Snow = no heat?

ya, no heat will be likely... if using automatic setting, the heat fan speed will be based on the car's ability to provide the heat. we went thru a very cold spell here in the teens (btw, that snow you got hit us first) and i would start car, run defrost and it would go to high fan speed. but switch over to heat too soon and fan speed would switch anywhere from off to maybe medium... it went to off several times... so we found that best thing to do, was leave it off until car warmed up a bit.

now if too cold, you can switch to max heat temp, and the electric heaters will run, we tried that as well, but that only resulted in going to one notch above very low fan speed, so it was pretty much ineffective as well.

granted, you can manually set the fan speed, but i found that Toyota's method probably works best. thankfully, even in very cold weather, our Pri heated up within a mile or so...

 

when i lived in MI, we had some pretty cold winters, we used to just put a trouble light with a 60 watt light bulb in car. now seems like that would not make a difference, but i used to put one in front seat, one under hood, and it kept my car's radiator from freezing up.

 

Sooner or later, certainly before June, I will be either in Hong Kong or even back in China. Depending on schedule, a "layover" in your neck of the woods is entirely possible

I fully intend to drink you right under the table. That will fix you!

Good question. Without a doubt, they are far safer than the electric element ones that appear to cause all the car fires here in cold temps. Probably would work, not sure if the mineral oil convection design is better for heating, compared to a fan blowing hot air around

For example, let's compare heating a garage at -40 C. I know you can only imagine that sort of temp, but we've already been down to -33 C a few times. With January just around the corner, -40 C is entirely realistic

The heater in my garage is a Reznor natural gas unit that is rated 30,000 btu.

https://www.rezspec.com/catalog-udap.html

It's mounted up against the ceiling, at one corner. It's direct vented outside. When running, the louvers are angled such that the hot air is directed down to about the middle of the garage floor.

If the vehicle is covered in snow when I pull in, by morning the floor is dry. It's a bit noisy when running, but is very reliable

Another option is a radiant heater. It looks like a very long tube, usually 2-5 metres long, about 10-20 cm thick depending on construction. I know a fellow who has such a heater in his garage, it's made by Schwank

Schwank Infrared Heaters :: Radiant Gas-fired

It sure feels good to be standing under that heater, the heat just soaks right into you. It's almost silent in operation, and appears to be more efficient. If there is snow/ice on the vehicle, the vehicle has to be parked directly under the tube to actually have melting occur.

Otherwise, you pull in after work, and next morning there is still a bit of snow/ice on the vehicle

I would think for a car, a mineral oil filled radiant electric heater would be far safer.