Take it from someone who learned this the expensive way: the Dimplex garage workshop heater is the cheaper option — once you count everything. Not “better value for the same money.” Literally cheaper. It took me six years, fourteen documented buying mistakes, and roughly $3,200 of my employer’s money to figure this out. You don’t need to repeat my education.

I’m a facilities manager and I’ve been ordering heating equipment for commercial workshop spaces since 2019. This article is the short version of what I wish someone had told me before I bought my first cheap garage heater. I made the mistakes so you don’t have to.

How Badly Wrong I Got It

In November 2019, I ordered three budget garage heaters at $189 each for a workshop we were setting up. My thinking was something like: “a heater is a heater.” Heat a coil, spin a fan, control with a thermostat. What could justify spending $500+ on one unit?

A lot, apparently.

Two of the three units failed within the first winter. The third had a thermostat that was off by roughly eight degrees — it shut down at 41°F while thinking it was maintaining 50°F. I didn’t realize it for weeks because nobody had complained; they’d just worn gloves indoors and quietly assumed there was something wrong with the building, not the heater. That one hurt.

Then a cheap unit shorted and took out wiring with it. $580 for an emergency electrician. $190 for an electrical inspection that our insurance company demanded afterward.

But I still didn’t learn the right lesson. I just got attached to a different category of mistake.

The Gas Infrared Detour

After the electric heater disaster, I spent two weeks researching whether gas-fired infrared was the “proper” solution. (Turns out it is, for many applications — just not for the reason I was pursuing it.)

I went back and forth between a ceiling-mounted radiant tube system and a wall-mounted natural gas infrared heater for about ten days. The ceiling unit would have provided more even heat but needed structural mounting. The wall unit was cheaper and easier, and I was desperate to control costs. I chose the wall unit — but from an unfamiliar brand, because I still hadn’t internalized the difference between “what you pay” and “what you end up paying.”

The price: $389. The final invoice, after the gas line rough-in ($450), the ventilation clearance kit the manual didn’t mention until page 14 ($180), the heavy-duty mounting hardware ($120), and the permit and inspection ($85), was $1,234.

  • Gas line rough-in: $450
  • Ventilation clearance kit: $180
  • Mounting hardware: $120
  • Permit and inspection: $85

I should add that the $389 unit worked okay after that. Not great — okay. The thermostat was still a guessing game, the unit had a narrow heat distribution pattern, and I had a terrible feeling that I was one wrong move away from needing to uninstall the whole thing.

Everything I’d read about gas-fired infrared said it would be the most economical way to heat a workshop. My experience tells me that advice is incomplete. At least, it didn’t account for what happens when you install one in a building that has a real-world layout, existing structure, and a city permit department.

What Was Different About the Dimplex Wall-Mounted Natural Gas Infrared Heater

So, September 2022. I was done with “deals” and done with feeling like the building was a testing ground for products that might be engineered for someone else’s situation.

I started looking at the Dimplex wall-mounted natural gas infrared heater the way you look at a tool after you’ve already burned your hand with the cheaper one. The details suddenly mattered. And the details were genuinely different.

The mounting bracket was designed for standard wall construction. The control wiring was pre-routed and made sense. The thermostat had a proper heating curve, not a “makes a noise and hopes for the best” dial. The build quality was visibly more robust than the $389 unit — and I don’t mean “more premium marketing paint.” I mean the kind of physical differences you notice when you’ve taken enough heaters apart.

When I hit “confirm order” on the Dimplex, I had serious buyer’s doubt. I remember thinking: what if this is just a better marketing budget? It wasn’t until about three months later that I fully relaxed. That’s when I compared the energy bills from winter 2022–23 against the same period from 2020–21. Same building. Same usage hours. The Dimplex used 37% less energy for heating than the previous setup. It also kept the workshop at 55°F consistently, instead of swinging between 41°F and 58°F depending on what mood the old thermostat was in.

That’s when I said the words I had been avoiding for three years: “I should have bought a Dimplex heater from the start.”

The Math That Finally Got My Attention

Let me show you the comparison using numbers from my maintenance ledger:

Budget path (2019–2022):
Three budget electric garage heaters and replacements: $605
Emergency wiring repair: $580
Inspection and report: $190
Budget wall-mounted gas heater: $389
Installation surprises (gas line, vent kit, mounts, permit): $835
Extra electricity waste from running dumb thermostats: roughly $210 over two seasons
Rusted tools from condensation the inadequate heat didn’t solve: about $340

Total: roughly $3,149 — before you count the hours of discomfort.

