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Space heater

iamtiffany
iamtiffany Member Posts: 1
in THE MAIN WALL
About a month ago u bought a space heater for my place and it was working fine. So about a week ago I got a smaller one for the bedroom. No problems. Then yesterday morning everything turned off and back on..later in get home to turn heater on there was power but was not working. And the lights would dim. Tried the one in bedroom and same thing..checked the breaker box and reset everything and still does the same thing

Comments

  • Tim McElwain
    Tim McElwain Member Posts: 4,642
    Is this a gas heater, or electric?
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 24,869
    If this is electric... first thing I would check would be a bad neutral connection or bad hot connections. And I would do it pretty quickly; bad connections can heat up something fierce, but not enough to blow a fuse or circuit breaker.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • Gordy
    Gordy Member Posts: 9,546
    What @Jamie Hall said. Also how many things are on a circuit drawing power including lighting. Most electric space heaters heaters draw 1500 watts. If the circuit is 15 amps then there is not much more room for more wattage on the circuit.
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,279
    As Jamie said failing neutral connection. This could be anywhere but I would start in the breaker box. A loose neutral connection can overheat and burn itself out. Where a loose connection on a breaker will overheat and that heat will transfer into the breaker and possibly trip the breaker.
    If you are up to it you could look in the breaker panel. If a loose neutral is there the insulation (white wires) may be partially melted and discolored right at the screw connection. I always remove the wire and re-strip for new copper and retighten. Sometimes the screw is welded in place, just cut the wire off and reseat on a new screw. BE Sure the breaker for that neutral is OFF when doing this. While there I always snug up all neutral connections in the panel.

    If those are all OK then the search begins......any junction.....outlet or switch box...... and sometimes the power company connection at the meter socket or overhead splices.

    My advice is always use the space heaters on low power, less current draw and heating for the cord connection and everything else........if you need more heat than that then you need some serious heat.....No furnace?

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