Just a minor point. It's most likely a thermistor, not a thermocouple. A thermistor changes resistance with temperature, thermocouples generate a voltage proportional to temperature but it's a very small voltage. For room temperatures thermistors are much easier to use but they cannot handle high temperatures.
My career was in electrical design and in retirement, I’ve wired numerous houses for Habitat For Humanity. I like the way you explained your thought process concerning the basement heater controls. The only electrical comment I have is that every cable that is installed in your circuit breaker box or any metal box must have a cable clamp or a plastic grommet so that the cable sheathing will never be cut on the rough edge of the hole punch-out. Around here, that’s a code violation. I’ve really enjoyed your videos since the beginning.
They normally use an NTC thermistor with a nominal value of 10k ohms at 25°C. The resistance would go in reverse of the temperature, meaning if you lower the temperature, the value increase, and raise the temp and the resistance goes down. In short, the wire length of a few ohms will not change the reading by a significant amount at room temperature. As for your on demand water heater, I still do not think it was a good idea, because of your 200A service and your electric radiant floor. You basically used over half your service for the on demand water heater (that I do not think will be powerfull enought without restriction), will use about 1/3 for the radiant, leaving basically nothing left for the rest of the house. I think you will ends up replacing the on demand with a normal tank, like a 60 gallons. The bathroom fan, the reason is because the outlet hose will drop a tons of CFM with a 3" hose, and can't vent the humidity fast enought. I would consult with an expert before you close up the ceiling to make sure that it is up to code...
Instead of using a GFCI outlet, use a GFCI breaker and protect the entire circuit. They are designed for outlets NOT light fixtures. Generally all outlets exposed to potential weather (think outdoor outlets including in the garage, even if they have a cover) and any outlets six (6) feet or closer to a water use area, ie. all vanities, bathtub, kitchen sink, laundry room sink, etc.. Check code for your specific location.
A thermocouple produces a very small voltage depending on temperature, a thermistor is a resistor that changes resistance, you can connect a thermistor either way, but a thermocouple must be the correct polarity. In either case there are issues with extending the wire, the thermistor extension will show a slightly higher resistance, the thermocouple also has issues with the types of connections (a thermocouple is 2 different wires welded together, so each joint could also act as thermocouples). My guess by looking at the wire is that it's a thermistor.
Once you have your wiring all in and before sheetrocking, take some pictures of everything and if possible include a yardstick or taped up tape measure that shows distances. Then if you ever need to know where the wires & studs are, you'll have visual references to go by. Any bathroom outlet within reach of water needs GFCI protection but that (I think) is covered if the outlet is downstream from the GFCI. But read the code first.
Incidentally, I would also suggest you foam insulate all your hot water lines with inexpensive foam wrap, it will minimize heat loss to pipes. Also on your really long runs, consider a small recirculating pump, again just for the hot pipeline.
I am only 10 mins in...but I highly suspect the black and white sensor wires were originally reversed at the factory. You just "fixed" them by swapping where they plug in.
It's a shame these videos were actually filmed so long ago that any comments or suggestions we give are of no real value...you've already moved on to the next project or buried the mistake. Current electrical code states ALL 15 and 20 amp circuits installed in a dwelling are required to be Arc Fault protected. Each bathroom is required to have a dedicated 20 amp circuit for the bathroom outlet(s). This outlet circuit is separate from any other lighting or power needs. ALL outlets within 6 feet of the edge of a sink shall be GFCI protected. Garage outlets need to be GFCI protected, but because your using the space as a "living" space it will need to be Arc Fault protected as well. The "Garage" is also required to have a dedicated circuit with at least one outlet per car space. The washing machine (laundry) needs a dedicated 20 amp circuit that is not shared with any other outlets. Put the lights on a separate breaker so when the saw trips the breaker it doesn't put you in the dark.
You know I may not agree with your building style but man I gotta say thank you for giving me some great non drama, no crazy shooting stories, no politics, no racist bs, no fake news entertainment. So yeah thank you!
How nice, a video right at breakfast. US elektrics and water are so alien to me, I'm an elektrician myself and the only place we see 200 Amps is in industrial instalations, here in Europe we (usually) have sigle fase 250V and 3F380V, 40 and 25Amps respectively. Makes for way thinner wires, we pull 5000W over a 2,5mm square wire, not sure what wire gage that translates to. Fun to see how it works on the other side of the globe. Can someone explain why you would want so many couplings in the wall? (water) In our house we used 1 rule, full lengths of pipe in the floor or walls, way less chance of leaks that way.
When two dissimilar metals are joined together, a small electrical charge is created and that charge changes with differences in temperature. Most common ambient temperature thermocouples are iron vs constantan (type J) or Chromel vs Alumel (type K). These metals joined together are very consistent in their changes vs temperature. Thermocouples are particular to correct connections and should be soldered using silver solder. Also, if you didn't connect them correctly (where you spliced together) you created three thermocouple junctions. Btw, white red thermocouple is iron vs constantan (type j) where red is negative and white is positive.
A propane combination boiler /water heater would free up half you electric service. It would easily handle the whole house heat and all your hot water needs. You would only need one gas pipe into the house and one vent out. That would allow you to use electric for all the other appliances in the house and not have to worry about your power load.
I keep waiting for you to build a workbench. Given all that lies ahead, it seems like a no brainer. Having a solid bench to work on would make your life much easier. I live in a simple cabin in the summer with a workbench in an open shed, but I could not do without it.
I’m a 20 plus years Master electrician. Those heaters commonly have problems. I’m willing to help your projects, nothing in return. My family and I are building our own home and living in RV. I left my contact info on your comments on your pure living website. Dave
Code requires that the receptacle in a bathroom be serviced by a 20 amp GFI protected circuit that can service several bathrooms but nothing else... example room lights.
I hope that wasn’t a “cool down” circuit you were messing with on the heater. Last time I looked at the NEC book, it allowed up to 14 outlets, slaved off a GFCI. Run at least 2 circuits for your kitchenette! A microwave and coffee maker, on at the same time could blow a 15A breaker. Your refrigerator should be on a dedicated circuit...
If we forget a second about where the sensor is located in that heater, what you have is a garage, connected through a hole (stairs) to the first floor and the first floor connected to the attic. That is a huge air column and having that heater (hot air gets up) in the garage without a hot air trap in the stairs, is the first problem I see. The heater is powerful enough to heat the garage ceiling layer, despite of all the heat escaping through the stairs, he reaches the upper hysteresis threshold of the controller, turns off and the heat continues to escape through the stairs up, while cold air from the first floor and attic is pouring down. You would have the same issue if you install an air conditioner in the attic (cold air I mean). It might cool the air for a while until it shuts off, but that cold air will pour down to the garage in a matter of seconds and he will turn on again immediately. I would shorten the air column until you have heating in all the house and discuss this issue with a heater expert (not an install technician preferably). If you can prevent hot air leaving the garage, I would put that heater at floor level so you use the hot air convection to your advantage and do not rely on the heater blower to push down something that wants to go up. Ideally in a room you should inject hot air (winter) at feet level and inject cold air (summer) at ceiling level and let convection do the mixing without the noise of a fan.
Just a tip from a sparkie (electrician) when you mark your cables put two or three marks with the first one about 8 inches from the end then the next one about a foot up, because you will lose you mark when you strip it back or trim it to length, can be a pain when you have a bunch of cables in one spot, like the switch board. Keep up the good work, from Australia.
