I need electric help b4 I freeze.

Gordonious

Active member
My parents bought me a little electrical heater for my bedroom in the basement and I can’t really use it. Problem is the room in the basement was a former home owner's DIYS project and I think it may have been there first home improvement project ever. They didn’t do the greatest job and currently the way things are wired I can hardly plug in three things a time with out the switch in the main electrical power going out. Not to mention the walls are a little thing so the rest of the basement, composed of concreate and cinder blocks helps cools the room.

This is not the worst thing in the world till you consider how cold it is out and I don’t have heat. It also cuts power to my reef tanks when I try to run the heater. I have battery back up stuff, but they can’t run all winter long. I had also planned on upgrading my lighting and water circulation, but currently I couldn’t add a single LED to my system with out the power kicking off.

Oh, btw the temp in my reef tank is at 76.8!

Jon
 
can you run a grounded three prong extension cord from somewhere else in the place on another circuit? portable room heaters are usually 1500 watts , and about 13 amps. enough to fully load one regular 15 amp circuit alone. check around for another outlet, plug in a small lamp or radio or something, then turn your room circuit off to see if the light or whaterver is still on. if so its a different circuit. then find its breaker and check the amps rating and see if there are any other loads on it. if not, you might have heat.
 
Humm... My dad had suggested possibly tapping into where the washer and drier are out in the hallway. I had forgotten about that. Worth a shot for time being. Not sure if I could run the heater, new pumps, and new lights on it though.

I'll give it a shot for the heater right now, thanks for the idea.

Jon
 
just use a proper heavy duty 15 amp extension cord, the orange, or yellow ones for outdoors . and only run the heater on that outlet. smaller lamp cord type extension cords will heat up because they cant handle the load or distance.

Is it one of those little ceramic cube heaters? or an oil filled radiator type? they should have a sticker to tell you how many watts and amps it takes, so check and be sure.
 
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its no secret. thats the max wattage with safety factor on the breaker, that you should run on a normal house circuit. so that's what they make. I have 2 of those little 8 inch cube ceramic heaters. both the same. 1500 watts, 12.5 amps, and 5000 BTU of heat. dont put it near anything like furniture or drapes or blankets. set in the open by itself. and check your extension cord after a while to see if its getting hot.
 
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