installing 220V electric baseboard heaters from scratch

[stephane]

I'm an electrical rookie.

I'm doing some renovations on a newly purchased cottage. I've got 100 AMP service with plenty available in the panel. I wish to install one (or several) four foot 220V electric baseboards.

I know that 220V is two phase. I guess my cable must have a red, black, and ground wire. How is the circuit set-up in the panel and how many such rads can I link on the same circuit?

Also how is the thermostat wired to the rad(s)?

Feedback would be great...thanks

Stephane

[Wgoodrich]

If you are located in midwest USA and you have a well insulated house you can use the following formula to calculate how many feet of baseboard heat you need per room.

room width times room length times room hieght times 1.5 heating degree day adjustment divided by 250 watts per foot of baseboard heat. This will tell you the approximate number of total feet of baseboard heat you will need for that room.

Remember that you can not block your heaters or they will overheat.
Remember you should place you heaters on teh walls where your heat loss areas are commonly located [under windows around doors].

You may use 12/2wGrnd installing a red tape on the white wire for the second hot wire and the bare as your equipment grounding wire.

You may install up to 14 feet of baseboard heat approximately and one 20 amp 240 volt branch circuit with 12/2wGrnd cable is fine.

To wire you baseboard heat install a double pole 20 amp 240 volt breaker in your panel. Run 12/2wGrnd from that panel connecting the black and white wire [with red tape ring] to the two lugs of the breaker and the bare wire to the grounding bar within your panel. Run that 12/2wGrnd wire from that panel to the wall thermostat. Connect the black and white [red tape ring] to the top of your thermostat on two separate line screws being line one and line two.

Then run a 12/2wGrnd cable from that thermostat to the first baseboard heater. IN the thermostat box connect your black and white [red tape ring] to the load side screws of the two poles of the thermostat.

Then at the heater connect the black to black of the heater and white [red ring ] to second black or red wire of the heater. Connect the bare to the green screw of the heater.

If you plan to run more than one heater on that 20 amp 240 volt circuit then you can as long as you do not exceed about 14 feet of heaters. Just run a 12/2wGrnd from that first heater to the second heater etc. connecting as you did with the first wire black to black and white [red tape] to second black in each heater.

Use romex connectors where passing through metal.

Hope this helps

Wg