Electric space heaters

Curly2001 wrote:
Thanks everyone for your input. I think I need to look at the wiring in the trailer to make sure the boxes are decent. It even makes me think that electric blankets could cause the same problems with their current draw.
Curly

I would not waste time doing that' IF YOU KNOW HOW (I DO) then you can install special outlets as I did. IF YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW. get someone who does to do it. In my case the manufacturer kind of screwed up (By that I mean it was easy to install 2 of the 3 added circuits and not all that hard on #3
THe location of the breaker panel was ideal.. For one I ran a short 12 ga line (about 12-18") is all cut the hole in the bedroom wall and put in the box.. Easy Peasy.

The Living room took a longer run but the path was all "pre-drilled" so I just ran the cable around the loop and there it was.

The Kitchen 2 I had to run through existing holed down into the wet bay,, pull through with my electrical fish rod (I think I used an actual fishing pole on that wire) and back up into the Living space then along existing holes to the mounting point. That was the HARD one took me about an hour.

But 12 ga wire (Rated 20 amps in wall) either 15 or 20 amp breakers (your choice I use one 20) and 15/20 amp outlets BOX mounted like they used to do everywhere... No "unibox" stuff. You can safely use a 15 amp breaker with 20 amp wires and outlets. but NOT the other way around. Why Did I go with 20 amp capable wire/outlet... I believe in safety margins or overbuilding.. The cost.. perhaps $1.00 more for the job I did. The level of Security .. Worth thousands.

If it wasnt so dang expensive the Dyson HP04 would work great in a trailer. Especially if you have animals and leave them inside while you go to work. Being able to check the temp and control the heater over you phone is awesome. For me i would use it to keep the water pipes from freezing when i have to leave for a day or two. I usually set my furnace and leave with the gas turned on. Would much rather turn the gas off and heat with electric. Havnt found any data on actual power usage. If i end up getting one i will plug it into a watt meter and see how much power it uses over the course of days and weeks. 
I was wrong about the HP02 at costco. That is the older HP01 version that does not push as much air. Hard to find specs even on the Dyson website. Im getting the best info from youtube reviews. Apparently on cool mode the air that comes out is cooler. It might have to do with how they amplify the speed of the air. I havnt watched the videos on the Dyson website yet. None of the youtube videos have mentioned how that actually works. To me that sounds great because come summertime the trailer gets into the high 90s inside. Having the ability to check the inside temp and make the fan turn on over my phone sounds like fun!!!  Even if that means only knocking it down 5 degrees. 
Cheapest ive seen is $429 on one of those tv shows. I went to their website and its up to 599 i think. Maybe 499. Hoping to score one after xmas. Or check your local offer up. I see a guy who has a about 10 in a warehouse. Might see if he will match the $429 i saw online. 

theoldwizard1,

I think the brand name was something like "tempertek" for the electric heated carpets.

Found it!

https://www.tempurtechmanufacturing.com/

rhagfo wrote:
40 degrees is cold we get down to the mid-teens at times.

Yeah.. I tend to stay away from those places. :)

2oldman wrote:

theoldwizard1 wrote:
Also, heated mattress pads work much better than heated blankets,

They do, as heat rises. My heater keeps my feet nice and toasty on the next to lowest setting even on the coldest nights. I'm not talking pianotuna cold, but 40° or lower.

40 degrees is cold we get down to the mid-tees at times. We also use heated mattress pad. Pianotuna’s heated carpet sounds interesting, warm feet!!

Cummins12V98 wrote:

rhagfo wrote:
Safest would be RV Comfort Systems “Cheap Heat” electric add on furnace element. We installed before going full time works great. Purchase is not too cheap, but heats basement.

YEP, I got tired of tripping over and buying new space heaters. When we ordered our 16 Mobile Suites I had Rolling Retreats install ours. NOT "CHEAP" but some of the best money I have spent!!!

When hooked to shore power and the Park pays for the power WHY burn your propane???