Dimplex path (September 2022 onward):
Dimplex wall-mounted natural gas infrared heater: $689
Professional installation (including gas line, no code surprises): $740
Cost to date: $1,429
Energy savings, verified by utility bills: about $260 per heating season

The Dimplex install is now the cheapest purchase I’ve ever made for that workshop. Not per feature, not per BTU — just plain cheaper.

I want to say the $605 figure includes shipping, but don’t quote me on the exact breakdown — these are reconstructed from my order history, and I’ve been wrong about details before.

(Should mention: I’m in the US Pacific Northwest, and our electric and gas rates are about average. As of January 2025, we’re paying roughly $0.16/kWh for industrial power. If your energy costs more, the Dimplex payback is even faster.)

Choosing Among the Dimplex Garage Workshop Heater Options

I don’t want you to think I’m telling everyone to buy the wall-mounted gas unit. Dimplex makes different types of garage workshop heaters, and the right one depends on your space:

Wall-mounted gas infrared — pick if you have a gas line and use your workshop daily. It heats objects and people directly rather than only warming the air, so it feels warmer at lower thermostat settings. Best choice for drafty, uninsulated garages.

Electric panel heaters with programmable thermostats — pick if you don’t have gas and your workshop has some insulation. They take longer to warm up but hold temperature steadily. If you’re coming from a dumb $100 heater, the programmable thermostat alone will save you real money.

Portable space heaters — pick if you use the garage a few hours a month. The efficiency loss doesn’t matter at that usage level. Portability wins.

Basically: buy for (usage hours × lifespan), not for (sticker price × 1).

There’s More to a Workshop Than Heat

I want to mention something that isn’t about heaters at all, because it’s the mistake that cost me the most in sheer frustration.

For two winters, our workshop had a condensation problem. Tools rusted, materials felt damp, and the space always felt cold no matter how much we heated it. I kept buying more powerful heaters to “burn off” the moisture. That doesn’t work — as I eventually learned. The proper fix for damp air is dehumidification. A colleague recommended one of Dimplex’s dehumidifiers and the difference was immediate: the tools stopped rusting within a week, and the heaters didn’t have to work nearly as hard, because dry air holds heat better than humid air.

I’d walked past that dehumidifier many times before, always thinking, “heater is the problem, heater is the solution.” That mindset cost me around $340 in rusted tools and who knows how many hours of discomfort.

There was another moment that drove the “system, not parts” lesson home. A team member brought in a small chest freezer for the workshop — a great idea in theory, a condensation machine in practice. Every time it cycled, it dumped moisture into already-damp air. It wasn’t until I understood the whole environment — heating, cooling, and humidity together — that I started making smart decisions.

One more confession: I also nearly replaced a hot water heater because I didn’t know basic maintenance. A property owner asked me to look at one making a strange noise; I assumed it was dying. It just needed draining — sediment buildup. A plumber charged $75 and did it in twenty minutes. Now I know the basics of how to drain hot water heater units, and I check sediment levels annually. I’d like to save you the same embarrassment.

When I’d Still Buy the Cheap Heater

There are honest exceptions to everything I’ve written:

  • Tiny spaces with occasional use. A 10′×10′ shed used twice a month doesn’t need a $700 dimplex garage workshop heater. Buy the $90 one and be fine.
  • Rental properties. Don’t install fixed equipment into a space you don’t own. Go portable.
  • Temporary situations. If the workshop is a stopgap for six months, efficiency math doesn’t matter. Just spend as little as you need to.

But for a real workshop, used regularly, insulated at least a little, in a climate with actual winters? The Dimplex approach wins. Every single time I’ve run the numbers.

What I’d Tell a Friend

If I could walk back to 2019 and give my past self a single sentence, it would be: “calculate total cost, not sticker price, and don’t buy anything that doesn’t come with installation guidance that respects your building.”

I have mixed feelings about this whole saga. Part of me is embarrassed that I made these mistakes for so long. Another part knows that the mistakes are why I’m qualified to write this article at all. I keep a team checklist now, with 42 items covering purchases, installation, and maintenance. It’s funded itself several times over.

So, bottom line: if you’re comparing garage heaters and the Dimplex looks expensive, you’re comparing the wrong numbers. Compare the total cost of owning all of them over five years. The Dimplex usually wins. It does in my building.

And if your situation is one of the exceptions I described, buy the cheap one and don’t feel bad about it. The important thing is to make the decision based on real math, not the cheapest number on the shelf.