Electric heaters
Does anyone know of a electric heater with more than 1500 watts?
Forum Discussion
Tuna is bashing the Cheap Heat rather harshly, IMO. Apart from its ridiculously high price ($500-$900 for the unit, 5 hours HVAC labor to install), it seems to offer some substantial benefits.
First of all, is there any heating system that "fails over"? Certainly this can be a desirable feature under certain circumstances--and if your power system is prepared to handle it--but what heating system out there does this currently?
I also would wonder why you would want to run the cheap heat in series with the propane heat--and I would also wonder if that many btu's in your ductwork is safe.
AFAICT, the attraction of the Cheap Heat is that it will get electric heat into your basement and hence warm your tanks. Apart from that benefit, I would say that the AC heat strip (at about a hundred bucks) or a built-in electric wall heater (maybe two or three hundred bucks) would be more attractive options.
The OP asked about higher-watt electric heaters, and there are a variety of built-in wall heaters available running on 240V that have substantially higher wattage draws, as said.
On 30 amp shore power I've run as many as two of the 1440 watt portable plugin heaters on high--in a pinch. That's 24 amps just for the heaters, and then another 3-4 amps for background stuff (fridge, computers, etc) and that gets darn close to 30 amps.
In cases where I did that I basically sat there and stared at the heaters until the cabin had warmed up--and turned dow the heat as soon as I could.
In my experience the really cold weather is when things start to snap and break unexpectedly. So even though colder wiring is less prone to overheating, I'm more paranoid when drawing 28 amps at ten below zero than I am at 90 degrees.
The real beauty of running two electric portable heaters is that each unit has two or even three settings, so unless you really want 24 amps of heat you don't have to have it--you can adjust the heat dow rather granularly. There is no equivilent setting on the cheap heat, and that may also have been Tuna's point.
First of all, is there any heating system that "fails over"? Certainly this can be a desirable feature under certain circumstances--and if your power system is prepared to handle it--but what heating system out there does this currently?
I also would wonder why you would want to run the cheap heat in series with the propane heat--and I would also wonder if that many btu's in your ductwork is safe.
AFAICT, the attraction of the Cheap Heat is that it will get electric heat into your basement and hence warm your tanks. Apart from that benefit, I would say that the AC heat strip (at about a hundred bucks) or a built-in electric wall heater (maybe two or three hundred bucks) would be more attractive options.
The OP asked about higher-watt electric heaters, and there are a variety of built-in wall heaters available running on 240V that have substantially higher wattage draws, as said.
On 30 amp shore power I've run as many as two of the 1440 watt portable plugin heaters on high--in a pinch. That's 24 amps just for the heaters, and then another 3-4 amps for background stuff (fridge, computers, etc) and that gets darn close to 30 amps.
In cases where I did that I basically sat there and stared at the heaters until the cabin had warmed up--and turned dow the heat as soon as I could.
In my experience the really cold weather is when things start to snap and break unexpectedly. So even though colder wiring is less prone to overheating, I'm more paranoid when drawing 28 amps at ten below zero than I am at 90 degrees.
The real beauty of running two electric portable heaters is that each unit has two or even three settings, so unless you really want 24 amps of heat you don't have to have it--you can adjust the heat dow rather granularly. There is no equivilent setting on the cheap heat, and that may also have been Tuna's point.
