Best practice removing electric heat thermostat
#1
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Best practice removing electric heat thermostat
I have an old farmhouse that at some point had electric baseboard heat. Most of the baseboards are long gone but I still have the thermostats on the walls. Now I'm trying to figure out the best practice for removing the thermostats and walling off the boxes.
I have removed the wires from the fuse box, tied them up off to the side and labeled what they are and labeled them as not for use. Removing the wiring from the wall is not an option, and a plate in the middle of the wall is cosmetically unacceptable.
So what is the best option to prevent some idiot in 2063 from being hurt by the idiot in 2013 who left abandoned electrical wiring in the wall?
Can I just wall off the box since everything inside is dead? Should I cap the individual wires?
I have removed the wires from the fuse box, tied them up off to the side and labeled what they are and labeled them as not for use. Removing the wiring from the wall is not an option, and a plate in the middle of the wall is cosmetically unacceptable.
So what is the best option to prevent some idiot in 2063 from being hurt by the idiot in 2013 who left abandoned electrical wiring in the wall?
Can I just wall off the box since everything inside is dead? Should I cap the individual wires?
Last edited by mgspeed; 01-10-13 at 10:20 AM.
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Instead of leaving the wires marked not for use, cut them where they enter the ceiling or the wall. That way there is no chance of anyone putting juice in them. Then there is no reason to cap each wire.
#3
Since the thermostats were mounted to boxes, you will probably need to remove those to do an effective job of patching the walls.
Best practice would be to cut the cables that you pulled out of the panel so that they are too short to be fed back into the enclosure. Put som tape on the cut ends for looks if you want to, and do clearly label them.
At each thermostat location, after making sure that there is no longer any power there with every breaker switched on, you can remove the box, cut the cables so that they are too short to make into a replacement box in that location, put some tape on them if you want to, label them if you want to, and push them back in the wall.
Then you can patch the wall.
Best practice would be to cut the cables that you pulled out of the panel so that they are too short to be fed back into the enclosure. Put som tape on the cut ends for looks if you want to, and do clearly label them.
At each thermostat location, after making sure that there is no longer any power there with every breaker switched on, you can remove the box, cut the cables so that they are too short to make into a replacement box in that location, put some tape on them if you want to, label them if you want to, and push them back in the wall.
Then you can patch the wall.