You can find many ways to warm up your shop or garage. There are many kinds of heaters designed specifically for outdoor and shop or garage use. However, some are better than others.

Kerosene heaters are quite efficient and easy to work with. They are easy to turn on as most of them have an electric start device. Most of them have a thermostat to regulate the temperature. Unfortunately a kerosene heater may not be a good choice because the kerosene odor is quite noxious for a lot of people. The odor is also quite dangerous for children. If they have access to the workspace you may need to ventilate it.

A better choice for a shop or garage heater is a gas heater. The portable propane heater does not require a professional to install it.  Gas heaters are less expensive than kerosene heaters and are less cumbersome to operate. There are many different models to choose from to suit your needs. The primary advantage of a gas heater is that it can create a consistently warm environment.

Gas heaters are available with both manual and thermostatic controls. The preferred model is one with a thermostat. For normal operation the only thing that you have to do is to set the thermostat on a desired temperature setting and the heater will maintain that selected temperature. There are two types of gas heaters, vented and vent-less.  The vent-less uses air from work space and the vented model vents directly outside the work space. I recommend the vented type heater as it does not deplete the oxygen in the work space. The vent-less heaters uses the oxygen in the work space therefore you must keep the work space vented at all times.

The biggest advantage of both types of gas heaters is that they have a low operational cost as compared to kerosene or electric heaters.