Heating Your Garage This Winter? What a West Bend Garage Heater Needs Electrically

Once October turns cold in West Bend and the rest of Washington County, a lot of people start thinking about the garage. Maybe it's a workshop, a place to work on the truck, or just somewhere the car doesn't start out frosted over. An electric garage heater is a popular fix. Before you buy one, it's worth knowing what it will ask of your wiring, because a heater is one of the hungriest things you can plug into a house.

Why a plug-in space heater usually isn't enough

The first thing most people try is a portable space heater on a garage outlet. It works for a small, insulated space, but it runs into a few problems in a typical Wisconsin garage:

• It's fighting a lot of cold air. Garages leak heat through the big door, the slab, and uninsulated walls. A small heater can run flat out all day and barely take the chill off.
• It shares a circuit. Garage outlets often share a circuit with the door opener, lights, a fridge or chest freezer, and sometimes outdoor outlets. Add a heater running at full power and the breaker can trip, or the wiring runs warm for hours.
• Extension cords make it worse. A space heater should plug straight into the wall. Running one through a light-duty cord is a common way to end up with a melted plug.

If your garage breaker has started tripping since the weather turned, that's often the reason. Our post on why a circuit breaker keeps tripping walks through how to sort it out, and our garage chest freezer post covers why the freezer shouldn't be sharing with heavy loads either.

What a hardwired garage heater needs

For real heat, most people step up to a hardwired electric heater, the kind that hangs from the ceiling or mounts high on a wall. These are a different animal from a plug-in unit:

• Most run on 240 volts. That means a two-pole breaker in your panel, not a regular outlet.
• They're meant to have a circuit of their own. The heater's nameplate and install manual list the voltage, the amps or watts, and the breaker and wire size it calls for. That label is the starting point for the whole job.
• They usually need a thermostat. Some heaters have one built in. Others need a wall thermostat wired in so the heater isn't simply on or off at full blast.
• The wire has to reach the garage. For an attached garage that's usually a straightforward run from the panel. For a detached garage, it depends on what's already feeding the building and how big that feed is.

Does your panel have room?

This is the question that decides how simple the job is. A garage heater adds a big, steady load, often running for hours on the coldest days at the same time your furnace blower, water heater, and dryer are working. Before adding one, an electrician will look at:

• Open breaker spaces. A 240-volt heater needs two spaces. A panel that's already full may need rearranging or more room.
• Your service size and existing load. Older homes with smaller services sometimes don't have much spare capacity, especially once you add things like an EV charger or a hot tub.
• The condition of the panel itself. Rust, scorch marks, or an older panel brand are worth dealing with before you add a heavy load.

If the panel is tight, the heater project can be a good time to look at an electrical panel upgrade, especially if you're also planning an EV charger or a workshop down the road.

Signs your garage wiring needs a look before winter

Even if you're not adding a heater, the garage is one of the spots in a house where wiring takes a beating. Watch for:

• Outlets that feel warm, look discolored, or don't hold a plug tight anymore
• Lights that dim when the door opener or a tool kicks on
• A breaker that trips more often once the weather turns cold
• Extension cords that have become permanent wiring
• A buzzing sound or a burning smell near an outlet or the panel

Any of those are reasons to shut that circuit off and have it checked.

Planning a garage heater in West Bend?

The easiest way to do this right is to pick the heater, then have the circuit planned around its nameplate and your panel, rather than the other way around. That keeps you from buying a heater your panel can't comfortably carry, and it helps keep the job simple.

Couillard Electric works on residential electrical projects throughout West Bend and all of Washington County. If you're thinking about heating your garage this winter, give us a call and we'll look at your panel, your garage wiring, and the heater you have in mind before the cold really sets in.