No--- You did GOOD!!!! This is exactly how I became an electrical Genius!! By blowing stuff up!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's how you learn!!!!!!!!!!!!! Swapping those inputs was correct. The unit has a frame overtemp protection by that thermal snap switch bolted to the fan support. You are gonna get there!! Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm pretty sure that the heater was just incorrectly wired from the factory (sensors reversed). The temperature, even up there, shouldn't be going up that fast, and the temperature sensor being on the back should be where it sucks ambient air in. The sensor in the front is just to make sure that it doesn't burn out the heating element.
Jesse. Install a traditional electric water heater to preheat your water to about 80 degrees so that the on-demand does not draw such high current. The traditional water heater will be very efficient at that temperature. Basically it’s a hybrid on demand system.
Have you considered high temperature water storage as one way of smoothing your power requirements? Install a super lagged tank and then heat it up overnight to act as a heat battery. Whilst the radiant floor can have a similar storage effect, once heated the slab will give off heat whether you need it or not. Modern specialist tanks can hold water super hot for days. If you design your heating around such a tank it may be possible that the only connection from a wood boiler, if you add one, would be as an additional feed to the tank. Such tanks are often added to solar systems in addition to conventional batteries.
Go with a Hot Water Tank for your DHW. You can get away with a lower power since the element for the tank can run over a long period to get the water hot instead of running full blast when you need it. If you only pulling 5KW for the tank your reduce your power demand by at least 2/3s. I don't see how your going to deal with a power outage if its last more than a day. With Propane you can heat and get hot water with a small generator. You can always get a small Propane tank for now and install a larger underground tank at a later date.Not sure if you can install an electrical outlet with a drain pipe behind it, or next to PEX lines . I suspect the electrical inspector is going to complain.
I’m looking at a screen capture and it looks like you might have run a staple through your thermostat wire for the heater right at the top corner where it drops down. It might just be a splinter hanging over part of the wire but it looks like a staple through the wire. You might check it out. I captured it at 2:14.
Hopefully that temperature sensor was a thermistor and not a thermocouple, or else extending with copper wire like that will really screw up the readings. It looks like a thermistor, and they're more common (cheaper to use) these days except for very high temps. You have a proper safety thermostat in that thing (the black thing with the silver 2 hole flange) so no need to worry about the internal sensor not being wired right. The internal sensor is probably a thermistor too (judging by how nothing melted when they were swapped), so it can't be too closely coupled to the heater element because they can't handle heater element temps. That's probably just used by the computer chip (which all appliances use these days whether they need them or not) as a sanity check for its control loop.
That other switch wire is probably a high limit safety switch in case the fan quits working, it will shut off the unit instead of let it run out of control and burn your house down.
You have it wired right. The thermocouple you moved to the framing is the one used for room temp and the black disk (thermal switch) mounted on the underside of the heater is for overheat protection.
Another thing to consider WRT electrical is to install a whole house surge suppressor in the main panel. Advantage is this will protect all devices in the House from surges (eg from lighting, etc). Disadvantage is these type of breakers are more expensive and harder to find so you probably want to keep a spare available in case of a failure further adding to cost.
Wow having everything electrical sounds great, but between the hot water heater & garage heater you are pulling a lot of power. Have you taken into account what the load will be when you add a electric dryer, electric stove & microwave?
With that big hole that is the stairwell you are basically trying to heat the whole house with that tiny heater. No wonder it cycles so often. Put a sheet or three of foam insulation over the stairwell. The radiant heat could be handled with a water heater and a circ pump. A local body shop has been heating their addition floor like that for years its 60x40.
If that is actually a thermocouple, special type wire example constantin and iron and special connetors are required. If it is a thermistor you can extend with regular wire.
Just a thought similar to what some others have suggested, with a twist. If you instal a well insulated hot-water tank with an immersion heater fitted, in-line between the cold water inlet and the instant hot-water heater, you can pre-heat the water, on a timer, during a low power-hungry time ( the early a.m. hours) to a reasonable temp. Then as the water is now entering the instant water heater at a higher temp. the demand for many Watts/Amps is dramatically reduced.
I recommend taking a copy of your building plans and marking every location where an electrical connection is made vs the breaker # you've put them on. It will save your bacon on down the road when you want to add an outlet or switch to an existing circuit (so you don't put too many on one circuit).
Jessie, first of all great job on explaining the exhaust fan. I work as an Energy Auditor and many people believe that the exhaust fan is only for small but in reality it is for getting moisture out of the home. Yes you are also correct on the min. CFM for a bathroom is 50 CFM and 100 CFM for kitchen unless you have an operable window in which you can subtract 20 CFM then. I would like to send you a residential energy book that maybe you can get something out. Also, when your house gets built would love to come and run a blower door to see how air tight your home is
Research the on demand water heaters very carefully, there are a lot of unhappy customers out there. They have a very tightly defined operating range, and if you don't draw enough flow, or draw too much they won't perform. I have seen complaints that you have to turn on the faucet to half to get any hot water at all with some models. They have high freezing damage risk in an unheated space. They foul up with minerals quickly. If you still go with one, and go with gas, make sure to price the glue pipe as well. The ones requiring the stainless steel pipe add a lot of cost. I think you would be better off with a tank heater, and a recirculation pump to address the wasted water till you get hot water issue. They are also much more forgiving as they can buffer changes in demand. They draw far less current, cost less, cost less to wire, and handle fouling better. You mentioned on one video there is natural gas nearby, if it does not cost a huge amount to install, it will be far less expensive, 1/4, than electric. Propane would probably run about half the cost. If you go all electric, you might want to look at a heat pump water heater. Uses a third or so the electricity.
"Wood Burner", That was music to my ears! Great way to go. To avoid ramping up the Electrical Service you could consider a High Efficiency Gas boiler (95%) While you walls are open consider a hot water circulating loop. It would dispense with running the cold water down the drain until the hot water temperature is reached. You could also use gas when using the garage as a summer kitchen.Your heating boiler can be used for Hot Water Heating through a simple heat exchanger. In the summer an Air Conditioner could do the same. I watched your family visit, nice to get a break. i hope it was a rented plane. I prefer low wing, I had a Beech B35V. Never got into a serious mess with it. At 79, I still drive . I only fly on Commercial carriers. My neighbor, a WW II pilot and a Radial Engine Rebuilder Killed his Children, His Dog and his Housekeeper and Gardener. Crashed on takeoff! He had thousands of hours of airtime. Be careful and don't take chances.
Hard to tell from "our" view but I noticed that you may have an uphill to outside? I put my exhaust fan to outside on a slightly downhill to outside tilt.Allows condensation to run to the outside of your house instead of back to the fan unit.
By mounting the heater up by the ceiling, it senses the hot air up there via the overheat sensor. If the heater was mounted closer to the floor, the overheat sensor would not detect the higher heat up near the ceiling but the cooler temp from near the floor which would prevent it shutting off since the cooler temp by the floor prevents the overheating.i
Someone propably already said that but I wouldn't be surprised if your sensor wire is picking up noise which changes the measured temperature (k-type thermal couples have voltages of a few mV/K). If this will be an issue it could help to use a twisted pair of wires which cancels out the noise a bit. Also you want the solder joints on the same connection to be as close in temperature to eachother as possible, as they work as a thermocouple too (Although this might not be a big deal in your case).
