smh@mhuxl.UUCP (henning) (01/11/86)
**** **** From the keys of Steve Henning, AT&T Bell Labs, Reading, PA mhuxl!smh > > QUESTION FOR THE NET: Does a typical house thermostat switch 110 VAC or > > can it be made to do so? > > No. Typical home thermostats are designed for 24 Volts AC. You > could get a 24 volt transformer and 24 VAC relay from Radio Shack > > You might try an electrical supply store for a thermostat > used in electric baseboard heating. The electric baseboard wall-thermostats are readily available at any good electric heat supply house and are much cheaper than your "typical house thermostat", and don't require the added expense of the transformer and relay, which by the way must have 120 Volt, 15 Amp contacts beside having the 24 VAC coil. Flame: If you want good control, don't use an oil-filled heater. The oil is just there to add inertia to the system. Inertia means that when the heater says it is warm enough, the heater just keeps putting out heat until the oil cools down, and when the heater says that you need heat, the heater just stay cold until the oil gets hot again. I know because my house is heated by oil-fired, hot-water gravity system which has all the same characteristics. The key to such a system is to never change the thermostat suddenly and to have an anticipator on your thermostat which anticipates the over-shoot. You still have to live with the delay when heat is demanded. You also need a very sensitive thermostat. A sensative thermostat with an anticipator is almost as good as electic baseboard and an electric heat thermostat. To get around the set-back problem, I leave the oil heat turned down to 62 and have "time-or-day" (cheap) electric base board heat in the rooms that we use in the evening and on weekends. We turn the room we are in up to a nice temperature. The electric baseboard is very responsive and controls very well with the wall-thermostats designed for electic heat.
robert@fear.UUCP (Robert Plamondon) (01/14/86)
In article <447@mhuxl.UUCP>, smh@mhuxl.UUCP (henning) writes: > Flame: If you want good control, don't use an oil-filled heater. The > oil is just there to add inertia to the system. The oil's there to act as a good heat conductor so that the radiator can dissipate 1500 watts with a low surface temperature, which makes the heater more pleasant to be around and cuts the chance of the heater setting something on fire to zero. The main problem with the thermostats on oil-filled heaters (I have one in my bedroom) is that the themostat is on the heater, so it responds to the heater's surface temperature in addition to the room air temperature. This is unavoidable with portable heaters. Using a remote 110v thermostat is probably the way to go. You can avoid temperature "overshoot" to an extent by running the heater at the lowest-wattage setting that will still keep the room warm. This limits the amount of energy the oil has to dissipate after the thermostat turns everything off -- Robert Plamondon UUCP: {turtlevax, resonex, cae780}!weitek!robert FidoNet: 143/12 robert plamondon
ron@brl-smoke.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (01/20/86)
> You can avoid temperature "overshoot" to an extent by running the > heater at the lowest-wattage setting that will still keep the room > warm. This limits the amount of energy the oil has to dissipate > after the thermostat turns everything off This is almost universally true. You want to run the least amount of energy over a continuous amount of time. Heater outputs should be set so that the unit runs nearly all the time. -Ron