Model S can heat my chilly garage!

[Cirrus MS100D]

This is pretty dumb, but I had to paint some stuff in the garage last night and it was pretty cold in there. (It is insulated reasonably well, but no heat or AC.)

On a whim, I opened the doors and sunroof on the Model S, cranked the heat to max, and turned on camper mode while it was charging.

I went to put the kids to bed and came back an hour later and the garage was toasty warm! No need for my old kerosine jet engine bullet heater!

I’m sure this is ridiculously inefficient and I don’t actually need heat in the garage more than a few times a year, but this was mighty convenient!

 

[msvoyager]

Wow. Creative out of the box thinking ! How much mileage did you lose for each hour you use your Tesla as an electric heater?

 

[MP3Mike]

Wow. Creative out of the box thinking ! How much mileage did you lose for each hour you use your Tesla as an electric heater?

He was plugged in and charging so he didn't lose any range.

 

[msvoyager]

Ah yes, of course I was wondering how much electricity it would cost, either in Miles / Kwh

 

[Cirrus MS100D]

Yeah, in reality it’s just a big (but nice to look at!) inefficient “semi-portable” heater.

Round 2 of painting tonight, I’ll leave it unplugged and see what the starting temp is and where we end up!

 

[Derek Kessler]

My water line comes into the house through my garage — had it freeze a few years back when it got down to -20 F here and I had to stick a heater by it to get water flowing again. If it gets stupid cold again I'm definitely going to do this!

 

[Bebop]

I noticed this phenomenon with the doors closed in 50-60 degree weather outside. I’m assuming it is battery heat while charging going off into the air?

Now that it’s in the 40’s and heading lower going into the winter, the car doesn’t heat up the garage as well anymore while charging.

 

[Cirrus MS100D]

Random anecdata point from last night, please check my work, which is prone to severe errors:

Outside air temp was low 40s / high 30s F and the garage was left open for a while (oops!)

The outside air temperature on the display after coming home from a drive showed 41F, which seemed colder than it actually felt like inside the garage, but it was definitely raw and chilly and not a comfortable space to work. I dont have a thermometer to check, but wearing a hoodie it was damned cold. Going to guess maybe low 50s inside the garage?

I closed the garage doors and opened the front and rear doors and sunroof on the S 100D. I turned heat on HI (max heat, no AC, max fan speed, recirc, all vents open) and went inside.

40 minutes later, I came out to do my painting. Interestingly the dash still showed 41F, but there was no way that was accurate as I could now easily work comfortably in jeans and a T-shirt and am guessing the temp inside the garage was probably in the mid 60s? (For reference the space is about 30’ x 40’ with 8’ ceiling.)

TeslaFi shows the following:
Starting Range: 248.72 miles
Ending Range: 234.46
Time: 40 minutes
Range Loss: 14.26
kWh Loss: 3.87

Somebody math-y-er than me should confirm, but it seems like the heat on full blast uses(d) about 5.8 kWh?

Also seems like your average “room” space heater is about 1.5kW and puts out around 5,100 BTU, so is it fair to say the Tesla puts out around 20,000 BTU on paper? (Though almost certainly much less...)

A random Google search for “how much BTU to heat a room” seemed to indicate a well insulated space with no windows, concrete floor, and heated area above (living space) would require about 16,000 BTU, and I believe (while quite inefficient!) the car would’ve been capable of getting the space into the low 70s and maintained that temperature without being on full blast.

So all this is to say that my thoroughly unscientific, practically failed math my whole life experiment shows my Model S puts out anywhere from 12,000 - 18,000 BTU at 5.8kWh. YMMV and all that.

(For those considering camping IN the car with doors and windows closed (even on a cold night) note that the car would be roasting on the interior in short order, so you shouldn’t expect to burn anything close to what I burned when using my car as a bastardized space heater.)

 

[electracity]

Someone needs to do a kickstarter for an inexpensive portable electrical heating device.

 

[Cirrus MS100D]

Someone needs to do a kickstarter for an inexpensive portable electrical heating device.

Maybe using some sort of liquid/combustible fuel made from refined organic matter in some capacity? ;-)

I think electric heat < gas for a while in terms of efficiency, but what do I know?!

 

[deonb]

Don't try this with an ICE!

 

[bonaire]

If the car needs a charge, time your re-charge with the time to be spent in the garage. Start a long charge maybe 40 minutes prior to spending time in the garage. The charging alone, esp with a dual-charging setup, could heat it pretty well without burning "battery capacity" along the way.

 

[Derek Kessler]

Someone needs to do a kickstarter for an inexpensive portable electrical heating device.

Alas, that's nigh impossible. The battery would be the most expensive part of this device, and you'd need a lot of it because it takes a lot of power to generate heat.

 

[Cirrus MS100D]

Don't try this with an ICE!

So true. I always got sooooo sleeeepy whenever I did the same with the ICE... so sleepy... so dreamy... a little nauseous, but just sooooo sleepy. Lots of white light, angels singing, niceandwarm and i jsut sortradrifggieanlsdkfnasdkfn lakn sfasdffffffffffffffff

And as for excess heat from charging, as @Bebop mentioned above, the ambient heat is definitely noticeable around the car after a charge, so you're right @bonaire that it could help to time the charging accordingly.

 

[mongo]

Heating the person instead of the space is a route too, but doesn't help the paint dry.

Heated Gear | Milwaukee Tool

 

[electracity]

Alas, that's nigh impossible. The battery would be the most expensive part of this device, and you'd need a lot of it because it takes a lot of power to generate heat.

Version 1 was going to be plug-in. V2 is battery. Version 3 hovers in the garage like a quad copter.

Version 4 will be embedded in the garage floor: "Thermal Floorways".

 

[mongo]

Version 1 was going to be plug-in. V2 is battery. Version 3 hovers in the garage like a quad copter.

Version 4 will be embedded in the garage floor: "Thermal Floorways".

Have version 4 in my "will be done someday" self built barn/garage. Was going to use natural gas water heater for the radiant floor. Same weekend I ran the last of the gas line, I watched "Before the Flood". Now I'm going with an air to water heat pump.

 

[electracity]

Have version 4 in my "will be done someday" self built barn/garage. Was going to use natural gas water heater for the radiant floor. Same weekend I ran the last of the gas line, I watched "Before the Flood". Now I'm going with an air to water heat pump.

The key to research funding is to inappropriately embedded fragile electronic onto a driving surface. That is the approach I will be taking in stage four.

Although my V3 Hover Heater that moves out of the way of an entering car should be stupid enough for some mid six figure DOT funding.

 

[mongo]

The key to research funding is to inappropriately embedded fragile electronic onto a driving surface. That is the approach I will be taking in stage four.

Although my V3 Hover Heater that moves out of the way of an entering car should be stupid enough for some mid six figure DOT funding.

What's the going rate for a 5 gallon pail of rear defroster element repair paint?

 

[f-stop]

I've read elsewhere on TMC that the Model S cabin is heated by a 6kW resistive heater. So @Cirrus MS100D 's experimental results sound about right