As an german electrician i alway find it fascinating how the american installation is done and what a thick copperwire you need, but of course you just have half the voltage of what we have here . That heater with the AWG 8 wire here you probably just needed an awg 14 for that possibly 16 would even be fine here, but that would only be because we have 3 phase service in our houses and not just two so its a bit different system.
Tip. If your going to solder wires, put some heat shrink over the solder. Romex. Use the plastic stackers you can buy where your runs come down to switches. Check the code for AFCI and GFI requirements. You'd be surprised. And bathrooms have to be on their own circuit, garage has to be GFI protected, etc. Save a bunch of money and time if you do your research. They don't pay us electricians the big bucks for nothing. Have to know the code.
if the fan is above the tub it should be gfi protected. just outside of tub doesn't require it. good diagnoses of the heater. yes you will need propane for the house, service too small
Way to go guy's. You may want to give some thought NOW, to when you wire your upstairs kitchen, and plan on at minimum 3 (three) circuits, if not 4 (four.) circuits. The four circuits are as follows: Circuit No.#: -1 Upper (part of the) receptacles, Circuit No.#: -2 Lower (part of the) receptacles, (this is done by merely breaking the tab(s) on the sides of the receptacles.) Circuit No.#: -3 Dishwasher, & Garbage Disposal, Circuit No.#: -4 Freezer / Refrigerator. A lot of people combine Circuit(s) No.#: -3 & -4. The "Trick" for the Upper / Lower receptacles, is also useful for bedroom lighting, pick just one receptacle (may I suggest either the 1st {first} in the electrical run, and or the Last one) so say the lower part is always hot, and the upper is turned on via the light switch. If your thinking, well we're going to just have over head /ceiling lighting. I'm not sure, but check Electrical code, I think it's required to have at least one receptacle controlled via wall switch (and or a part of the one receptacle, i.e., either the lower or upper.) Also start thinking about your "Lay-out / Run(s)" for 3 (three) Way & 4 (four) Way Light Switch(es) location(s.) 3 (Three) Way & 4 (four) Way Light Switch(es) require 3 (three) wire runs, i.e., a Red wire, Black wire, White wire, & a copper / common ground wire. if you have a light that you want to turn on / off from just 2 (two) locations, you need just 2- - 3 (three) Way Light Switch(es). Example: bottom of the stairs & top of the stairs. If you wish to turn on/off a light from 3 (three) locations you need 2- -3 (three) Way Light Switch(es) & 1(one) - - 4 (four) Way Light Switch(es). Lay-out would be a 3 (three) Way Light Switch, then a 4 (four) Way (is alway's in the middle of the run) Light Switch, than another 3 (three) Way Light Switch. Best to figure (easiest method) either supply power at the beginning of the run, and or at the end of the run. Another place to use 3 (three) wire runs, i.e., a Red wire, Black wire, White wire, & a copper / common ground wire, is say in a bedroom, where you may want to put a ceiling Fan, with a Light. Just need to run from the wall switch to the ceiling mounting box for a ceiling fan. Also install the stronger ceiling fan mounting box versus a standard ceiling light box.
DO NOT worry about 70F. With minimal available, 60F is half as difficult,, half as expensive to run. And 60F is very easy to adapt to. You wear a sweater not a t-shirt, that is the only concession. The garage must be on all GFCI. The bath must be GFCI. Line and load sides is how you do it. Clearly labeled on the outlet and often a wiring diagram in the box when you buy it.
I lived in a place that had an old fashioned window unit framed into the wall. It had a thermostat in the hallway to turn it off and on, BUT the thermocouple was inside the unit. So when it got cool humid, it wouldn't come on. I had to pull it out and stick it into a hot cup of water. I rewired my house to have my work computers on dedicated breakers with grounds. All the bedrooms were separate. Appliances had there own outlets. I had 20 amp breakers along the kitchen counter so we could run various counter top appliances with out tripping main breaker. I bumped my house from 100 amps up to 200; I never had any issues. But I didn't have an energy hog water heater. Mine was gas. Gas is the way to go on Instant water heaters. But I know you went electric for safety. Down in Texas, we put that unit outside. Have fun wiring your house.
Before you start working on the walls and ceiling in the living portion of your house, I would suggest thinking about some things that would otherwise be after thoughts, and they are things that can be. But you might want to think about if you want to put in a sound system. I'm not talking about a multi room intercom, but more home theater. You can get 2 and 3 room receivers, but I don't think there's enough benefit to those getting additional receivers or sound bars are an option and you don't have to worry about the complexities of using a multi room receiver. Obviously, you're not ready to set up a home theater yet, but you might want to think about whether you want at least one room with one if for no other reason as to decide if you want to install wires behind the walls before you put them up and whether you want to have in wall or in ceiling speakers. All that would probably be easy to install as you put in the walls and ceiling. Even if you don't want to put in a home theater system, one thing you should put off buying is a TV. This is particularly true if you want to try to use an antenna. The TV industry is starting to roll out a new broadcast standard, but no TVs currently support it. Ones that do are expected to start being available sometime in 2019, so if you can you might want to hold off buying until you can get a TV with ATSC 3.0 built in. If you can wait until those are available, you probably won't have to deal with the tuner boxes for every TV that many people had when the ATSC 1 switch was mandated 10 years ago. There are some other things I could bring up, but you'll probably just want simple so I won't bring up. And it would be a moot point if you plan to wire your house to have capability to connect to a single antenna.
Looking good. Evidently those thermisters were reversed from the factory. Confidence inspiring! I'd have gone with a tank water heater. Then it also serves as a hot water storage tank for any other source of heat you may eventually have, such as wood or a liquid cooled generator or solar thermal. Definitely want the smallest exhaust fan. It's sucking your conditioned air right out of the house, so you want to minimize that. I put 50 cfm units in here, right above the shower, and they are more than adequate. In addition to the crappy damper inside the fan, I put a damper on the side of the house, to help minimize unwanted air flow.
As I commented on previous vid, I see the on-demand water heater in place. That will come back to bite you on the 200 amp service. A 50 gal tank type water heater in that space would be a much better option. Add a time clock on it if you are concerned about energy consumption. You really shafted yourself on a future generator size
Bathroom fan's consideration is the noise level. If it moves a lot of air it might be really noisy. linking your fan to the outside will introduce cold outside air into the bathroom. It's not like a dryer vent that is pretty much closed at the dryer. The LED light looks pretty neat but IF you have a shower in the bathroom your going to beg for a heat lamp to keep you half warm when you get out.
I'm no expert but I would mount the heater at no more than 3' off the ground. Hot air rises and having the heater at that height will compound stratification affect of hot air at ceiling height with cold air at ground level - not good
Make sure the heater it self doesn't get to hot. It likely had 2 sensors 1 for temp control and 1 for safety shut down. Another thing is the angle its on can trap heat in some cases causing the sensor to get hotter than it wants to see it. Also you should get some heat shrink and twist and hook wires before soldering them. I like to make sure the wire has a mechanical hook before adding solder that way its not relying on soft solder to hold the wire together.
Just remember with heating and cooling, your not only trying to heat the air, all the furniture tools shelves etc., are storeing the cooler/warmer temps, so until those items get up to heat / cool temp, they will bleed off the warmer/cooler temps they are holding. :)
Jesse, at 11:56 you say ''Darn House''. I would rather say, ''ABSO--BLOOMIN'--LUTELY GORGEOUS Darn House''. You and Alyssa have been doing a marvelous job of learning, doing, and then learning by doing.
