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HELP!

barbershopkerry
barbershopkerry Member Posts: 2
in THE MAIN WALL
I live in a mid century, slab ranch. The original owners added onto the house. They put in electric baseboard heat. The baseboard heaters have the electrical outlets built in. The baseboard units need to be replaced, but NONE of the newer generation baseboard haters seem to have the plugs built in. We need to replace the baseboards, but we need the outlets as well. What do we do?!

Comments

  • barbershopkerry
    barbershopkerry Member Posts: 2
    Please help. This is needed very soon. We turned on the ancient electric baseboards, and they decided to quit working this year.
  • rick in Alaska
    rick in Alaska Member Posts: 1,459
    Best bet would be to call in an electrician. Maybe the baseboards can be repaired, or possibly the electrician might have a supplier that can find them.
    Rick
    kcoppSWEI
  • Paul48
    Paul48 Member Posts: 4,469
    The wiring is in place. An electrician may be able to pull some new wires up to put the outlets in the walls, and use the new baseboards as junctions.
  • Gordy
    Gordy Member Posts: 9,546
    Pics?

    Has a breaker tripped?

    All the baseboards are not working?

    Are these only in the addition?

    Seems suspicious they all stopped working.
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 24,094
    By far your best bet is to replace the baseboards and put them on their own circuit, then add another circuit for outlets.

    The problem with outlets in baseboards is that if there is enough current available for the baseboard to be really useful, there's often too much current for the outlet to be really safe. They should be on separate circuits.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    Gordy
  • Gordy
    Gordy Member Posts: 9,546
    Darned if I could find anything beyond this drawing googling.

    http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/8/2/1/9/3/ar136915111039128.JPG
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,199
    edited November 2015
    How many BB heaters do you have in the addition? How long is each one? Electric BB heaters are pretty simple devices, not much to go wrong. 90% of the time the problem is t-stat control.
    Do you have one or more wall t-stat?
    I would check breaker.....t-stat.......some (very rare) BB had manual reset hi temp safety (look for small red button on heater).......then some systems had used heating relays rather than line voltage t-stat.

    The outlets are separate accessories/modules to be added to the heaters. The best way to wire is a separate circuit/cable for outlets on a single pole breaker. Another way is if the heater had a BB mounted t-stat, then run a 3 wire cable to heater. Outlet must have its own white "neutral" wire and not a "bootleg neutral " from bare ground wire. And breaker must not exceed 20 amps.

    Tell or show us about your thermostats and any extra devices maybe at the breaker box connected to the exterior of panel.

    Do the outlets still work......very unlikely for all heaters to fail at once.

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