ECN Forum Forums Code Related Discussion Canadian Electrical Code Topics how to wire this?

Hey Guys,

My friend ended up buying a sylvania heater for the same price and exactly the same specs and similar heater. He was told to use a regular 5000w thermostat that he bought at a electrical dealer.

The heater has only a black,white and green wire. No contactor or space for one inside there.

We wired it up and it worked for a month or so. Now that its below o Celsius it trips every day apparently and the garage gets pretty cold.

I havent been able to go by and take a look, but I had him switch the wires in the thermostat in case we were cutting the wrong one and swap out the breaker.

I dont think the unit is faulty, might be a wonky breaker but might be the control set up. I dont see how a contactor would fit in there and if the fan needs to stay on after the temp is reached, there is no identification as to which wire controls the fan.

Other than getting a reading on how high the current draw is do you guys have any suggestions as to what to look for?

thanks!

Usually the fan is controlled by some form of temperature sensor within the unit so that control of it cannot be bypassed. It basically turns on whenever heat is sensed and doesn't turn off until the unit drops below the sensor's preset cutout temp.

This setup would require that the unit has power at all times and that the thermostat only controls the heating element. If it is tripping like you say (assuming you mean tripping the breaker), then there is more of a problem here than just thermostat wiring.

Its tripping with the thermostat on I believe.

If the unit is to stay powered at all times then how does the temp get set? The only switch is a on off switch that is also labeled fan/heat with stickers so its a little ambiguous.

I expected an internal setting for temperature and there wasn't, so leaving it powered at all times would be costly for a 5kw heater.

Even with a external contactor connected to the thermostat would yield the same results.

I will take another look and try and see if I can see anything else.

Would a thermostat with fan control be suggested?

I appreciate the help... many thanks

just to let you know that ironically it was a faulty breaker that caused this problem. swapped it out and the tripping stopped.

thanks for the informative responses.