Talk to your inspector about using the older style recepticals. Yes, that is new code and Home Depot doesn't sell the old recepticals, but last I heard, my city still uses the 2006 code book, not the current code book. 💜🌞🌵
I can’t tell if your dryer wire is 10 /2 or10 /3. That should be a 10 /3 so you use a four wire receptacle. You don’t want your neutral and ground bonded in the dryer.
If it is a thermocouple you need to use thermocouple wire to extend it. It may not be a thermocouple at all it may be a thermistor. a resistor that changes value according to the temperature. Use a magnet on the leads to the sensor and see if one is a ferrous and one a non ferrous, if it is it is a thermocouple, I suspect it is not. The sensor above the heater may be the over temperature sensor. Most electric heaters have an over temperature sensor, like the one on your cloths dryer or your hand held hair dryer. It looks as if the person at the factory hooked them up wrong.
Why mix with the heater? Fit it further down and make sure it has free flow to cool air in the garage. You can not change the laws of physics. Find the coldest open place near floor....
They have a GFI breaker that you can install into the box to make the entire circuit GFI, Never knew about them until I had to replace a bad one at the Hotel I worked at.
Jessie, unless you have low electric rates where you are, you are going to pay over and over for using electric as your main source of power to run your house, suggest use a oil fired hot water heater, not on demand water heating , use circulators to move hot water for your floor heating, and domestic hot water, install 2 330 gallon fuel tanks for oil. Will be a lot cheaper to heat hot water and house for radiant heat. Install a 200 amp transfer switch on inlet power panel, run outlet outside to be able to use your generator, install disconnect on main panel inside, when you need to kill power, you don`t want to go outside and kill power.
The first thing I didn't do when I built my own house was put the garage in it. My only peeve was that we would have a stand alone detached garage. Later, after the house was finished I built a shed on the back of the 2 garage. The house is where we live, the garage is where we keep the cars and all the other crap.
I’ve been following you guys from the beginning, never commented before and thinking about it now I feel bad for not. Wanted to say how much I love your videos, you guys are awesome no matter what your doing on that day, just enjoy watching and look forward to continuing the journey with you. Thanks so much for sharing.
I understand putting thought into it, but i literally hooked up my 5 zone radiant in my garage in an afternoon and it was absolutely amazing. It's worth just getting it going now.
I have a 1600 sq ft house with a 200 amp supply, so for your house and lumber mill and outbuildings etc I'd definitely upgrade to 300-400 amps just to have the capacity.
That is the national code for outlets. In most states the house as a whole has to be on a arc fault breaker. Take a really hard look at your on demand hot water over the the last 20 years I have hooked up numerous brands of theses and have had the owner have them removed as they are not the efficient for the power they draw. You only need 50 cam for the bath fan but they move very little air we always use 130 cfm fan this will help cover the whole house fan on a timer the is code for all residents..
I realize that you guys are about a month or so ahead in "real life" but if you see this, maybe jam some fiberglass insulation around your temporary man door? It seems like the biggest "gaps" in the house and you are likely drawing in a lot of really cold air in that gap. Now that you have the heater, it would be worth spending like 2 minutes on it. And the fiberglass is easily removable when you want to install the permanent door. Thanks for the vid!
Jesse, I know this video is about 2 months old. You have sheetrock over all the walls in the bathroom now. I bet you wished you had insulated those lines to reduce the heat load on that water heater. Insulate the reast of the lines upstairs before you sheetrock them! You'll be glad you did!
thermocouples are resistors that change their resistance based on temperature. The meter is essentially an ohmmeter that does some math to give you a temperature reading.
Even thou this comment is months after you fixed the problem, I'm guessing that you have learned that you can not extend a thermocouple with normal metallic wire (Al or Cu) you have to use the exotic thermocouple wire.
Knowing you guys, you are guaranteed to overload an outlet in the garage. You don't wanna be in the dark where power tools are spinning down so you should have a separate light circuit in there too!
If you have more small wiring or coax cable to staple it would probably be worthwhile to buy a wire stapler. Arrow makes a T-18(small) or T-25 (coax)wire staplers. Much better than using flat staples that cut through the insulation.
FYI - "Bathroom Fan Calculator" cubic feet of air in the bathroom divided by 7.5 = CFM requirements so a 6ft x 8ft x 8ft high 6*6*8/7.5=51.2 cfm fan required. It's in the code book. Also demand water heaters aren't that efficient just takes a little research to find that out. Also your trap arms are too long before they get to the vertical vent, its in the code book look it up. I don't know why your inspector passed the install. Your drains may be slow and noisy. Iron and Constantine are the most common thermocouple wires in the home, one Iron and the other Constantine. Their resistance changes differently depending on the temperature and that is read by the meter and switch.
We grew 2 plants of cayenne peppers for the pepper seeds dried them to grind up in a blender. got few pints Did this in 1985 we still have a solid pint mason jar full . Great job on your preserves ..
I like the idea of the tankless water system, but they draw too much to run with a generator. Since electricity is our only utility and seem to loose power often. Being able to run the water heater and well pump with a good sized generator is nice. The furnace still draws too much, which is why we put in a good fireplace.
I presume you are aware that all the heat you generate with your heater is migrating up to the entire house! With the insulation doing what it's supposed to be doing, you're in essence heating the entire house. Cover your stairwell landing on the second floor with plywood and see what happens with the heat you're generating in the garage. I'd bet it'll increase rapidly in the garage then.
Vent fans do more than remove moisture, they are also for removing chemicals such as hair sprays and their propellants. Believe it or not those chemicals and gases can render you unconscious and they can even cause explosions when you flip a switch. At least in my area thats what the code says.
The way you fix the temerature sensor cable reminds me of Chevy Chase in the movie "Christmas Vacation" as he tried to mount his house christmas illumination. 👍
The element temp wire shuts the unit off if the fan breaks and the elements dont have air blowing over them. Safety feature. Might put it back and create another wire for ambient. Thermal couple wire is made up of two disimilar wires. Usually 1 copper 1 alum.
So good to see the 2 of you working together again. House is looking great. It was also nice to see u spending time with family I know u want house done but family time is important
If I was you I would NOT go all electric! I live in the sticks and we might lose power several times a year. With gas we can still cook when the power is out.
If your power is unstable like our now would be a good time for some whole house protection surge, brown, frequency. All your equipment and appliances will last longer.
For electric heat and that on demand electric water heater 200A is too small. You could add an electric hot water tank in place of the on-demand to draw far less current.
Heating element temp sensor is a safety check of the heating element making sure it doesn't get so hot that it melts the plastic wire connectors. don't move it. it does sound like it was wired incorrectly at assembly
Just a minor point. It's most likely a thermistor, not a thermocouple.
A thermistor changes resistance with temperature, thermocouples generate a voltage proportional to temperature but it's a very small voltage. For room temperatures thermistors are much easier to use but they cannot handle high temperatures.
My career was in electrical design and in retirement, I’ve wired numerous houses for Habitat For Humanity. I like the way you explained your thought process concerning the basement heater controls. The only electrical comment I have is that every cable that is installed in your circuit breaker box or any metal box must have a cable clamp or a plastic grommet so that the cable sheathing will never be cut on the rough edge of the hole punch-out. Around here, that’s a code violation. I’ve really enjoyed your videos since the beginning.
They normally use an NTC thermistor with a nominal value of 10k ohms at 25°C. The resistance would go in reverse of the temperature, meaning if you lower the temperature, the value increase, and raise the temp and the resistance goes down.
