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Rich256 Rich256 is offline
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Default single or double pole switch for 240V baseboard heater

Rich256 wrote:
wrote:
peter wrote:
" wrote in message
oups.com...
Greetings,

Part A:
I have 240V baseboard heaters with the termostat inside the heater. I
want to put wall switches in the same place as the light switches so
that I can turn off the heaters when I leave the room without getting
down on the ground to adjust the thermostat. I know that a single pole
switch will work but I wanted to know if there was any reason the code
required a double pole switch? Thanks!
120V circuit has a neutral and a hot; if you stand in a bath tub and
touch
the two wires one by one, you will get shocked by the hot, and not by
the
neutral

240V circuit has no neutral; it has two hots (each one is 120V
relative to
ground). If you touch the two wires one by one, you get shocked twice.

If you switch off only one hot, then the heater wiring is still carrying
120V. This is potentially dangerous.


Greetings,

I fail to understand why it is dangerous for the wire to be carrying
120V into the heater. So what? The (optional add-in) integrated
thermostat only breaks one pole. Are you saying it is dangerous?
Based on your posting alone it appears that if one is dangerous then
the other must be as well.

Please explain.

Thanks,
William


What you are saying is true but I expect code requires a double pole.
Someone working on the unit would not depend on the thermostat to remove
all power but would most likely expect it to be removed by the switch.

Kind of like power to a lamp with a non polarized plug being plugged
into a switchable socket. It is possible for the lamp to have voltage
even with the switch turned off.


My mind was somewhere else on that last statement!!! Thinking of the
outside of a socket I guess.