How to: Wire a Contactor for a 240V garage heater!
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- I am not much for home wiring projects so I was a little intimidated by trying to wire in a 240 volt heater but after reading, researching, and talking to a lot of people, I figured i could handle this little project. I did have an actual electrician install the 240/30amp outlet in my garage some time ago so I didn’t have to worry about adding anything into my main panel. I don’t recommend messing with anything in there as that could very easily kill you! Now a contactor is really just a relay for AC power that provides a safer, more reliable way to turn on and off heavy loads. There are a lot of videos out there that show garage heater installs, but I haven’t seen any that install a heater in this manner, so I figured I would show you all how I did mine. Running the wire wasn’t bad, and wiring it was pretty straight forward once I understood what I was looking at. Lastly, yes, I tied my heater into my RV outlet. I know I probably shouldn’t do that, or try to use both of them at the same time, but I won’t, and I will definitely change this in the future. Remember, I AM NOT AN ELECTRICIAN!
Update: I have been calling my outlet in my garage an RV outlet, I was mistaken, this is not an RV outlet. This is a 240/60amp service which is much more than what an RV would take. Just wanted to clarify that.
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•240 Volt Heater:
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•Contactor:
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•Pilot Light Switch:
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•Ultra-tite conduit whip:
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•10-2 Wire:
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•12-2 Wire:
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I really like the red light up switch and the use of the safety contactor. Both fantastic ideas. I will be using both for my garage after seeing this. Great video!
Awesome thank you so much I appreciate it!
All you need is a 220v, 30 amp breaker for one of those. I hard wired mine and just got it inspected by the county inspector so it passed code for insurance. Easy as pie.
Cool good to know thank you! Good point for insurance purposes.
Nice Video, dude! enjoyed how you truly were clear it the wiring.
Thank you I appreciate it!
Please note for RV owners - that outlet is not for an RV! do not use it. That outlet is for a dryer - 220 volts. An RV 30 amp outlet should be 110 volts single phase. Search on UA-cam for correct RV outlet wiring.
I bet that was fun running them wires in that conduit
Note to self, use larger conduit for that many wires 🤦🏼♂️. Yea it was a pain in the A.
I've been there so I know the struggle!
If I were to install 7500watts of baseboard heaters with 40amp breaker but only have a 5280watt, 22 amp thermostat. Can I use a 40a contactor between the 7500 watt baseboard and 5280watt thermostat to handle the big load?
Good video! Thank you!!🎃
I appreciate it! Thanks for watching.
This would fail an inspection. That switch is not rated for 30 amps and you've basically put it inline with the heater load which defeats the purpose of using a contactor. The point of the contactor is to handle the load such that something like a normal light switch (or timer) can power the coil. Also it's kinda wasteful and potentially dangerous (heat) to run romex like that through PVC (nitpick). Much cleaner (and easier to pull) to use individual THHN conductors.
Nice heater BTW, I have the same one.
I'm sure this has been long sorted out - however - as a RV owner and shop junkie (not licensed sparky either) - if your outlet specified as an RV outlet is a legit one, it will be a 120V /30A circuit not a 240V! If you hooked up a garage heater to it, chances are it wouldn't work at all but if someone did the reverse on a TT30 outlet wired for 240V, they would cause a lot of damage to their trailer/rig. Just thought I'd mention it - take a good look first. Many electricians unfamiliar with a 30A 120V TT30 receptacle wire them for 240V toys or wire incorrectly and cause tears.
Yes you are 100% correct, I should probably update the description. I had told my electrician I wanted just a basic rv outlet so I assumed that is what he put in. After doing this video I realized I actually had a 240/60A plug! I didn’t not realize this until I had family come and we were checking out the outlet prior to plugging in a travel trailer. So yea it was a headache and I will update the description. I appreciate your comment.
@High Priority Glad you checked first and saved the rig! Another good reason for primary protection/EMS on trailers. I couldn't find a NEMA 6-50 (standard welder/shop gizmo receptacle) years ago and substituted a TT30 temporarily. Well... after bringing home a new travel trailer, I almost made the dreaded mistake and I put the damn outlet in/knew it was wrong, etc. I only use NEMA 50s now as someone was smart enough to ensure that TT30 plugs won't fit (clearly not me however). I'm looking at installing a 10kw heater on a NEMA50 but have a feeling some sparkys will cringe a little.
