Dr966 240-Volt Hardwired Shop Garage Commercial, 3000-Watt/6000-Watt

I've had the Dr. Heater DR966 for 2 weeks. It was easy to install and within about 10 minutes of turning it on I realized it would be a gamechanger for my garage workshop (in Montana). The garage is well insulated but was otherwise unheated. Normally when outdoor temperatures dip to zero, the garage temperature drops to around freezing, which basically made it useless for trying to use hand tools with bare hands. The new Dr. Heater puts out plenty of heat. I generally run it at 6000 watts for about 20 minutes and then drop it back to 3000 watts and back off on the thermostat. Then I stay out there in comfort for hours... My only very minor concern with the construction of this unit is that a sharp sheet metal screw sticks into the enclosure for the wire connections. Although unlikely, I figured that it was possible for a wire to come in contact with the sharp screw point and combined with years of vibration from the fan, the wire insulation could erode and allow a short. I fixed this by simply reversing the screw so that the point was on the outside. I would not at all consider that screw a reason not to buy this unit. The general quality seems very good. I'm sure every garage heater has some kind of manufacturing quirk. I chose this unit because I noticed that there were very few reviews describing outright failures, unlike many of the other space heaters on Amazon. I made a guess that because this one was lower cost and simpler that it may therefore be less prone to failure. So far, so good. I currently have complete confidence in what I've bought. As far as wiring, I noticed 10 gauge wiring in the unit. I already had approximately 15 feet of 10 gauge AWG coming from my circuit box and a 30A 240V breaker. I've used this heater a lot the last 2 weeks without tripping the circuit breaker or heating up the wiring. Would I buy it again???: YES. P.S.: I made the effort to give you a thorough review because I literally read about 100 outstanding reviews about this and other space heaters.

Installed into a 650 Sqft, 3-bay Insulated garage. Unless its below -20 degrees Celsius, it does a fine job of warming up garage to work in or melt snow off the cars. If you have steel garage doors that are not insulated, you should at a minimum start there with 4'x8' sheets of foil-backed styrofoam insulation that you can cut into pieces to snap into the door sectionals and tape the seams. Throwing up fiberglass bats between the wall studs is a very quick job. Drywall is an added bonus. This is an expensive unit to run, so you will make back what ever you spend on insulation. Highly recommended you use 10/2 or 8/2 armored cable to hard wire it. At 240v, you don't want to ever nick a a flexible dryer type plug cord. That voltage is enough to knock your balance off a ladder. I installed a mini 2-space breaker panel in the garage, wired to the main panel with 10/3 wire. (You should not bunch high current cables with other cables back to the main panel. Stove and Dryer runs are always given their own stud holes and space to avoid over heating). In the mini-breaker panel I plugged in a 15-30-30-15 quad breaker. The 30-30 is tied together for 240v and acts like a switch for the heater. Extra piece of mind, the heater has no power. The other two 15 breakers, I use for 2 additional 15a dedicated 120v outlets for tools. Obviously, I can't use them when the heater is in 6,000w mode, but they can be used at same time at 3,000w mode, or whenever the heater is off. The heater looks great and runs quiet, and the thermostat works accurately. I have left it on for 3 days at a time with no issues. You should run at 80% capacity for a 240v-30a (7,200w) circuit. And 6,000w is very close to that. As others have mentioned, you won't find a 35a breaker. Highly recommended purchase.

This heater far exceeded my expectations given the numerous reviews here that slam this little guy as a no good heater. All I can think is that those with trouble either wired it wrong, have very drafty garages, or were expecting way too much out of it in the first place. I purchased this unit to heat a dethatched fully insulated (walls, ceiling, and garage doors themselves) 24x22 garage that I use to store two collector cars. My first and continued impression is WOW. It looks great, seems well built, installed with ease to one of my garage door track angle iron drops (great location by the way) and manages to keep my garage at a more than comfortable temperature on the LOW setting with the dial set at somewhere less than half of its highest rotation. It is a fully analog control panel so setting it to a specific temperature is not an option, although another poster did mention use of a Honeywell Thermostat for such precision. I did also buy the separate Honeywell Thermostat but decided not to use it due to the added hassle and also figured I just want to run it as low as it will go. That thinking is working out great for me as the garage is always plenty warm and the heater never seems to be running when I go in at random times, so its not working too hard. Regarding the install, I took the book to my local electrical supply store where an old head who knows his stuff pulled out a calculator and ran some load calculations and determined that 10 wire and a 30amp breaker were in fact sufficient to run this puppy. After install I did run on its highest setting for about 30 hours and the breaker never tripped and my garage got up to about 80 degrees on a day when it was about 35 outside. I like the unit so much I have decided to get two more for my 40 x 28 foot garage that serves as our primary garage. This one has insulated doors but the walls and ceiling are totally uninsulated so will be an interesting test, but again, just looking to take the sharp edge off the cold so I anticipate a good outcome. Will update in a couple weeks once these are installed.

Got 2 of these absolutely what was required. Very pleased. This is context. Very large community center in church basement (7200 sq. ' with 14 ' ceiling). Church has central heating, therefore obliged to heat entire building when community center was being used. These have allowed us to maintain 18 C in rest of church while raising the temperature to 22 C in community center. The 2 units will raise the temperature by 4 degrees in under an hour at 3000 Watts each and in about 25 minutes at 6000 Watts. So they are turned on via a timer before the event, raise temp to required level, also burns off the humidity. Golden age, Bridge Club etc. super happy. So what we are spending more on electricity which is more than offset by not having to turn up thermostat in the church section, which is 12,000 sq. ' with 90 ' ceiling. After 1 month we have seen electrical bill climb by about 2% but our gas bill has dropped by 7%. The net saving is about 500$. So given 2 units cost us about 1400$ installed that's about 3 month payback period. If you are not using this as a main heating system but as a supplementary point system, is a great solution. Especially in Québec ( -20 C today) with electricity at 6 cents KWh. this is a great solution. The ability to use (low 3000 Watt and high 6000 Watt is bonus as allows us to adjust for outside temperature. As a primary heating system who knows but to address our problem turned out great.

I waited several months of use before writing this review. It was relatively easy and straightforward to install. If you’ve got any electrical ability. I installed it on the wall where the knob was just low enough that I could reach it to keep the kids away from it. I did install it close to the breaker box in my shop so that I could run a minimal amount of wire, 6’ and wire direct to a breaker. It heats quite well. I’m using it in a 1400 square-foot foam insulated shop open ceiling. it does a pretty good job in there. Would be even better in a smaller shop I may add a second one. I like it enough I’m going put one in my 900 square-foot insulated garage and since the garage isn’t an open ceiling like the shop, it should warm the garage quite well. It was definitely a good buy for the money it keeps the area that I work in most, at my workbench, quite comfortable. The heat output is quite good even standing 12 to 15 feet away you can definitely get a good warm even hot breeze coming off of it. I would definitely buy again. The thermostat works quite well. I don’t understand the complaints. Yeah there is some play between the shut off and turn it back on positions but that’s normal in all dial thermostats. I don’t see the need of wiring in their regular home type thermostat. The built-in one works just fine.