I bought an old farmhouse & I'm in the process of rewiring. I have looked everywhere on the unit but can't find if it's 120, 220 or what. I tried to search online but I'm left with more questions. I'm lost, please help.
How does one know the original posting date of these homeowners hub questions?
By the date of the post.
Look at all the other ones. The dates of the posts are years old. This one is dated today.
Temporarily hook it up to 120V. Turn it on and see how it works, in terms of giving off heat. If it is meant for 240V, the heat output will be 1/4 o f its normal output, so it should be a 240V hookup. Don't try it on 240V f irst, because if it is a 120V unit, running it on 240V will cause it to put put 4 times correct output and will fry it in a few seconds.
Tiffany:
Typically on 220 volt appliances, there will be three places to connect the three wires going to the appliance, and those three places will be in a recognizable "row". You always connect the white neutral wire to the middle location and the red and black power wires to the outside locations. It doesn't matter whether the black goes on this side or that, or the red for that matter, as long as the white is in the middle and the red and black are on either side, you're good.
If there is a location for a ground wire, it will not be on that recognizable "row", for if it were, it could cause confusion.
So, look at the terminal block on that heater where you connect the wires. If you see a recognizable "row" of three connection sites, it's almost certainly a 220 volt heater. Otherwise, it's a 120 VAC heater, in which case there will be only two connection points and possibly a place to connect a ground wire as well.
You won't hurt a 220 volt appliance by trying to drive it with only 120 VAC. All that will happen is that the heating elements won't get nearly as hot as they should.
So, maybe the safest bet is to try connecting 120 VAC to the heater and see if it works properly. If not, it's probably cuz it needs 220 VAC power.
Look in the headers for the Date: tag.
The originals of the antiques don't show if you're using a decent server.
Typically a 240V heater like that isn't going to have a neutral connection because it's 240V, none is required and it would serve no purpose.
Electric baseboard heaters don't use terminal blocks, they have wire tails at both ends of the heater, so you can feed it from either end, and they leave them wire nutted together so you don't have to open up both ends to make your connections. It won't have a white neutral connection, unless it is 120 volt
Correct - MOST 220 volt baseboard heaters will have 2 black or a black and red, while a 120 will have a black and a white. What wattage is the heater? Any model number on it??
How do you know it's operating at 1/4 of normal output if you don't know what normal output is?
You have to wonder about someone "rewiring a house" that has to ask question here. If they can' figure this out, they shouldn't be wiring anything. Plus it came for HomemoanersHub. With all these posts suddenly showing up here from this commercial site, you also have to wonder if someone there isn't just making crap up to spam their website and try to make money.
Barely warm compared to lotsa heat
nestork wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@diybanter.com:
Tiffany: Pay no attention at all to this guy. He does not know what he's talking about.
Complete nonsense. On a 240V heater, there will be no neutral connection at all, and no white wire in the circuit.
Doug Miller wrote in news:XnsA274C28DEF5E6dougmilmaccom@78.46.70.116:
I meant to say, no *red* wire in the circuit -- only white and black, usually. Sorry for any confusion. Caught that right *after* I posted, unfortunately... :-(
If a white wire is used as a current-carrying conductor in a 240VAC circuit, shouldn't it be marked appropriately at both ends?
Most of my 240VAC devices use brown, blue, yellow, black or red for the line conductors (12AWG THHN, for the most part, in EMT). YMMV.
A 240VAC appliance with a connector block will generally be marked L1 and L2 for the two line connections, and if it does have a need for 120VAC, will have a third connection marked N for the grounded conductor. Plus the frame ground to which the grounding conductor is connected.
Thank you for the advice!
Thank you for the help!
snipped-for-privacy@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in news:F67gu.200797$ snipped-for-privacy@fx20.iad:
Yes, it should -- doesn't mean that it *is*, and in my experience it usually isn't.
Much more common is 12/2 Romex: one black, one white, one uninsulated.
Agreed.
I look at the signature line on the original post, which in this case was:
"posted from
Then I click on the homeownershub link and I see the original message. On the left hand side of that page, I see when it was originally posted. In the above case, the original post is dated November 9, 2013.
everywhere on the unit but can't find if it's 120, 220 or what. I tried to search online but I'm left with more questions. I'm lost, please help. -- posted from
Tiffany,
Please report back what you did and what you found out by doing it.
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