Electric Heater Wire Size

Wire is sized by the american wire gauge awg system.

Electric heater wire size.

When placing multiple heaters on a circuit do not exceed the wattage listed for the corresponding wire and circuit breaker size. As a rule of thumb assume a room requires 10 watts of electric heating per square foot of room. The rating or heating capacity of a baseboard heater is commonly measured in wattage which is governed by the length of the heater. Standard heaters are not available in this length so in this case a single 8 foot or two 4 foot heaters would be the likely choice.

For example a 20 amp hot water heater needs 12 gauge wire a 25 amp hot water heater requires 10 gauge wire and a 30 to 40 amp hot water heater requires 8 gauge wire. Wire gauge refers the physical size of the wire rated with a numerical designation that runs opposite to the diameter of the conductors in other words the smaller the wire gauge number the larger the wire diameter. Choosing a heater size. How to choose the right wattage size for an electric baseboard heater.

In other words a 10 x 10 room 100 square feet will require 1000 watts of electric baseboard heating. Rounding up this means that 7 feet or 84 inches of heater is needed. 2 1000w 1 1500w 240v heaters 3500 watts total. Wire a hot water heater with wire that s sized to accommodate the heater s current requirement.

A common rule of thumb is to provide 10 watts of heat for every square foot of space in the room though this may vary somewhat depending on the configuration of. These 3 heaters would require 12 2 wire and a 20 amp 2 pole breaker if they were to all be placed on the same circuit. Baseboard heaters come in many sizes to match the heating needs of the room.