RGNY

my bike wrenching space is in my unheated garage, but with the cold i may have to move my stand/tools to the basement if i have any jobs taking more than 10-15 minutes. of course that means muscling the bike through and awkward path to get it downstairs.

anyone else have to make any concessions for winter bike wrenching?

dscheidt

I've been doing my bike wrenching either in the courtyard of the building, or the dead basement space below our place. I'll continue to use that space, though it's where all the outdoor furniture is stuck, so it's not as empty as it was. It's heated (sort of), but not well lit, and there's no real electricity. (There's a single outlet and lampholder combination screwed into one of the lamp holders.) Less likely to cause a revolt than the living room. I miss having a garage or dedicated basement space.

Trek_geek

Very lucky that my house has a walk out basement access so I don't have to carry the bike through the kitchen.

Rootman

How about a space heater for the garage? If you aren't spending hours and hours out there it shouldn't be too expensive to operate.

RaleighSport

My front office houses most of my hobbies including the majority of my bikes/parts/tools.. I also have a work space in a lean to attached to the barn, but when winter strikes most often you'll find me wrenching right in the living room.

RGNY

i may have to check next time i go to Home Depot. the workshop has grown significantly since last winter...

DJ Shaun

I live in a row house with no garage so all the bikes get stored and worked on in the basement.

I've gotten pretty good at hauling bikes up and down stairs but my landlord won't be impressed with all the marks from wheels, pedals and handlebars in the stairwell and hallway.

dscheidt

I used to heat a large garage (two car wide, two deep, plus a bit more, 1000 sq ft +/-) that was totally uninsulated with a 30K btu propane heater. That's not really enough heat for that, but it made working tolerable. A 40 lb tank (that's twice the size of one used by a grill, which has the advantage of being bigger (which not only lasts longer, but works better in cold.), and generally filled at per pound or per gallon rates, which is lots cheaper than exchanging) lasted about 30 hours. If remember right, it cost about 16 or 18 bucks to fill it up. At the time I bought the heater, 30K was the sweat size for price v. output, all the heaters of less capacity cost pretty much the same, and all the ones larger were much more expensive. Electric heaters are cheaper, but very expensive to use.