Our garage thermostat that came with the propane garage heater just wasn’t cutting it. It worked fine, but only went down to 50 degrees. We wanted a thermostat to keep the garage from freezing; not to keep the garage comfortable.
I found this low-temperature thermostat on Amazon and it works great.
Low Temp Thermostat Keeps Garage From Freezing
Old Garage Heater Thermostat
We sometimes get sustained cold temperatures hovering around zero degrees for several days, and we wanted to keep the garage from freezing. We have lawn chemicals, horse sprays that shouldn’t be frozen. We also have a refrigerator in the garage.
Most refrigerators aren’t designed to work outside of normal, indoor temperatures. When the ambient air starts getting down into the 30s, our garage fridge begins to ‘warm-up’ a bit on the inside. We’ve found that keeping the garage around 40 degrees is low enough not to waste fuel and electricity but keep everything running properly.
Works with Propane and Electric Heaters
The low temp thermostat we purchased works with both electric and gas/propane heaters. There is a small ‘jumper’ selection on the inside to select the type. Be sure to read the instructions on how to change this. From the factory, it came with the jumper on the electric setting.
Reduces Electric and Propane Costs
Keeping the garage above 40 or 45 degrees during the winter (for us) would not be worth paying the extra costs for propane and electricity. So, getting a thermostat that went below 50 degrees (and down to 35) was just what we needed.
How To Replace A Garage Thermostat (Wiring)
In our case, the instructions that came with the unit were mostly useless when it came to wiring. We had one black and one red wire. The instructions indicate the previous thermostat wiring will have labels, which ours did not. Luckily, at least the red wire seems to be pretty standard and connected to the (R) terminal. The black wire is not usual, but in our case, it was the same as a white wire. So, the red wire went to the (R) terminal, and the black wire went to the (W) terminal. (Note – please don’t take this as electrical gospel. Always turn off the breaker when working with electricity.)
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