet, put that water heater tank in an insulated box in the back and open the box, windows, and hood when you park inside. :thumbup:

Thanks a ton Frank, great info!!! Much appreciated!!!

My Wednesday route is around 280 miles that day. My Thursday route is around 150 miles a day. The rest of the week I would not use the water heater because there only around 75 miles a day.
EDIT: Its all Rural my average speed is 50 mph. Very little stopping.

I hope I didn't miss-lead anyone here. The coldest it usually gets during the winter is -10* F. and only maybe 5 days a year. So I would say our average winter temps are around 39*F

Your right about the house adding heat to the garage now. I have shot it with an infra red gun and the joining wall is always around 5 degrees warmer. Plus the gas water heater has around 72* temps at its base. The furnace also has around 68* temps when its running.

how about routing the exhaust (after the cat), through the water tank. the cooling system is great. but exhaust could be a good clean approach without getting into too much plumbing, valves, etc.

Ok let do some MATH

Formula used:
1 calorie = 4.18 watt/sec
1 calorie heat 1 litre up 1 deg Celsius
Correction : 1 calorie hean 1ml up 1 deg
1 kilowatt = 1000 watts
1 hrs = 3600secs
1 gal = 3.78 litres (I round up to 4 because of the tank heat inertia)

My guess is that it is not worth it, the heat in 50 gal of water contain not enough energy to make it viable.

50gal = a bit less than 200 Litres

let say that the inside of the garage is at 0 Celsius (37F) and you bring 200 Litres of water at 100 Celsius (212F)
That 200 litres contain (100*200)=20,000 calories of potential energy (heat)

That water tank will contain:
20,000 calories =
83,600 watt/sec; or
83.6 kilowatt/sec; or
0.0232 kilowatt/hrs

We pay electricity in kilowatt/hrs
In US/Canada, the highest residential electric rate is Connecticut at 18.10 cent/kilowatt/hrs, the US average is a around 11.50 cent/kilowatt/hrs and the lowest is Province of Quebec at 6.8 cent.

0.0232kilowatt/hrs * 18.10 cent = 0.4 cent
So in that 50gals water thank that you had to buy and install and carry all the time, you accumulated 0.4cent worth of heat. Or you could start a 1000watt electric heater for 2 minutes and have the same amount of energy.

Correction, 1 calorie heat 1 ml of water, not a liter. Just multiply everything by 1000

Was thinking the same but using BTU's 50 gallons = 400 lbs of water, if 200 degress when you get home, and cool it to 80 before you quit you have (400 lbs x 120) 48,000 btu's of heat, convert that to KWH 14 kwh at $0.15/kwh = $2.10 worth of electric heat. All assuming you get 100% of the heat stored transferred.

Our numbers don't match up but the answers the same.

1500 watt heaters cost $0.22 per hour to run

Actually the definition of a calorie is the energy required to heat 1 gram of water from 14,5 °C to 15,5 °C.
A liter of water weighs approx. 1000 grams. Which is handy; your result is correct after all, times 1000.

Btw. I LOVE hot water! ;)

Thanks everyone for your input it looks like it's not going to be worth it. this morning I added an extra 500 pounds to my normal cargo weight after driving about a third way into my delivery I realizing the handling of the truck is not so good I'm think I'm going have to scrap this idea thanks for everyones input!

If you wanna store heat...
 

... then there are better solutions than just plain water like a container of salt with a high melting point; when it cools down the solidification yields a lot of extra heat.

You could keep the installation lighter and smaller for the same capacity, or get more capacity for the same weight.

Of course systems like these have been discussed before at ecomodder
(just rubbing my 2 grams of salt into the discussion)

Another thought; the engine has a lot of residual heat.
Keep the water tank in the garage, connect it to the secondary cicuit of a heat exchanger that gets fed from the coolant system and run the pumps on both the car and your water tank to harvest it.

Next morning, when the car is freezing cold and your storage tank inside the garage is warmer, do the same again to preheat the car...

For about $60 you can buy a programmable t'stat so you can reduce the time your heaters running.

Buy LuxPro ELV4 (PSPLV512) Programmable (5+2) Line Voltage Thermostat, Heat Only | LuxPro PSPLV512

I use one almost exactly like this but with cool mode to control a fan behind my wood stove once it hits 85 degrees, that way keeps the wall cooler and turns back off when the fire has died down.

Really? It's a 1/2 Ton truck! How much does the normal delivery weigh?

Usually around 600 lbs. So I had around 1100 lbs in the back today. Plus around 200 lbs in the cab. Plus me at around 190 lbs.

I too was surprised how the truck reacted. Plus I had to dodge one flying lawn mower that fell out of a on coming truck and ended up in my lane, and a couple deer. Sometimes I think I live in a third world country. lol

I need shocks all the way around and its about due for a new set of tires. The truck has 271,000 miles on it and we bought it new in 2001.lol

So the truck has suspension deficiencies; it isn't really the load at fault.

600lbs is easily handled by a mini truck, mini van, or even a station wagon- heck, even my Tempo- all garage parkable.

Correct and me being a wimp when it comes to hauling more then my norm.;)

It wasn't really that bad, but I do need to get some better tires next time with a better load rating. These tires on it now our more of a old man's tire. Good for hauling to bags of lawn grass and one cute poodle with a very plush soft ride. lol
EDIT:

The main reason for killing the project is because after seeing the math to heat the garage and what the available amount of energy in the water tank it just doesn't look like it would be worth it?

1k-lbs in a 1/2T certainly deserves best tires and shocks. And poly bushings for FF and RR anti-roll bars. Springs may also be "old". If it's a business vehicle, treat it well . . the IRS deduction pays for maintenance/repairs if one uses it.