Advice for temp. elec. heaters

GW

Hi guys,

We have a pretty big system swap happening next week. Big dollars. I need to keep the house at least from freezing here in Massachusetts. Design heating is just below 80,000. Does anyone have a rule of thumb how much wattage I should set up for temp heat?

Is there any heaters I want to stay away from? Any that I want to look for?

Oh, the house is vacant.

Thanks,


Gary


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Boilerpro_3

Wattage

You get 3413 btu/hr per 1000 watts. Find out how many btus you need at the temp difference you expect this week. I usually shoot for aboutr 45F indoor, it gives you a safety margin for pipes in exterior walls and to keep plaster form being damaged.

Boilerpro

GW

HEAT

At 72 indoors and 0 outside, I need 74,037. At 45 indoors, my Elite program is saying 46,272. This equals 13,557 watts, if I did the math correctly.

Thanks,

Gary

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GW

that's 10

1500 watt heaters, that seems do-able.

Is there any dangers I need to know?

Gary

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scrook_2

you have 208V or 240V?

Use 240V portables at say 4kW (20A circuit) to 5kW (30 Amp circuit) each so you're looking at 3-4 heaters -- note at 208 a 240 heater will give only 75% output, e.g 3.75 kW vs 5 kW, or even tack up some electric baseboards. Depends on what's readily available for power. With 10 120V heaters you'll need 10 seperate 15 or 20 A circuits (but you may have these vs. 3-5 240V ones w/ receptacles.