Most garages seem to get a lot use in warm weather, but are often sent into hibernation for the winter. If you would like to spend more time working in your garage in cold weather, here are some affordable heating garage choices worth investigating.

If you will be using your garage often during the heating season, your energy costs can easily double or triple if your garage has inadequate insulation and weatherstripping. Energy lost through drafty windows or transmitted through uninsulated walls in energy you pay for, so it makes sense to take the same pains with your garage as you do with the rest of your house. In most cases, any money you spend on adding insulating will be paid for in money-savings on energy costs within a few years, according to the Department of Energy . Here are some things to pay particular attention to:

There are a number of space heaters that use liquid fuel, such as kerosene, liquid propane, or natural gas that can be used with caution in a garage. There are two principal types:

A wood stove can be a great choice for heating the garage under certain circumstances—especially if you have a steady, inexpensive supply of wood for fuel. Using a wood stove comes with caveats, however.

You will need to have room for a safe installation, with proper clearances between the stove and any combustible materials. And all wood stoves must be connected to proper chimneys. A wood stove takes quite a while to heat up and will continue generating heat long after you’ve stopped feeding it fuel, so this is not a good option for short, quick heating needs. A wood stove can be perfect, though, for day-long projects in the garage. A woodworker with lots of scrap lumber on hand might find a wood stove to be a perfect solution.

Caution: Never burn pressure-treated lumber or scraps of sheet material with chemical resins in a wood-burning stove. Burning these materials produces toxic fumes that by law cannot be sent into the atmosphere.

Electric heaters suitable for heating a garage come in many forms, from small 120-volt portable plug-in heaters to 240-volt radiant overhead heating units, to permanent baseboard heaters. The main virtue of electric heaters is their convenience. Electric heaters are quiet, clean, and unobtrusive, they do not require that you tap into a furnace or boiler, and they require no chimneys or vent pipes.

Electric heaters are generally inexpensive to purchase and install, but they can be fairly expensive to operate on a constant basis, especially in very cold climates. In cold climates, it may be best to fully insulate and weatherproof your garage if you want to heat the garage frequently with electric heat. Electric heaters are ideal in more moderate climates where subfreezing temperatures are rare.

Electric space heaters come in three main types:

It is also possible to extend the system by which your central furnace and air conditioner heats and cools the rest of your house by adding ductwork into a garage that is attached to the house. However, this can dramatically change the load on your HVAC system , so it is best to have professional assess the situation and run the additional ductwork if you choose to go this route. If your furnace has the capacity to serve the garage, this is may be the most effective long-term solution to your heating problem. Make sure, however, that you have taken all measures to insulate and weatherproof your garage.