Bathroom Heat Panel Requirements

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Mike Cutler

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A little background

I am renovating our bathroom at present. Bathroom was last re-wired in 1979-80. The bathroom is 10'x5'
I am installing a shower vent fan/light. Manufacturer states to put it on a GFCI protected circuit, and it is.
Dedicated 20 amp GFCI protected duplex receptacle circuit is in place. Receptacles are located appropiately.
Lights are on their own circuit.
There really were no wiring changes. The original wiring was 12AWG for duplex receptacles and 14AWG for lights.
At the point where the wiring went through the joists, the old knob and tube holes were used, 1919 house, and during the last 30 years mice had enlarged some of the holes and chewed away the outer jackets of the romex. No bare conductors exposed though. So I chose to replace all the wiring with 12awg back to the panel. The mice and hole problem will be addressed prior to sheet rocking.

Now the question(s).
I am also installing an EconoHeat, thermal panel, 120 vac, 400 watts, below the bathroom window. This thermal panel plugs into a clock receptacle located behind it, but the power is being controlled by an Aube TH-115 pulse width modulating, smart,temperature controller ( The receptacle is wired to the output of the controller)

Does this installation require a seperate, and or, GFCI protected circuit? There was no heat in this bathroom prior to this. It's a little wierd


Thank you for any insight and help.

Mike
 
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Mike,

First off, the window is not located in the tub area right ? If it is just on wall

space and has no 120vac recpts. on it, you can just wire it, unless, of course,

the instructions state otherwise.
 
make the clock recept a JB, blank off, and hard wire the unit, I like that idea ,

the unit came w/ whip & plug? is it not meant to installed flush or surface?
 
Thank you for the response.

No. The window isn't located in the bath. It's located on the opposite wall from the shower head, about 6' from the water source.

Manufacturers instructions voids the warranty on the panel if not connected via the receptacle to the thermostat.
It just looks odd. Here is a "duplex receptacle, not GFCI protected, in a bathroom, that doesn't see 120. It's powered by a pulsed AC signal, where the duty cycle is dependent on the slope of the algorithm that the controller computes.
The clock receptacle is hidden behind the panel, and the receptacle comes with a weather resistant enclosure.
 
SiddMartin said:
make the clock recept a JB, blank off, and hard wire the unit, I like that idea ,

the unit came w/ whip & plug? is it not meant to installed flush or surface?
Click to expand...

The Unit is a 24"x24" square panel about 1/4" thick. It is installed on 1" standoffs from the wall. It came pre-wired with a two prong plug.
The clock receptacle is a weather resistant enclosure with a latching front cover.

I like hardwiring also.
 
Mike Cutler said:
Does this installation require a seperate, and or, GFCI protected circuit? There was no heat in this bathroom prior to this. It's a little wierd
Click to expand...

Separate circuit would be required depending on the load of your heating panel, I don't believe it needs to be GFI protected, as you are saying the receptacle is not 120V and equipment specific, right?

Welcome to the forum!
 
yursparky said:
Separate circuit would be required depending on the load of your heating panel, I don't believe it needs to be GFI protected, as you are saying the receptacle is not 120V and equipment specific, right?

Welcome to the forum!
Click to expand...

Thank you for the welcome. This is a great forum! I've been doing a lot of reading and searching here for the past month or so. The information available is incredible.

The receptacle is equipment specific. To get at the receptacle the 400 watt heat panel would have to be physically unbolted, and removed from the wall.

The 120 power from the thermostat would be a normal 120 rms sine wave, that would be pulsed to the heater on a duty cycle.
The duty cycle of the pulse application is an algorithm the controller computes based on the previous slopes of the room temperature heat up and cool down cycles.
It's basically a proportional + integral controller, with a derivative computation circuit.
 
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Mike Cutler said:
The receptacle is equipment specific. To get at the receptacle the 400 watt heat panel would have to be physically unbolted, and removed from the wall.

The 120 power from the thermostat would be a normal 120 rms sine wave, that would be pulsed to the heater on a duty cycle.
The duty cycle of the pulse application is an algorithm the controller computes based on the previous slopes of the room temperature heat up and cool down cycles.
It's basically a proportional + integral controller, with a derivative computation circuit.
Click to expand...
Are we still talking about a bathroom heater, or did we take a left turn into string theory somewhere along the way?

CallAnEC.jpg
 
Marc

Yes, believe it or not, this a $59.00 thermostat controlling the heater. The weird part is the manufacturers preferred installation for connection of the heating element to the thermostat. I think I'm going to just hardwire it.

I have the same thermostat controllers on all of my 240 baseboard heaters.

Apologies for the veer off course on the controller. That part I understand completely. I do it for a living.
 
FWIW, I like the Honeywell LineVolt Pro for line voltage heaters now. I'm pretty sure it's PID. Sort of Honeywell's answer to the PSG brand stat that's been around for years.
 
mdshunk said:
FWIW, I like the Honeywell LineVolt Pro for line voltage heaters now. I'm pretty sure it's PID. Sort of Honeywell's answer to the PSG brand stat that's been around for years.
Click to expand...

The Honeywell looks similar to the Aube line voltage controller. I like the front panel feature on the honeywell from the pictures. the Aube has the same controls, but they're inside the front panel.Honeywell has been in the game a long time, so I'm sure it's an excellent product.
They're both a little pricey, but electricity for me is 18 cents a kilowatt hour.
It's kind of ironic. I'm the guy putting the 345KV on the grid, and I heat my house with a wood fired furnace.
The days of the on/off mercury bulb or bimetallic strip thermostats are long past.
 
BRM heating

BRM heating

Hi Mike,

You are in luck. The professor is in and has an alternate suggestion. The electrician can do better by taking back all that stuff and purchasing an IR- 500 watt ceiling heater vent and lamp combo for the price of the thermostat mentioned. The beauty is that the existing circuits you mention will work with standard 3 switch control with solid state timer on 14Awg. It's TITLE 24 compatible if in CA, and you will get more heat than the wall unit. The IR will give instant heat without cooking a brain. rbj
 
Thank you for the IR suggestion.
I may just go that way if this panel doesn't work out.I just looked at some by Quartz, they look nice.
 
BRM heat

BRM heat

Mike Cutler said:
Thank you for the IR suggestion.
I may just go that way if this panel doesn't work out.I just looked at some by Quartz, they look nice.
Click to expand...

Quartz is kinda spendy also. There is a 10-15% energy savings using IR Quartz combined. Check out Radiant Electric Heat Inc. www.electricheat.com for coved ceiling heaters. rbj
 
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