I would like to use a 120 V 2K watt water heater element for anout an hour from time to time as a boiler in my garage which also has a refrigerator in it.The breakers in the house are 20 AMP.Will this circuit support this or should I put the frig on another circuit?
-- Thanks, Hank
I believe you are on the edge if not over with just the water heater. I would want a new line just of it using 10 gauge wire and the breaker recommended by the manufacture of the boiler.
Without pulling my calculator out, the heater draws about 17a. The max you are supposed to put on a 20a line when used continuously is 80% or 16a. So just the heater is an overload. You can probably get away with it (my 23a water heater was hooked up for 30 years with #12 wire until I happened to notice and correct it) but I wouldn't recommend it.
My old refrigerator drew 23a to start and 3a to run. If yours is comparable, it will trip the breaker everytime it and the heater run at the same time. Even my new fridge draws 13a to start and 2a to run, so that will probably trip it also.
I would be inclined to run a new 30a line for the heater and use the existing line for the fridge.
Can the heater be run on 240? Then it would only draw 9a and would only need a 15a (or 20a) circuit which would probably be more useful in the futuere. 240v is a good idea for anything that heats electrically.
Not adequate. Service should be no more than 80% or 16 A and the heater will use 16.6, then you want to have a fridge on the same line?
I concur.
120V, 20A = 2400 watts, x 80% = 1920Watts. That's do-able, but not right. But adding the fridge puts you over the top, so you have to run a new line anyway.
Since this is a garage/workshop, it's not possible to have too much power available, so I'd spring for an extra $200 bucks, and put in an 8-AWG 2-strand 240V cable and a sub-panel, and a 50A 2-pole breaker.
Once you've gotten to needing to pull wire, why screw around?
happened to
If the heater is a simple resistive element with the voltage connected at the ends, plugging it into 240 will draw 33A and put out 8 kW. To keep it at 2 kW at 240 V it would need to be rewired to use only 1/4 of the element's length.
Chip C
Chip C wrote: ...
Don't you mean you want to INCREASE the length of the element, thereby increasing the total resistance?
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