In short, the wire length of a few ohms will not change the reading by a significant amount at room temperature.
As for your on demand water heater, I still do not think it was a good idea, because of your 200A service and your electric radiant floor. You basically used over half your service for the on demand water heater (that I do not think will be powerfull enought without restriction), will use about 1/3 for the radiant, leaving basically nothing left for the rest of the house. I think you will ends up replacing the on demand with a normal tank, like a 60 gallons.
The bathroom fan, the reason is because the outlet hose will drop a tons of CFM with a 3" hose, and can't vent the humidity fast enought. I would consult with an expert before you close up the ceiling to make sure that it is up to code...
Instead of using a GFCI outlet, use a GFCI breaker and protect the entire circuit. They are designed for outlets NOT light fixtures. Generally all outlets exposed to potential weather (think outdoor outlets including in the garage, even if they have a cover) and any outlets six (6) feet or closer to a water use area, ie. all vanities, bathtub, kitchen sink, laundry room sink, etc.. Check code for your specific location.
A thermocouple produces a very small voltage depending on temperature, a thermistor is a resistor that changes resistance, you can connect a thermistor either way, but a thermocouple must be the correct polarity.
In either case there are issues with extending the wire, the thermistor extension will show a slightly higher resistance, the thermocouple also has issues with the types of connections (a thermocouple is 2 different wires welded together, so each joint could also act as thermocouples).
My guess by looking at the wire is that it's a thermistor.
Once you have your wiring all in and before sheetrocking, take some pictures of everything and if possible include a yardstick or taped up tape measure that shows distances. Then if you ever need to know where the wires & studs are, you'll have visual references to go by. Any bathroom outlet within reach of water needs GFCI protection but that (I think) is covered if the outlet is downstream from the GFCI. But read the code first.
Incidentally, I would also suggest you foam insulate all your hot water lines with inexpensive foam wrap, it will minimize heat loss to pipes. Also on your really long runs, consider a small recirculating pump, again just for the hot pipeline.
I am only 10 mins in...but I highly suspect the black and white sensor wires were originally reversed at the factory. You just "fixed" them by swapping where they plug in.
It's a shame these videos were actually filmed so long ago that any comments or suggestions we give are of no real value...you've already moved on to the next project or buried the mistake.
Current electrical code states ALL 15 and 20 amp circuits installed in a dwelling are required to be Arc Fault protected.
Each bathroom is required to have a dedicated 20 amp circuit for the bathroom outlet(s). This outlet circuit is separate from any other lighting or power needs.
ALL outlets within 6 feet of the edge of a sink shall be GFCI protected.
Garage outlets need to be GFCI protected, but because your using the space as a "living" space it will need to be Arc Fault protected as well. The "Garage" is also required to have a dedicated circuit with at least one outlet per car space.
The washing machine (laundry) needs a dedicated 20 amp circuit that is not shared with any other outlets.
Put the lights on a separate breaker so when the saw trips the breaker it doesn't put you in the dark.
You know I may not agree with your building style but man I gotta say thank you for giving me some great non drama, no crazy shooting stories, no politics, no racist bs, no fake news entertainment. So yeah thank you!
How nice, a video right at breakfast.
US elektrics and water are so alien to me, I'm an elektrician myself and the only place we see 200 Amps is in industrial instalations, here in Europe we (usually) have sigle fase 250V and 3F380V, 40 and 25Amps respectively. Makes for way thinner wires, we pull 5000W over a 2,5mm square wire, not sure what wire gage that translates to.
Fun to see how it works on the other side of the globe.
Can someone explain why you would want so many couplings in the wall? (water) In our house we used 1 rule, full lengths of pipe in the floor or walls, way less chance of leaks that way.
When two dissimilar metals are joined together, a small electrical charge is created and that charge changes with differences in temperature. Most common ambient temperature thermocouples are iron vs constantan (type J) or Chromel vs Alumel (type K). These metals joined together are very consistent in their changes vs temperature. Thermocouples are particular to correct connections and should be soldered using silver solder. Also, if you didn't connect them correctly (where you spliced together) you created three thermocouple junctions. Btw, white red thermocouple is iron vs constantan (type j) where red is negative and white is positive.
A propane combination boiler /water heater would free up half you electric service. It would easily handle the whole house heat and all your hot water needs. You would only need one gas pipe into the house and one vent out. That would allow you to use electric for all the other appliances in the house and not have to worry about your power load.
I keep waiting for you to build a workbench. Given all that lies ahead, it seems like a no brainer. Having a solid bench to work on would make your life much easier. I live in a simple cabin in the summer with a workbench in an open shed, but I could not do without it.
I’m a 20 plus years Master electrician. Those heaters commonly have problems.
I’m willing to help your projects, nothing in return.
My family and I are building our own home and living in RV.
I left my contact info on your comments on your pure living website.
Dave
Code requires that the receptacle in a bathroom be serviced by a 20 amp GFI protected circuit that can service several bathrooms but nothing else... example room lights.
I hope that wasn’t a “cool down” circuit you were messing with on the heater.
Last time I looked at the NEC book, it allowed up to 14 outlets, slaved off a GFCI. Run at least 2 circuits for your kitchenette! A microwave and coffee maker, on at the same time could blow a 15A breaker. Your refrigerator should be on a dedicated circuit...
If we forget a second about where the sensor is located in that heater, what you have is a garage, connected through a hole (stairs) to the first floor and the first floor connected to the attic. That is a huge air column and having that heater (hot air gets up) in the garage without a hot air trap in the stairs, is the first problem I see. The heater is powerful enough to heat the garage ceiling layer, despite of all the heat escaping through the stairs, he reaches the upper hysteresis threshold of the controller, turns off and the heat continues to escape through the stairs up, while cold air from the first floor and attic is pouring down. You would have the same issue if you install an air conditioner in the attic (cold air I mean). It might cool the air for a while until it shuts off, but that cold air will pour down to the garage in a matter of seconds and he will turn on again immediately.
I would shorten the air column until you have heating in all the house and discuss this issue with a heater expert (not an install technician preferably). If you can prevent hot air leaving the garage, I would put that heater at floor level so you use the hot air convection to your advantage and do not rely on the heater blower to push down something that wants to go up. Ideally in a room you should inject hot air (winter) at feet level and inject cold air (summer) at ceiling level and let convection do the mixing without the noise of a fan.
Just a tip from a sparkie (electrician) when you mark your cables put two or three marks with the first one about 8 inches from the end then the next one about a foot up, because you will lose you mark when you strip it back or trim it to length, can be a pain when you have a bunch of cables in one spot, like the switch board. Keep up the good work, from Australia.
No--- You did GOOD!!!! This is exactly how I became an electrical Genius!! By blowing stuff up!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's how you learn!!!!!!!!!!!!! Swapping those inputs was correct. The unit has a frame overtemp protection by that thermal snap switch bolted to the fan support. You are gonna get there!! Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm pretty sure that the heater was just incorrectly wired from the factory (sensors reversed). The temperature, even up there, shouldn't be going up that fast, and the temperature sensor being on the back should be where it sucks ambient air in. The sensor in the front is just to make sure that it doesn't burn out the heating element.
Jesse. Install a traditional electric water heater to preheat your water to about 80 degrees so that the on-demand does not draw such high current. The traditional water heater will be very efficient at that temperature. Basically it’s a hybrid on demand system.
