Now that I had a permanent source of electricity in the shed (not just the gasoline powered portable generator), I decided to provide a little bit of heat to the inside of the garage over the winter.

My logic was that:

1. There would be less wear and tear on the Gator if I could avoid freezing and thawing temperatures, and
2. My various liquids (solvents, herbicides, cleaning solutions, water jugs, etc) would avoid the problem of freezing, expanding and breaking their containers.

I still had the small electric space heaters from when I was painting my wall panels. I turned them on low and aimed one at the Gator, and the other at the collection of liquids on the shelf. I locked the door and went back home.

6 weeks later, I was back at the shed with two great insights.

The first insight arrived with my first electric bill, when I was stunned to discover how expensive electricity is in the country. It made no sense to be spending that kind of money on heating a shed out in the middle of the woods.

In retrospect, I should have been able to figure out in advance how much this would cost, based on charges for kilowatt hours and other information in the sign-up package for the power company. But I’m a doctor, not an electrical engineer, and I didn’t really understand either the terms used or their significance. Lesson learned.

The second big insight was that what I was doing was ineffective in heating the shed. It was still pretty cold.

One of the problems was that while the shed was insulated, the insulation served mainly to keep the summer heat out, not the winter heat in. But the bigger issue was that I had vents running under the eaves, and along the top (a ridge vent), that insured adequate ventilation. The downside of this ventilation was that all my electricity-generated heat would rise to the peak of the roof and be lost into the forest. Second lesson learned.

So I turned off the heaters, placed the liquids in plastic tubs (so if the plastic broke, the spill would be contained), and decided to let the Gator fend for itself. This actually worked out OK, and nothing froze or broke.