Electric Baseboard overheating

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Sierrasparky

Sierrasparky

Senior Member
Location
USA
Occupation
Electrician ,contractor
What would cause old electric baseboard heaters to overheat and trip the thermals?
The room is cold 60 degrees. Never warms up. Heater does get hot and trips the thermal. Don't know if the heater is actually getting too hot or a bad thermal.
 
Just a plain old Electric baseboard. The fins are not white glove clean, no dust Hippos or of that nature.

Thermal - or High limit capillary switch
 
iwire said:
For the price of a baseboard heater I would just replace it.

Baseboard heaters don't have fans.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. The regular style are pretty cheap.
The problem is that the customer claims they worked fine before I did some unrelated work. They were heating fine when I was there.
Now they cycle on and off by the High limit.
 
Sierrasparky said:
Totally agree. The regular style are pretty cheap.
The problem is that the customer claims they worked fine before I did some unrelated work. They were heating fine when I was there.
Now they cycle on and off by the High limit.
Click to expand...

Did the unrelated work create drywall dust? The first thing I would try would be to turn the power off to them, take off the covers and vacuum out every bit of dust possible and re-test.
 
K8MHZ said:
Did the unrelated work create drywall dust? The first thing I would try would be to turn the power off to them, take off the covers and vacuum out every bit of dust possible and re-test.
Click to expand...


Nope just replaced some dimmers and switches. No drywall dust.
The baseboard thermostat just happens to be right above the dimmer.
You know how customers are.
 
Sierrasparky said:
Nope just replaced some dimmers and switches. No drywall dust.
The baseboard thermostat just happens to be right above the dimmer.
You know how customers are.
Click to expand...
FWIW, some dimmers produce enough heat when in use to mess up the calibration of a wall mounted thermostat which is too close.
Not going to produce cycling, but could make the required thermostat setting different depending on the state of the dimmer. :)
 
Sierrasparky said:
Totally agree. The regular style are pretty cheap.
The problem is that the customer claims they worked fine before I did some unrelated work. They were heating fine when I was there.
Now they cycle on and off by the High limit.
Click to expand...

So now in his(her) mind something you did caused the problem:happyyes:
 
GoldDigger said:
FWIW, some dimmers produce enough heat when in use to mess up the calibration of a wall mounted thermostat which is too close.
Not going to produce cycling, but could make the required thermostat setting different depending on the state of the dimmer. :)
Click to expand...

I think his problem is with the high limit switch located in the baseboard shutting the unit down.
 
GoldDigger said:
Agreed. Just mentioning a different potential problem that might actually be his "fault" if he replaced a switch with a dimmer.
Click to expand...

I am not sure if just a single unit is involved, or more than one. If more than one baseboard unit is acting up in the same manner, and they are both controlled by the same thermostat, you may be on to something.

If only one unit is defective, then I would guess the problem is local to the individual unit.
 
Are they 120 volt or 240 volt ?

Are they 120 volt or 240 volt ?

If they are 120 volt and are on a multiwire branch circuit maybe a netural opened and they are getting wrong voltage now.
 
High limit switch is definitely tripping. Bypassed the wall thermostat and put a amp meter on the feed and sure enough the limit tripped.
As soon as the heater cooled down it heated again. Never stayed on long enough to heat the bedroom.

Going to go back next week and replace the baseboards.
I know the owner is thinking I sabotaged something to kill here baseboards. Just that look on her face.

These are 240v units.
 
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