Have you considered high temperature water storage as one way of smoothing your power requirements? Install a super lagged tank and then heat it up overnight to act as a heat battery. Whilst the radiant floor can have a similar storage effect, once heated the slab will give off heat whether you need it or not. Modern specialist tanks can hold water super hot for days. If you design your heating around such a tank it may be possible that the only connection from a wood boiler, if you add one, would be as an additional feed to the tank. Such tanks are often added to solar systems in addition to conventional batteries.
Go with a Hot Water Tank for your DHW. You can get away with a lower power since the element for the tank can run over a long period to get the water hot instead of running full blast when you need it. If you only pulling 5KW for the tank your reduce your power demand by at least 2/3s. I don't see how your going to deal with a power outage if its last more than a day. With Propane you can heat and get hot water with a small generator. You can always get a small Propane tank for now and install a larger underground tank at a later date.Not sure if you can install an electrical outlet with a drain pipe behind it, or next to PEX lines . I suspect the electrical inspector is going to complain.
I’m looking at a screen capture and it looks like you might have run a staple through your thermostat wire for the heater right at the top corner where it drops down. It might just be a splinter hanging over part of the wire but it looks like a staple through the wire. You might check it out. I captured it at 2:14.
Hopefully that temperature sensor was a thermistor and not a thermocouple, or else extending with copper wire like that will really screw up the readings.
It looks like a thermistor, and they're more common (cheaper to use) these days except for very high temps.
You have a proper safety thermostat in that thing (the black thing with the silver 2 hole flange) so no need to worry about the internal sensor not being wired right. The internal sensor is probably a thermistor too (judging by how nothing melted when they were swapped), so it can't be too closely coupled to the heater element because they can't handle heater element temps. That's probably just used by the computer chip (which all appliances use these days whether they need them or not) as a sanity check for its control loop.
That other switch wire is probably a high limit safety switch in case the fan quits working, it will shut off the unit instead of let it run out of control and burn your house down.
For those that don't know there are GFCI circuit breakers....you can wire a whole circuit onto them...up to I think 15 outlets/lights....
You have it wired right. The thermocouple you moved to the framing is the one used for room temp and the black disk (thermal switch) mounted on the underside of the heater is for overheat protection.
Another thing to consider WRT electrical is to install a whole house surge suppressor in the main panel. Advantage is this will protect all devices in the House from surges (eg from lighting, etc). Disadvantage is these type of breakers are more expensive and harder to find so you probably want to keep a spare available in case of a failure further adding to cost.
Wow having everything electrical sounds great, but between the hot water heater & garage heater you are pulling a lot of power. Have you taken into account what the load will be when you add a electric dryer, electric stove & microwave?
With that big hole that is the stairwell you are basically trying to heat the whole house with that tiny heater. No wonder it cycles so often. Put a sheet or three of foam insulation over the stairwell.
The radiant heat could be handled with a water heater and a circ pump. A local body shop has been heating their addition floor like that for years its 60x40.
If that is actually a thermocouple, special type wire example constantin and iron and special connetors are required. If it is a thermistor you can extend with regular wire.
Just a thought similar to what some others have suggested, with a twist.
If you instal a well insulated hot-water tank with an immersion heater fitted, in-line between the cold water inlet and the instant hot-water heater, you can pre-heat the water, on a timer, during a low power-hungry time ( the early a.m. hours) to a reasonable temp.
Then as the water is now entering the instant water heater at a higher temp. the demand for many Watts/Amps is dramatically reduced.
I recommend taking a copy of your building plans and marking every location where an electrical connection is made vs the breaker # you've put them on. It will save your bacon on down the road when you want to add an outlet or switch to an existing circuit (so you don't put too many on one circuit).
Invest in a right angle drill for the electrical (1/2").....I did on my garage build and it was well worth it........
Jessie, first of all great job on explaining the exhaust fan. I work as an Energy Auditor and many people believe that the exhaust fan is only for small but in reality it is for getting moisture out of the home. Yes you are also correct on the min. CFM for a bathroom is 50 CFM and 100 CFM for kitchen unless you have an operable window in which you can subtract 20 CFM then. I would like to send you a residential energy book that maybe you can get something out. Also, when your house gets built would love to come and run a blower door to see how air tight your home is
Research the on demand water heaters very carefully, there are a lot of unhappy customers out there. They have a very tightly defined operating range, and if you don't draw enough flow, or draw too much they won't perform. I have seen complaints that you have to turn on the faucet to half to get any hot water at all with some models. They have high freezing damage risk in an unheated space. They foul up with minerals quickly.
If you still go with one, and go with gas, make sure to price the glue pipe as well. The ones requiring the stainless steel pipe add a lot of cost.
I think you would be better off with a tank heater, and a recirculation pump to address the wasted water till you get hot water issue. They are also much more forgiving as they can buffer changes in demand. They draw far less current, cost less, cost less to wire, and handle fouling better.
You mentioned on one video there is natural gas nearby, if it does not cost a huge amount to install, it will be far less expensive, 1/4, than electric. Propane would probably run about half the cost.
If you go all electric, you might want to look at a heat pump water heater. Uses a third or so the electricity.
"Wood Burner", That was music to my ears! Great way to go. To avoid ramping up the Electrical Service you could consider a High Efficiency Gas boiler (95%) While you walls are open consider a hot water circulating loop. It would dispense with running the cold water down the drain until the hot water temperature is reached. You could also use gas when using the garage as a summer kitchen.Your heating boiler can be used for Hot Water Heating through a simple heat exchanger. In the summer an Air Conditioner could do the same. I watched your family visit, nice to get a break. i hope it was a rented plane. I prefer low wing, I had a Beech B35V. Never got into a serious mess with it. At 79, I still drive . I only fly on Commercial carriers. My neighbor, a WW II pilot and a Radial Engine Rebuilder Killed his Children, His Dog and his Housekeeper and Gardener. Crashed on takeoff! He had thousands of hours of airtime. Be careful and don't take chances.
Hard to tell from "our" view but I noticed that you may have an uphill to outside? I put my exhaust fan to outside on a slightly downhill to outside tilt.Allows condensation to run to the outside of your house instead of back to the fan unit.
By mounting the heater up by the ceiling, it senses the hot air up there via the overheat sensor. If the heater was mounted closer to the floor, the overheat sensor would not detect the higher heat up near the ceiling but the cooler temp from near the floor which would prevent it shutting off since the cooler temp by the floor prevents the overheating.i
Someone propably already said that but I wouldn't be surprised if your sensor wire is picking up noise which changes the measured temperature (k-type thermal couples have voltages of a few mV/K). If this will be an issue it could help to use a twisted pair of wires which cancels out the noise a bit. Also you want the solder joints on the same connection to be as close in temperature to eachother as possible, as they work as a thermocouple too (Although this might not be a big deal in your case).
As an german electrician i alway find it fascinating how the american installation is done and what a thick copperwire you need, but of course you just have half the voltage of what we have here .
That heater with the AWG 8 wire here you probably just needed an awg 14 for that possibly 16 would even be fine here, but that would only be because we have 3 phase service in our houses and not just two so its a bit different system.
Tip. If your going to solder wires, put some heat shrink over the solder.
Romex. Use the plastic stackers you can buy where your runs come down to switches.
Check the code for AFCI and GFI requirements. You'd be surprised. And bathrooms have to be on their own circuit, garage has to be GFI protected, etc. Save a bunch of money and time if you do your research. They don't pay us electricians the big bucks for nothing. Have to know the code.