Great job man
I read this notification as “get a job man” 😆. I appreciate the props Frank!
I know I’m 2 year late but you should put black electrical tape on the white hot as a mark for live
Not at all your good! I want to say I did do this when I wrapped up to at least let myself know what I did.
Help me out, my head is hurting. I have 10/2 wire coming from my panel 30 amp breaker to a Leviton outlet in the garage.
I’m guessing I can’t do this without a 10/3 wire? With what I have what are my options ? Thanks.
Awesome job man I am getting mine except I want to hardwire the heater directly to the panel breaker box with a switch. I don’t have a 240v outlet like yours. Any suggestion is appreciated how to wire that.
You can look up wiring straight to a breaker in your panel, or mount and wire your heater and run the wire to your panel, then have an electrician tie it to the panel. That’s what I would do since panel work kinda scares me.
I am getting power directly from the 30 amp breaker 240v using 10/2 I don’t have a neutral wire. Do I need neutral ? as I saw you kinda tied the neutral from the breaker to the contact (white-12/2) at the switch box before letting it run up to the contactor.
@@muqtarali9974 240 power doesn’t use a neutral, it’s two hits and a ground. The wire my electrician used when he installed the outlet is 10-3 wire with a ground, so it has three sheathed wires the white, black, and red as well as the ground. My white/ neutral was just hanging out unused in there so I used it for the neutral on the switch and contactor. Hope this helps
Great video. I'm having some confusion. Not an electrician. I have a 5000w 240v unit. I have a 240v outlet for my air compressor wich is wired with #8 and going to a 40a circuit breaker. Can I wire this with #8 wire and have it plug into the outlet without any issues? Or do I risk burning my house down?
I debated on wiring my heater this way, with a cord and plug and not using the contactor at all but I opted to hard wire it. I think as long as you wire the plug correctly you shouldn’t have an issue and be able to unplug your comp and plug in your heater. Granted, I am no electrician either.
Yes you can
Wish I would of seen this earlier. Contactor would of saved me a ton of money.
Thanks. Yes I just feel like this is a better way to manage large loads.
How would a contactor save you money?
@@KevinsHeaven I’m assuming he may have bought the wrong stuff? Or did it a different way that was more expensive? I’m just spitball in here though haha.
@@HighPriority you may be right.
I’m going to install one in my garage before next winter but I’ll just use a commercial grade 220V 30 switch. Can’t wait for that heat out there!
@@KevinsHeaven just used mine extensively last weekend and it was amazing. 25° outside and about 55° in the garage. Any warmer and I would have been sweating haha.
A neat addition would be to use a WiFi switch. Since it's only controlling a fraction of an amp for the contactor, any cheap one would do.
It'd be nice to say "I'm gonna go work out in the garage in a bit" and be able to just flip it on via your phone so you could walk out to a nice warm garage.
Love that idea. Yea if I were to do it again I would definitely do this.
I'm using a contactor because the thermostat I got can't handle enough amps for my heater.
How did your install go?
@@HighPriority Still in the planning process. I'm running a feeder from basement to garage for 100 amp subpanel with 220 heater, 220 plug and some 20 amp 110 outlets, so it's gonna be a project.
@@DryUrEyesM8 oh yes that’s a big project for sure! Stay safe, warm garage will be nice this winter.
Well done.
Though I'm not sure about pulling that much ROMEX in the enclosed 3/4" PVC conduit. Fully enclosed PVC traps the heat from the ROMEX and might be a local code issue, but I'm not sure. A small variety pack of colored electrical tape, a 50' spool of black #10 THHN wire and a 25' spool of black/red #12 THHN could have been another option.
I considered a similar install with red-illuminated pilot light switches for my 5000 Watt, 240 volt heaters. They have a power LEDs on their faces. I installed them with red, 2-pole, 30 amp (Leviton 3032-2R 30 Amp) switches. My switches are in 2 gang boxes as I was going to add a red LED Indicator Light to the side, off of one of the loads, but I didn't. I can tell the switch is on when it's toggled up and from a distance I can glance up at the heater to clearly see if it has power.
