OT: Natural Gas Garage Heaters

For those of you who have installed them, what size gas service do you have coming into the house? I had an HVAC guy come by to bid on running the gas line to my 60,000 BTU Modine Hot Dawg heater and he said our 3/4" service isn't sufficient to support it in conjunction with our home furnace/gas stove/water heater. Could be, but I've never heard anyone mention installing a new service (for the cost of several thousands of dollars) when they've installed one of these heaters. Any insights would be appreciated. TIA

You should have 1 1/2 inch line coming into the house and all the way to the location of the furnace area. Some builders cheat and reduce the line to less than 1 inch before they start splitting them to the various appliances which greatly reduces your ability to add gas supplied items due to pressure drop. It aslo depends on the BTU of your appliances. A 1 1/2 inch line can support a couple of 100,000 BTU furnaces, stove, oven and a couple of 50 gallon hot water heaters with penty of spare capacity. If your service to the house is 3/4 inch.....you got screwed. They also cheat on water supply lines. BTW: Why are you putting in such a large heater in your garage?

Thanks. Sounds like it (got screwed), which is unfortunate because the builder is our neighbor. I opted for the 60K because the 30K is too small and the 45k is a 30K with a bigger fan.

Here is a llink that will help you underdstand the proper pipe size: http://www.metrokc.gov/health/plumbing/gaspiping.htm Remember, bigger is not always better in BTU's.