Electric Baseboard Heater

shawnmichaelthomas

I want to install electric base board heaters ina 3 seasons room. Based on most info I've read those heaters require a seperate circuit for them.

Do I need to have a seperate circuit installed for 2 1000W heaters or can I run them off of the existing crircuit?

Or can I run one off a particular circuit and the second off another circuit?

Please help.

chris75

These heaters 240v? Most likely they are, so yeah, a dedicated circuit would work best.

joed

One 15 amp 120 volt circuit is 1800 watts at 100% use. One circuit would be overloaded.
One 20 amp 120 volt circuit is 2400 watts at 100% use. One 20 amp circuit could do it.

chris75

Fixed electric heat needs to be rated at 125% In other words you can only use 80% of the breaker...

redline

How many square feet is this room?

Are the windows newer?

Is the roof area insulated or is it glass?

shawnmichaelthomas

The room is on a 240 breaker and a 20A circuit. There isn't anything but light bulbs on it right now so I thought it would be okay.

The room is 169 sq ft and has alot of windows. Most calculations say that a 1500-1875 W heater would do the trick.

I want to avoid running a new circuit as much as possible because with a slab house the only real way of running one is outside the back in to this room from the breaker.

The room and roof will be insulated when Im done

jerryh3

I haven't seen too many 240v light bulbs so are sure it's a 240v circuit? What kind of breaker is it? Two pole? Tandem?

shawnmichaelthomas

2 pole

joed

80% is 1920 watts. I would still install the 2000 watts on it.

chris75

And it would still be a violation...

Stubbie

Hello Mike

When you say you have a 240 volt branch circuit in that room and it is on a double pole about the only thing that could be is a multiwire branch circuit that has a shared neutral. Are you familiar with that? Unless your talking about a special branch circuit of some kind for a specific appliance.

Second for clarity are the baseboards 240 volts or are they rated 120volts? It is very common for 1000 watt heaters like this to be 120 volts.

If you have a multiwire branch circuit it will look like this at the breaker panel.

shawnmichaelthomas

i don't know. I will have to check. Im not even sure of the Voltage in the room. I was just told that if I had a two pole breaker that it was probably 240V. I need to get a tester and see what is actually in the room. I can get a different heater based on the voltage.

But my primary concern is having to run a new circuit for the heater. I wanted to find out if I could use the existing circuit and wire off that since there are no other major appliance and only two lights wired to the circuit.

lg 38

ive worked in electrical service for a number of years, after seeing damage done from all kinds of heaters (including baseboard), i would say definitely put it on a dedicated circuit.

Kingsmurf

okay...so when you find out that you have perhaps . . .a 15 or 20 amp circuit in that room . . .perhaps a practical solution to not having to run an new circuit . . might be using an lower wattage set of heaters?

while you are out buying testers...pick up an amp meter as well . .carefully find that rooms circuit in the breaker opapnel and snap the amp clamp around ...THat WIRE GOING INTO THE BREAKER . . .you'll read what
is actually the load

IE...would 750 watt heaters work? 500 watt ? etc

A what size wire is going to the breaker that powers that room?
#14 wire 15amps . . . .#12 wire 20amps . . .
B whatever the ampacity of the wire..figure you want to load that
circuit no more than 80%
C..if you find that the amp meter says it is X # of amps...and thats
well below 80% . . . .try plugging in one or two 750 watt
eletric heaters . . . .if that heats the room and drives the
amps up to no more than 80% . . . .then you know its good
to go tyo hard wire that wattage of baseboard heater

does that help ?

gold

consider exchanging those heaters for 240v heaters, it cost much less to operate. IMO dedicated ckt.

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