I've got a rental property with old large coil wall heaters that I'm looking to replace. I looked at the label and they are 1000w, 240v, 12a. There is one in each of the three bedrooms, one in the dining room, and two in the living room. In searching the web I noticed that most larger sized wall heaters draw more power, 1500w and up. I'm concerned that this will overload the circuit (I don't recall but I'm pretty sure that the panel is less than 100amps). Any recommendations for a replacement wall heater?

thanks
Doug

 

We'll need to know information about the circuit(s) feeding the current heaters. What size breakers or fuses? What AWG wire, copper or aluminum? Do the heaters have separate thermostats or built-ins? Are the heaters on individual circuits or all on one?

I doubt the new heaters will be a problem with the overall 100A service, however they could be a problem with the individual circuits hence my numerous questions.

 

ibpooks,

thanks for the reply. The tenant is moving out this week and I'll go in this weekend and determine amperage on the fuse (not breakers), wire gauge, number of heaters per circuit, etc. In the meantime here's a photo.

 

In the meantime, I don't know how much investment you want to get in to this but while you're doing the work resistance heaters are the highest operating cost for heat. You may want to consider scraping these heaters and installing a high-efficiency central heating/cooling system like a heat pump/AC and/or gas fired unit. You would need to evaluate if it's possible to retrofit a new system into your building without too much trouble or if it would be an impossible job. Perhaps weigh that against the cost of rewiring if that will be necessary to accommodate new heaters (to be determined). There may be tax credits or power company rebates for upgrading to a more efficient system as well as a long term investment in your property to get lower utility bills.

 

I like those hot water baseboards, and you an choose hownyou heat the water, whether it be oil, coal, gas, electric???, solar, geotherm.

 

You might consider using a fan forced heater and adapter to fit the larger hole. I know Markel used to offer this and Berko (Marley Electric Corp) still has something that will work, if you want 1000w heaters. We see this all the time. You either have to re do the opening to accept a different wall heater or take a smaller fan forced, say a Berko SRA1012DS (1000 W 120 volts) and a MFAAP or alternate number AAPNW adapter plate (Marley has two divisions with same products , Berko and QMARK) so most all of their stuff has two part numbers). If I remember the adapter plate will cover a hole up to 11 x 17 inches, then the heater slides into the opening. Just one way to do it..

 

Off topic but out of curiosity I ran the numbers for operating those heaters ten hours a day. Based on my rates the electric bill would be $200 per month just for the heaters. I hope your rates are a lot cheaper or SF isn't as cold at night even in the summer as I remember it.

 

Ray - you're right using these to heat the house would cost an arm and a leg - the house is located at Lake Tahoe and last week night and morning temperatures were around zero. A couple of years ago we installed a wood stove insert in the fireplace which is centrally located and the tenants mostly use this to heat the house.

Jim - these look like good options. The existing wall heaters are pretty big, around 20" x 30" and mounted in the wainscoting so matching the size and surrounding wood is going to be a challenge.

Question regarding linking to images - is google's Picassa not supported?

Ben - I looked into going with a gas furnace however the pipeline is across the street which is unfortunately a state highway, closing it to bring the pipe across or even under would cost $15,000+. Propane is an option. A ground source heat pump would be nice but very $$$.

 

I think it should be as long as you get a "permalink" to the image or gallery. The only one I'm aware of that's blocked by the admins is t i n y p i c

Holy cow that's outrageous. Propane isn't too bad if you have a location to mount the tank.

Just a regular air source heat pump should be quite a bit cheaper than ground source and still 3-4 times more efficient than resistance heaters under normal circumstances. When it gets very cold the aux heat will kick in which is the same as coil or baseboard heaters, but the heat pump will be quite efficient for all of the other days of the year. On those days when the aux heat is kicking in if the occupant is paying attention and gets a good wood fire going he could probably avoid running the aux heaters altogether.