Seriously. You need to consider Panasonic for your fans. They are quiet and reliable. You can get them with variable volume and humidity sensors.
if the fan is above the tub it should be gfi protected. just outside of tub doesn't require it. good diagnoses of the heater. yes you will need propane for the house, service too small
Resistance is your issue with extending thermocouples, and your extension wire will change the resistance that the controller sees
Way to go guy's. You may want to give some thought NOW, to when you wire your upstairs kitchen, and plan on at minimum 3 (three) circuits, if not 4 (four.) circuits. The four circuits are as follows: Circuit No.#: -1 Upper (part of the) receptacles, Circuit No.#: -2 Lower (part of the) receptacles, (this is done by merely breaking the tab(s) on the sides of the receptacles.) Circuit No.#: -3 Dishwasher, & Garbage Disposal, Circuit No.#: -4 Freezer / Refrigerator. A lot of people combine Circuit(s) No.#: -3 & -4. The "Trick" for the Upper / Lower receptacles, is also useful for bedroom lighting, pick just one receptacle (may I suggest either the 1st {first} in the electrical run, and or the Last one) so say the lower part is always hot, and the upper is turned on via the light switch. If your thinking, well we're going to just have over head /ceiling lighting. I'm not sure, but check Electrical code, I think it's required to have at least one receptacle controlled via wall switch (and or a part of the one receptacle, i.e., either the lower or upper.) Also start thinking about your "Lay-out / Run(s)" for 3 (three) Way & 4 (four) Way Light Switch(es) location(s.)
3 (Three) Way & 4 (four) Way Light Switch(es) require 3 (three) wire runs, i.e., a Red wire, Black wire, White wire, & a copper / common ground wire. if you have a light that you want to turn on / off from just 2 (two) locations, you need just 2- - 3 (three) Way Light Switch(es). Example: bottom of the stairs & top of the stairs. If you wish to turn on/off a light from 3 (three) locations you need 2- -3 (three) Way Light Switch(es) & 1(one) - - 4 (four) Way Light Switch(es). Lay-out would be a 3 (three) Way Light Switch, then a 4 (four) Way (is alway's in the middle of the run) Light Switch, than another 3 (three) Way Light Switch. Best to figure (easiest method) either supply power at the beginning of the run, and or at the end of the run.
Another place to use 3 (three) wire runs, i.e., a Red wire, Black wire, White wire, & a copper / common ground wire, is say in a bedroom, where you may want to put a ceiling Fan, with a Light. Just need to run from the wall switch to the ceiling mounting box for a ceiling fan. Also install the stronger ceiling fan mounting box versus a standard ceiling light box.
DO NOT worry about 70F. With minimal available, 60F is half as difficult,, half as expensive to run. And 60F is very easy to adapt to. You wear a sweater not a t-shirt, that is the only concession.
The garage must be on all GFCI. The bath must be GFCI. Line and load sides is how you do it. Clearly labeled on the outlet and often a wiring diagram in the box when you buy it.
I lived in a place that had an old fashioned window unit framed into the wall. It had a thermostat in the hallway to turn it off and on, BUT the thermocouple was inside the unit. So when it got cool humid, it wouldn't come on. I had to pull it out and stick it into a hot cup of water. I rewired my house to have my work computers on dedicated breakers with grounds. All the bedrooms were separate. Appliances had there own outlets. I had 20 amp breakers along the kitchen counter so we could run various counter top appliances with out tripping main breaker. I bumped my house from 100 amps up to 200; I never had any issues. But I didn't have an energy hog water heater. Mine was gas. Gas is the way to go on Instant water heaters. But I know you went electric for safety. Down in Texas, we put that unit outside. Have fun wiring your house.
Before you start working on the walls and ceiling in the living portion of your house, I would suggest thinking about some things that would otherwise be after thoughts, and they are things that can be. But you might want to think about if you want to put in a sound system. I'm not talking about a multi room intercom, but more home theater. You can get 2 and 3 room receivers, but I don't think there's enough benefit to those getting additional receivers or sound bars are an option and you don't have to worry about the complexities of using a multi room receiver. Obviously, you're not ready to set up a home theater yet, but you might want to think about whether you want at least one room with one if for no other reason as to decide if you want to install wires behind the walls before you put them up and whether you want to have in wall or in ceiling speakers. All that would probably be easy to install as you put in the walls and ceiling. Even if you don't want to put in a home theater system, one thing you should put off buying is a TV. This is particularly true if you want to try to use an antenna. The TV industry is starting to roll out a new broadcast standard, but no TVs currently support it. Ones that do are expected to start being available sometime in 2019, so if you can you might want to hold off buying until you can get a TV with ATSC 3.0 built in. If you can wait until those are available, you probably won't have to deal with the tuner boxes for every TV that many people had when the ATSC 1 switch was mandated 10 years ago. There are some other things I could bring up, but you'll probably just want simple so I won't bring up. And it would be a moot point if you plan to wire your house to have capability to connect to a single antenna.
Looking good. Evidently those thermisters were reversed from the factory. Confidence inspiring! I'd have gone with a tank water heater. Then it also serves as a hot water storage tank for any other source of heat you may eventually have, such as wood or a liquid cooled generator or solar thermal. Definitely want the smallest exhaust fan. It's sucking your conditioned air right out of the house, so you want to minimize that. I put 50 cfm units in here, right above the shower, and they are more than adequate. In addition to the crappy damper inside the fan, I put a damper on the side of the house, to help minimize unwanted air flow.
As I commented on previous vid, I see the on-demand water heater in place. That will come back to bite you on the 200 amp service. A 50 gal tank type water heater in that space would be a much better option. Add a time clock on it if you are concerned about energy consumption. You really shafted yourself on a future generator size
Bathroom fan's consideration is the noise level. If it moves a lot of air it might be really noisy. linking your fan to the outside will introduce cold outside air into the bathroom. It's not like a dryer vent that is pretty much closed at the dryer. The LED light looks pretty neat but IF you have a shower in the bathroom your going to beg for a heat lamp to keep you half warm when you get out.
that is a thermocouple it uses a special kind of wire you cant just use regular wire for it its a bi-metal wire
I'm no expert but I would mount the heater at no more than 3' off the ground. Hot air rises and having the heater at that height will compound stratification affect of hot air at ceiling height with cold air at ground level - not good
Make sure the heater it self doesn't get to hot. It likely had 2 sensors 1 for temp control and 1 for safety shut down. Another thing is the angle its on can trap heat in some cases causing the sensor to get hotter than it wants to see it. Also you should get some heat shrink and twist and hook wires before soldering them. I like to make sure the wire has a mechanical hook before adding solder that way its not relying on soft solder to hold the wire together.
*Look at your video. I think you put a staple through the wire for the heater. That worries me*
Just remember with heating and cooling, your not only trying to heat the air, all the furniture tools shelves etc., are storeing the cooler/warmer temps, so until those items get up to heat / cool temp, they will bleed off the warmer/cooler temps they are holding. :)
Jesse, at 11:56 you say ''Darn House''. I would rather say, ''ABSO--BLOOMIN'--LUTELY GORGEOUS Darn House''. You and Alyssa have been doing a marvelous job of learning, doing, and then learning by doing.