We full time with it now for 5.5 years. I did have a control board go bad out of warranty and the company owner did me a solid, sold it to me cheap and shipped overnight. Only person I have heard of with that or any other issue.

As you mentioned it does heat the basement where a lot of the plumbing is located.

Toggle switch from propane to electric back and forth as needed.

Well no it isn’t cheap to buy, but no clutter of portable heaters, heats basement and changes over to gas at the flip of a switch.
I also got the auto change over device as some parks only have 30 amp services for host, just runs a little longer to heat.

theoldwizard1 wrote:
Also, heated mattress pads work much better than heated blankets,

They do, as heat rises. My heater keeps my feet nice and toasty on the next to lowest setting even on the coldest nights. I'm not talking pianotuna cold, but 40° or lower.

coolmom42 wrote:
On a ceramic type heater, with a fan and screen in front of the heater bars, the surface is not hot enough to burn someone who touches it. Possibly a little uncomfortably warm, but not enough to burn. And like I said, check the tip-over protection. Most use a simple pressure switch on the bottom.

they are hot enough to char a bed spread.

bumpy

coolmom42 wrote:

Bert the Welder wrote:
I'm interested in what type of heater you guys are running that has heated/melted your extension cords? Or what gauge cords you're using?

As for the OP. I look at my best bet being on a "bigger" name in the game as being "safer". Though I have little more than faith in that thinking. Howell, Sunbeam, Noma, Panasonic. Dyson if you like paying triple for the Gucci factor.

The overheating is not generally directly due to the heater load, but to poor connections with extension cords and plug strips, and the internal connections in the plug strips. Those connectors create hot points.

I've never found the wiring, plug, or outlet to be hot, during or after using a heater. Like I said, I just use the inexpensive little cube heaters. They are generally 1500 watts, which translates to 13.6 amps at 110V. So your circuit needs to be capable of handling that.

The only time I've ever tripped a breaker in a RV was when a heater kicked on while I was using a hairdryer. No big deal, unplug the heater and reset the breaker.

Coolmom,

Short quick bursts typically will not do any harm, even with extension cords.

The problem however with electric space heaters, they are not used in short quick bursts.

Hair driers are an example of a short quick burst, even if you had hair down to the floor, I wouldn't think it would take more than half hr to one hr at max power..

Space heaters on the other hand, can and often run for hours on end without shutting off and that is the problem and one of the reasons instructions on them specifically state to NOT use "extension cords".. But do folks listen to that advice from the folks who made the product? NOPE.

The plug and receptacle must conform to the absolute min specs of the electric codes for the circuit it plugs into (15A receptacle takes a plug designed to handle 15A). The problem however is many folks tend to be pretty cheap and buy the lowest cost extension cords. Often buying 16 ga extensions which now becomes the "fuse" for the system when you plug a 1500W device into it.

Granted you can pass 15A on 16ga wire, but it IS going to HEAT that wire severely to the point of melting insulation if you allow it to be used more than a few minutes at a time.

IF you MUST use a portable 1500W space heater as your sole means of staying warm 24/7 then make sure you have GOOD quality receptacles with good quality wire connections via screw down terminals which pretty much rules out any of the back stab all in one outlets.

If you must use the backstab outlets then REDUCE the heater to 750W and use several heaters set to 750W on different outlets. This reduces and spreads out the heat on the outlet wiring connection that comes from poor electrical connections.

Wiring fires are not fun, can happen in the middle of the night when you are deep asleep and in a RV WILL be deadly because they are a tinderbox and you have very few ways to escape and once a fire starts in a RV it will engulf it faster than you can blink an eye.

Don't be cheap with your life.

Bert the Welder wrote:
I'm interested in what type of heater you guys are running that has heated/melted your extension cords? Or what gauge cords you're using?

The problem is low voltage.

It is best to keep to 80% of capacity or less. That means 12 amps max per circuit.

I do use my autoformer in the winter time.