As a safety precaution (after doing some multi-meter reading on my electrical panel and some math with Ohm's law) I went with 2-pole, 25 amp breakers for each 5000 Watt unit rather than 30 amp.
Yea it was a pain to get that wire in there, I probably should have gone up in size. I will have to have someone come look at this setup and see what I need to change to have it to code, I am curious, but if I ever sell this house this will come out anyway but still nice to know.
Probably nitpicky, but your 240v input wires should go on the L1 and L2 terminals on the contactor and the output to the heater should be the T1 and T2 terminals. Looks like you did that backwards. Logically in my mind it shouldn't matter, but that is the way I understand it. Thanks for the video.
Oh ok thank you. I figured it was a switch and couldn’t figure out if it went a particular way.
Hello I been looking at many youtube videos about this heaer and many people said their electricity went up quiet a bit:( If I buy this electric heater I will be only using it when I play pool in my garage which is once or 2x a month for about 6 or 7 hours. Since I have natural gas I wanted to install a natural gas heater but this sounds expensive to tap into the gas line or run a gas line to garage. However I think on the long run it will be cheaper that the electric heater???
Some people on you tube said it went up to $100 dollars a month others said about $30 or $40?? Anyways I will be installing a 240V outlet into my garage since I will also be getting a used electric car and need to charge it. So if I decide to get this electric heater I will already have an outlet for it. On the videos I see people installing the electric heater high in the ceiling usually on the corner. If i get electric heater can I just use an extension cord to plug it in or iwill it be better if I just install 240V outlet close to ceiling where heater will be?
I guess it would depend on how large your garage is and how long it would take to warm that up to determine the cost. I can look on my heater to see if it gives a usage estimate. I installed this one just to take the chill off when I record videos in my garage and since I installed it this last spring, I haven’t had to really run it yet.
I thought about running an extension cord for mine to just plug it in but that type of cord for 240 power can get expensive so I decided to just run conduit down to my outlet. Also if you run a contactor like I did, it kind of complicated things a bit with the wiring. But yes you could plug in a 240 heater and it will turn on and won’t hurt anything. I like the idea of a gas heater but I think your right as running a gas line and the extra cost of the gas heater may get quite expensive. Let me know what you do.
You should use 3 conductor cable for 220. Make sure you use the correct gage. It has a red, black and white wire plus a ground. You can put the switch in the white return for the contactor.
Thank you for the info. I appreciate it.
You say 3 conductor, but you then mention 4 conductor wire. With 240 single phase there is no need for a neutral, so hot (black), hot (white), ground (green) is typical. Black, Red, White, Green would be 4 conductor and used with a mixed voltage appliance like modern clothes dryer where the heating coil is 240VAC but the electronics are 120V, so now you have to have a neutral as the ground wire cannot be used to get 120v for the controls.
why 3 conductor for 220 (I mean 240 - bad habit)? None of my tools are wired with anything other than 2 conductor wire. No need to have a neutral?? I'm likely missing something (oops just saw Todd beat me to it).
i have a similiar heater, but only have 120 in my garage. How do i convert to 220? ty
I would recommend having an electrician run a 220 line from your panel to your garage. That is what I had done, I don’t like messing with stuff in the panel. My run wasn’t far as my panel is in my basement close to where my heater was installed.
Could I wire a heater like this directly to a fuse box?
You could wire it direct to a breaker in the box yes. You would turn the breaker on and off to control the heater and wouldn’t need a switch or a contactor.
@@HighPriority Thanks but my garage has actual fuses. I'm struggling because there is little to no info on wiring to fuse boxes
Why does my contactor keep over heating and blowing up change it twice same problem? Not sure if anyone can help me
How much power are you running through it? Is it the correct contactor for the voltage/amps you need? Maybe you could up the size.
You can turn the thermostat down when you first turn it on. The hardest thing for contactors is to switch while under load.
@@MrHarleyhn great info thank you!
Contactor coils work off 24v signal. 110 is way too much voltage.
@@RA1-1 you can get different contractors that have different coil voltages.