Talk to your inspector about using the older style recepticals. Yes, that is new code and Home Depot doesn't sell the old recepticals, but last I heard, my city still uses the 2006 code book, not the current code book. 💜🌞🌵
I can’t tell if your dryer wire is 10 /2 or10 /3. That should be a 10 /3 so you use a four wire receptacle. You don’t want your neutral and ground bonded in the dryer.
If it is a thermocouple you need to use thermocouple wire to extend it. It may not be a thermocouple at all it may be a thermistor. a resistor that changes value according to the temperature. Use a magnet on the leads to the sensor and see if one is a ferrous and one a non ferrous, if it is it is a thermocouple, I suspect it is not. The sensor above the heater may be the over temperature sensor. Most electric heaters have an over temperature sensor, like the one on your cloths dryer or your hand held hair dryer. It looks as if the person at the factory hooked them up wrong.
Why mix with the heater? Fit it further down and make sure it has free flow to cool air in the garage. You can not change the laws of physics. Find the coldest open place near floor....
They have a GFI breaker that you can install into the box to make the entire circuit GFI, Never knew about them until I had to replace a bad one at the Hotel I worked at.
Jessie, unless you have low electric rates where you are, you are going to pay over and over for using electric as your main source of power to run your house, suggest use a oil fired hot water heater, not on demand water heating , use circulators to move hot water for your floor heating, and domestic hot water, install 2 330 gallon fuel tanks for oil. Will be a lot cheaper to heat hot water and house for radiant heat. Install a 200 amp transfer switch on inlet power panel, run outlet outside to be able to use your generator, install disconnect on main panel inside, when you need to kill power, you don`t want to go outside and kill power.
The first thing I didn't do when I built my own house was put the garage in it. My only peeve was that we would have a stand alone detached garage. Later, after the house was finished I built a shed on the back of the 2 garage. The house is where we live, the garage is where we keep the cars and all the other crap.
Since heat rises, you typically put heaters down low, so they run properly.
I’ve been following you guys from the beginning, never commented before and thinking about it now I feel bad for not. Wanted to say how much I love your videos, you guys are awesome no matter what your doing on that day, just enjoy watching and look forward to continuing the journey with you. Thanks so much for sharing.
I understand putting thought into it, but i literally hooked up my 5 zone radiant in my garage in an afternoon and it was absolutely amazing. It's worth just getting it going now.
I have a 1600 sq ft house with a 200 amp supply, so for your house and lumber mill and outbuildings etc I'd definitely upgrade to 300-400 amps just to have the capacity.
That is the national code for outlets. In most states the house as a whole has to be on a arc fault breaker. Take a really hard look at your on demand hot water over the the last 20 years I have hooked up numerous brands of theses and have had the owner have them removed as they are not the efficient for the power they draw. You only need 50 cam for the bath fan but they move very little air we always use 130 cfm fan this will help cover the whole house fan on a timer the is code for all residents..
I realize that you guys are about a month or so ahead in "real life" but if you see this, maybe jam some fiberglass insulation around your temporary man door? It seems like the biggest "gaps" in the house and you are likely drawing in a lot of really cold air in that gap. Now that you have the heater, it would be worth spending like 2 minutes on it. And the fiberglass is easily removable when you want to install the permanent door. Thanks for the vid!
Jesse, I know this video is about 2 months old. You have sheetrock over all the walls in the bathroom now. I bet you wished you had insulated those lines to reduce the heat load on that water heater. Insulate the reast of the lines upstairs before you sheetrock them! You'll be glad you did!
thermocouples are resistors that change their resistance based on temperature. The meter is essentially an ohmmeter that does some math to give you a temperature reading.
Dryer should be 10/3 Type cable not 10/2. Dedicated.
It’s a lot easier to use the space in your ceiling bays to horizontally run your wiring.
Even thou this comment is months after you fixed the problem, I'm guessing that you have learned that you can not extend a thermocouple with normal metallic wire (Al or Cu) you have to use the exotic thermocouple wire.
Knowing you guys, you are guaranteed to overload an outlet in the garage. You don't wanna be in the dark where power tools are spinning down so you should have a separate light circuit in there too!
If you have more small wiring or coax cable to staple it would probably be worthwhile to buy a wire stapler. Arrow makes a T-18(small) or T-25 (coax)wire staplers. Much better than using flat staples that cut through the insulation.
FYI - "Bathroom Fan Calculator" cubic feet of air in the bathroom divided by 7.5 = CFM requirements so a 6ft x 8ft x 8ft high 6*6*8/7.5=51.2 cfm fan required. It's in the code book. Also demand water heaters aren't that efficient just takes a little research to find that out. Also your trap arms are too long before they get to the vertical vent, its in the code book look it up. I don't know why your inspector passed the install. Your drains may be slow and noisy.
Iron and Constantine are the most common thermocouple wires in the home, one Iron and the other Constantine. Their resistance changes differently depending on the temperature and that is read by the meter and switch.
Throw the Broan fan away!! Stick with Panasonic! Good idea to have a heater-fan in bathroom especially in basement.
We grew 2 plants of cayenne peppers for the pepper seeds dried them to grind up in a blender. got few pints Did this in 1985 we still have a solid pint mason jar full . Great job on your preserves ..
I like the idea of the tankless water system, but they draw too much to run with a generator. Since electricity is our only utility and seem to loose power often. Being able to run the water heater and well pump with a good sized generator is nice. The furnace still draws too much, which is why we put in a good fireplace.
I presume you are aware that all the heat you generate with your heater is migrating up to the entire house! With the insulation doing what it's supposed to be doing, you're in essence heating the entire house. Cover your stairwell landing on the second floor with plywood and see what happens with the heat you're generating in the garage. I'd bet it'll increase rapidly in the garage then.
Vent fans do more than remove moisture, they are also for removing chemicals such as hair sprays and their propellants. Believe it or not those chemicals and gases can render you unconscious and they can even cause explosions when you flip a switch. At least in my area thats what the code says.
I can hear electricians from coast to coast screaming to the top of their lungs.
The way you fix the temerature sensor cable reminds me of Chevy Chase in the movie "Christmas Vacation" as he tried to mount his house christmas illumination. 👍
Buggaboo is in need of some snuggle time. He's feeling right at home now with the heat. Nice job on the heater and electrical.
The element temp wire shuts the unit off if the fan breaks and the elements dont have air blowing over them. Safety feature. Might put it back and create another wire for ambient. Thermal couple wire is made up of two disimilar wires. Usually 1 copper 1 alum.
I think you might have voided the warranty on your heater?🤣👍🖖
i wouldnt run the vent at a upward angle to much , ive seen them condensate and water run back as the air cools
So good to see the 2 of you working together again. House is looking great. It was also nice to see u spending time with family I know u want house done but family time is important
Why not just lower that heater down to ground level where its colder or am I missing something
Why do you have the heater so high? Heat rises? Wound it do better lower on the wall?
If I was you I would NOT go all electric! I live in the sticks and we might lose power several times a year. With gas we can still cook when the power is out.
I would use a GFI breaker for garage instead of in the outlet and then chaining from it.
If your power is unstable like our now would be a good time for some whole house protection surge, brown, frequency. All your equipment and appliances will last longer.
For electric heat and that on demand electric water heater 200A is too small. You could add an electric hot water tank in place of the on-demand to draw far less current.
The garage needs at least 4 o5 separate outlets alternated around the space. You will regret one circuit.
Heating element temp sensor is a safety check of the heating element making sure it doesn't get so hot that it melts the plastic wire connectors. don't move it. it does sound like it was wired incorrectly at assembly