Heating The Unheated Room (Part 3)

Finally Alexander's bedroom has heat! Actually, the Dimplex LPC heater has been installed and working for well over one month now, it has just taken me this time to finally write about it! The Dimplex LPC looks fantastic against the tall original baseboards, and it's slim format is unobtrusive, unlike traditional front vented baseboard heaters.

 

 

The Dimplex LPC heater, 24 inches wide, 750 watts, located centered beneath the window in Alexanders bedroom.

 

 

 

A close up, the right hand end of the heater contains the controls, and a small LCD readout display. Wiring can be done from either side, as there is wire routing from the left to the right side where the connections are made.

 

 

Wall box which will contain the remote control unit. The remote is a controller only, and does not contain a thermostat, which is located in the heater itself, together with the display.

 

 

The remote unit, installed temporarily in a dummy box. The wall switch for the room will contain a switch controlling a duplex receptacle, a master ceiling fan/light switch (pictured), and the LPC remote control unit.

Installing A Ceiling Fan - The Correct Way

The only proper way to install a ceiling fan is to mount the octagonal outlet box in a box type enclosure that will then be installed between two of the floor joists in the ceiling. The octagon box itself is held by at least four screws, two in each of the 2x4 box sides, and in the case of this box, two additional screws in a short 2 x 4 bridge installed directly above the octagon box.

 

 

After the ceiling is opened up sufficiently, the entire box can be glued and screwed in place between the floor joists of the room above. I would hazard a guess that this box could readily support up to 500 or so pounds, so a 35 lb ceiling fain with a 1/2 horsepower motor should prove no challange.

 

 

Installing A Celing Fan - The Hard Way

So the worn out, broken ceiling fan in the kitchen needed to be replaced, and Lowes had a nice looking one for a good price...

 

Why is it that such a simple job turns into a bloody week worth of extra work?

 

In any event, and it should come as no surprise, the box for the existing ceiling fan was both completely inappropriate (pancake style box), improperly secured (two #8 wood screws less than an inch deep) and improplerly wired (no cable clamps, and improprly routed wires into boxes)

 

Here is some fantastic wiring - I removed the switch, and the supply cable is entering the box at the lower right corner from the front of the box, righ under the faceplate

 

The opening where a frame for the new box will be located - The old box sat in the small circle... The black 'stick' is an old piece of fish wire that was abandoned in the ceiling, who knows when!

A Tale Of Two Storeys

In deciding to add wiring for an electric baseboard heater in Alexander's bedroom, I made the logical decision to add all the wiring necessary to wire the ceiling lights in the living room below, as well as the receptacle outlets in Alexanders room, along with applicable switches and such at the same time.

This project now involves wiring four potlights and one ceiling light in the living room, along with two wall switches, five duplex receptacles in Alexander's room, switches for the ceiling lamp and fan, and a switch for a light in the closet.

The closet light switch was interesting, as after pulling up the two floorboards to gain access, I felt underneath and noted there were two drill holes in the wall baseplate directly under where the switch for the closet light was to be located. This was quite fortunate, as I would really not have been able to make the necessary hole without opining a small portion of wall and drilling them out, or at least using a very espensive flexible drill and ball to drill down through the baseplate after gaining access through the switch opening.

Below is pictured the fish tape after being routed up from the floor opening, the fish reel at the floor opening, and the cable being pulled down after being secured to the fish tape, respectively.

Homemade Cable Reel Support

When pulling fairly long runs of cable, a reel support is a really useful to to have. The first time I really needed one, when pulling eight or nine runs of cable from the attic to the basement, I was fortunate to be able to place a broom handle on some nails and position it directly above the opening I was pulling down.

In Alexanders closet I have to drop two runs of 14/2 two wire, and one of 12/3 three wire, so I built this simple reel holder. There are two matching bases built out of 2x4, 15" for the riser, 12" for the edge foor, and about 8" for the flat foot, glued and screwed together. A hole is drilled in each riser about the same diamter as the bar, which can be of any length to accommodate one, two or even more rolls of cable. In this case, the bar is a cutoff section of the century old heating water supply pipe I removed from the floor in the last post.

Heating The Unheated Room (Part 2)

I finally had the courage to rip up the floorboards in Alexander's bedroom to begin the task of wiring the baseboard heater:

Two floorboards have been removed from the closet wall (top of the photo) to under the window (bottom of photo), exposing the hundred or so year old hot and cold supply pipes.

Removal of the two iron pipes reveals the shallow notches cut into the joists, as well as the lath and plaster of the living room ceiling below.

Short sections of two by six (extending about six inches left and two inches right of the floor opening) have been sistered up to the existing joist using PL-Premium and a few 3 inch screws. These provide virtually no additional strength, but will provide the openings through which electrical cable serving this room will be drawn.

The first run of cable, a 12/3 NMD-90, to supply the 240v baseboard heater. Additional cable serving outlets and ceiling pots in the living room below will also run along this opening.

Heating The Unheated Room

There are five bedrooms upstairs at the Fieldhouse, and one of these (Alexander's) is unheated, due to its location directly above the formal living room below it. The living room has sliding pocket doors on the interior walls, which essentially prevent a vertical run of heating conduit to the room.

In the twenties? when the house was changed to forced hot water radiator heating, a radiator was placed under the window. It was removed in the eighties when the house was returned to forced air heating, leaving the room cooler than the rest of the upstairs in winter.

In the past we have been adding supplemental heat by way of an inexpensive plug in oil filled radiator style heater, but these have poor temperature control, so I decided a proper baseboard heater with wall mounted remote control would be a suitable addition.

Pictured is the Dimplex LPC baseboard heater, a very slim, attractive, true European style baseboard heater, about seven inches tall, 24 inches in length, and just under two inches deep. It will be installed under the window, with the remote unit in the wall switch gang near the door.