I have 3 baseboard heaters on one 220 circuit controlled by 3 separate wall thermostats.
Lately all the heaters, regardless of how high I set the thermostat, only get barely warm to the touch.
Thoughts?
Are these modulating thermostats (vary the voltage to the heater) or just simple on/off stats? If they're regular on/off stats then the chances are (but not always) you will hear a clicking sound from the stat as a heat call is made.
DMX, electricity used to be so cheap in Ontario that there were thousands of homes built with electric baseboard heat. It runs way hotter than hot water heat. I remember in the fall, the first time the baseboards would kick on we could smell the dust cooking off, and if you were to look down through the louvers of the baseboard covers you could occasionally see the dust glowing and smoking a little.
They definitely should charge triple insurance premiums for electric baseboard heat. I hate them also. They have fallen out of favor lately because the cost to actually heat with electric is through the roof.
People would hook them up themselves with long cable runs of questionable gauge. Fires were common with home-installed baseboards. They used to melt out at the switch on the ones with thermal switches mounted right on them.
P.S. Yeah, sounds like you're only giving them 120
Are other things not working or not working properly?
You could have lost one of the two hot legs of your 120/240 (110/220) volt service.
Things trying to draw 120 volts from the dead leg will get some power that came across from the other leg via the heaters causing the latter to heat up a tad. But the operation will usually be degraded since some of the 120 volts will be used up in the heaters.
If all 240 volt equipment is switched off and one leg was dead then things plugged in on the dead leg won't work at all.
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