I recently moved into my first house - an early 70s "raised bungalow" with a 150-amp ITE Blueline Panel, connected to a Pony Panel. The 'lower-level' of the house is a self-contained 800-sq ft "in-law suite". Electric baseboards heat both levels (17,000 baseboards-only watts, in total).
I've hired a very capable and conscientious (IMO) licensed electrician to do a couple of smaller electrical installations, but we have a project coming up on which I don't feel we're communicating very well, and I feel uneasy: Electrical suppliers are telling me the materials my electrician has asked me to buy really aren't appropriate ... and that makes me wonder if they're safe. In the upper level (1200 sq ft - where I live), I'd like to install an older wall-mount 220-v air conditioner, which I'd been using in my previous apartment: "230/208 v, 60 HZ, 1 PH, 16,000-BTU, 11-amp,
2250-watt, wall-plug Tandem Blade 15 Amp (ie: two horizontal 'eyes'; and a vertical 'mouth'), 1989-model Electrohome - Model Number A1602A." The Owners' Manual for the unit specifies #14-gauge receptacle wiring.A service-technician who recently "tuned up" the A/C unit told me: . the unit's built-in thermostat is "220-volt ... there's no step-down transformer"; and . he had no idea if the unit was a "single stage" or "two-stage".
The installation will involve a couple of minor wrinkles: . we intend to bypass the unit's built-in thermostat, and install a programmable wall-mount thermostat (preferably 7-day) some distance away from the unit; and . the unit will be wired to the Pony Panel, onto a circuit to which one (or two?) upper-level ONLY baseboard heaters are already connected.
The thinking is that, once "a/c season" arrives, the individual thermostat(s) of theses baseboard(s) will be turned to "zero" - and, regardless, there is no circumstance in which both the a/c unit and baseboard-heaters will both be 'on' - something I alone will be completely in control of. This idea does make sense to me - but then I have no "technical" basis on which to consider it.
The Installation My Electrician Proposes . my purchasing a wall-mount thermostat: "reverse-acting, double-pole, line-voltage for 220v air conditioner" . my buying 12-2 gauge wiring for: Run One: "connecting the thermostat directly to the A/C unit" (44 feet); and Run Two: "connecting the thermostat directly to the Pony Panel" (62 feet).
The Problem . Some electrical-supply places tell me they're "not even sure it's possible to bypass the unit's thermostat." My electrician says it's "a piece of cake" - though all he knows about the unit is that it's a wall-mount 220-volt with wall plug-in. . Every supplier I've spoken to about the thermostat recommends against what my electrician has specified: They all say he should be installing "a relay and step-down transformer, to be able to use a low-voltage AC thermostat". They also don't agree with the 12-2 wiring. My electrician's response to all this was: "Naw - we don't need a relay. Just get the thermostat I told you, and right amount of
12-2 wire".And now, this morning, the electrician's let me know that he'll "pick up everything - save you the trouble".
I know this guy means well - and I do trust him. But no one seems to think his plan makes sense except him. If I can't figure all of this out, I've decided I'd rather forget the whole idea than install the unit without a wall-mount thermostat. (Unfortunately, the most informative Web sites from which I could learn something aren't really helpful - they assume I already know the difference between a volt and an ampere. I don't.)
If you're read this far, I thank you for your time ... any feedback would be really appreciated.
Thank you.