Removing Baseboard Electric Heaters

gieriscm

This past spring I had my 30+ year old AC system replaced with a Trane AC/Heat Pump system. Now I'd like to get rid of the baseboard electric heaters.

Is it possible to remove the heaters and have regular wall outlets installed in their place?

All work will be done by an electrician. I don't do DIY jobs involving electricity!

mhaucke

Did you ever figure this out? I'm trying to do the same thing. Each base board heater has its own 20 amp circuit breaker - actually has 2 20 amp circuit breakers tied together. I don't know why. would appreciate a response. Thanks

Stubbie

The short answer is yes you can convert to wall receptacles. How much work that is going to entail requires more information. Such as are the baseboard heaters 120 volt or 240 volt? Is there a wall thermostat/thermostats or are there thermostats on the heaters themselves that sorta questions .

Stubbie

dmaceld

The heaters are 240v so both the black & white wires coming from the breaker panel are 120v to ground. That's why there's two breakers tied together for each circuit. If either side shorts out to ground both hot wires get tripped. These can be converted to 120v by switching the white wire of the circuit from a circuit breaker to the neutral bar in the breaker panel.

In doing the conversion probably the worst thing you would end up with, if you have wall thermostats, are blank covers on the outlet boxes where the thermostats are.

mhaucke

This is great feedback.
There is electricity coming to the wall thermostat, do I just keep the black wires separate and put a wall plate on? Does this black (in the thermostat) go back to the panel where I have to remove a black wire from a circuit breaker? I just wired a whole house, so I'm not a beginner. Just never ran across this before. Thanks for your help.

Stubbie

More than that. You need to have the double pole breaker/breakers removed to avoid confusion and replaced with single pole breakers. Then if the wire colors are black white and bare. Connect the black to the breaker lug, the white to the neutral bar with the other whites and the bare equipment ground wire where you see the bares connected...you shouldn't have to do anything with the bare ground wire. As for the thermostat I think I know what you have but is better if I ask. Describe how many wires you have connected to the thermostat and how many wires are in the box with the thermostat. I just want to make sure nothing odd is going on. Give the colors of the wires also.

You said your going to have this done by an electrician so he will know what is going on and how to make the conversion.

Do not get inside that panel if you don't know what is going on in there. Let the electrician take of this.

Stubbie

mhaucke

Thanks so much, again. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to get into the house to check the thermostat boxes; the floors are being redone today and I can't get in. I know the blacks are there, but not sure about the whites.

mhaucke

Finally got back over to the house to check the thermostat wires.

Four of the five thermostats have both white and black wires in the wall box. the whites are tied together and the black are now broken with the thermostats removed. The fifth thermostat only has the black wires,which were connected to the thermostat.

I am doing this work myself as I have quite a bit of experience with 110v; once you told me about the 220v I went "dah, of course."

So my only remaining question is the thermostat terminations; there is power in the black wires.

Thanks so much.

Stubbie

Both the black and white are hot. Your thermostats were single pole stats. The fifth stat they just didnt bring in the other hot leg. If this is indeed what you have then just connect up whites to whites and black to blacks and put blank decorative covers on the box openings. You also have work to do in the breaker box.
What have they done with the wires at the heater where your receptacles are going to go. Do you have that figured out?

Stubbie

mhaucke

Thanks for the reply Stubbie.

I am going to :
#1 change the wires going to the old heater locations to 110 by moving the whites from the circuit breaker in the breaker panel to their 110 position on the neutral bar.
#2 replace the tied together breakers that create the old 220 heater circuits and turn them into 110 breakers (that will leave some breakers slots I can't use, unless I figure out how to run new wires)
#3 install receptacle boxes at the old heater locations to have some much needed new 20 amp circuits for my electronics, computers, etc.
#4 tie the blacks together in the thermostat boxes and put decorative covers on them
#5 remember to thank the people in DIY Chatroom for their wonderful help.

Oh yes, before #1, I will kill the main breaker so I can safely work in the breaker panel

Thanks so much, Mike

dmaceld

You may be able to remove the tie that joins the breakers together and end up with two individual breakers. Worth looking at. If you take the doubles out and replace with a single be sure to get blank covers for the empty holes. They're readily available.

mhaucke

After sent that last I thought of #6 - I'm going to use the unused breakers for a whole house surge protector. Everything's got circuit card in it today. I took a surge not long ago and had to replace the $200 circuit card in my dryer. Thanks so much for all your help! Mike

Susque

The heating system was installed 3 years ago when I gutted the entire house. Replacing is not a feasible option, but thanks for your reply.