Baseboard heater choices
My SFH basement is cold. I am doing a live in rehab. There are 2 heat pump heater vents but they do not keep basement warm enough. Should I buy 2 plug-in baseboard heaters or add baseboard heaters wired to circuit breaker box. The plug-in heaters are less expensive.
Thanks in advance.
I would go with the hard wired ones. Especially if you live in an area with regular freezes. It would suck to have a future tenant have a friend over that unplugs the heater so they can charge their phone, and have a pipe freeze as a result. Not the most likely situation, but you want to idiot proof rentals as much as possible.
Nice lesson and great solution Nathan, your advice seems to fit very well and makes a ton of sense. Idiot proofing the rental, investigating, and knowing how often it freezes in the area meanwhile keeping guests out of the hot seat by removing anyways from unplugging, great answer. 👍
Have you compared the wattage or BTU per hour of the two options to make sure they are putting out the same amount of heat? Plug-in units might be cheaper simply because they put out less heat. They may have limited wattage to avoid overloading the circuit.
Speaking of which, you’d want to consider making sure the plug-in units were on their own circuit(s) to avoid tripping breakers anytime you plugged in anything else on that circuit. That might require an electrician anyway.
@Ronald D Kidd Dumb questions here but have you check the dampers to ensure that the basement vents are balanced well? If they are then I would go with wired if there are multiples you may have to run a new circuit as baseboard heaters can draw a lot. They also arent very efficient.
Thanks. That confirms what I thought.