Is it safe to use a 110volt to 220 volt stepup converter in a garage to power an electric heater??

Question

I do not have a 220 volt line in my garage and I was wondering if it is safe to use a step converter in place of a wired 220 volt electric line??

Answer 1

As long as the wire feeding the garage is protected by the proper sized circuit breaker, it is perfectly safe to do what you want to do. That was your question.

Aside from that, it won't work. The circuit breaker will trip from being overloaded. The 120 volt line will have to carry a little over double the amps that the 240 volt heater will take.

Get an electrician to install a 240 volt circuit to the garage.

Answer 2

I wouldn't, there's a good chance the wiring in your garage is setup with either 14 gauge or 12 gauge wire. If it's 14 the highest amperage you can safely use is 15 for 12 wire it can handle 20 amps. The heater you are describing sounds pretty heavy duty, probably 30 amps. If you try to use a heater of this capacity, the wire will get hot and trip the breaker, if the breaker malufunctioned there could be a fire. If you have a basement and it's unfinished and the breaker box is down there, simply drill a hole through the box sill have have an electrician install a new wire.

Answer 3

First, let me suggest we talk in terms of 120v and 240v. Unless you live in a really really old part of town, you are going to have about 120v. I'll go nuts talking about 110/220, it's a sickness I have.

There is nothing wrong with using a transformer to step 120v up to 240v. Nothing at all.

Here is your problem: You want to run a heater. I'm guessing since the heater runs on 240v instead of 120v, you are probably thinking of something more than 2000 watts. The problem is: Watts are Watts. If you have a common household 120v receptacle in your garage, it is being fed from either a 15 or 20 amp circuit.

Wattage is determined by multiplying voltage times amperage (for the purists out there, forget the power factor, we are talking about a resistive circuit here and I don't need to confuse the issue). If you have the maximum capacity available to you (nothing else on the circuit) and it is a 20 amp circuit, multiply 120x20 to get 2400 watts maximum power available. If you feed the 120v into a transformer to double the voltage, you have to cut the amperage in half, there is no free lunch. 240 volts at 10 amps is... 2400 watts (minus some losses in the transformer).

Yes, you could get 240v using a transformer. No you wont get any more heat than you would with a 120v heater.

Also, if you are running a heater, the load could run for more 3 hours or more, NEC (the national electrical code) requires that you limit the load on the circuit to 80% of maximum capacity so you end up with a maximum 1920 watts on a 20a circuit or 1440 watts on a 15a circuit.

If the line to the garage goes directly from the electric service panel to the garage with nothing else connected to it, you may be able to convert it to a 240v circuit and you would have double the wattage available. The downside is that now you dont have any 120v power unless you put in a transformer to change the 240 to 120.

Any way you can run another line?

Answer 4

I wouldn't do it the amperage is the important part of the being safe the converter may not be able to supply the correct amp load for the demand of the heater. A correctly wired 220 line is the best way to go check the heater running amps and wire the 220 line accordingly.

Answer 5

A phase converter like you need will cost at least $500 dollars, anyway base board heaters run on 110 or 220, just run the one you have on 110 it will run more and produce less heat than a 220, but will do the job without spending all that money!

Answer 6

In a single phase 220 residential circuit you will have 2 hot leads (L1 and L2) that will come from the 2 pole breaker at the panel, and then you will have 1 common that will return. Make sure that the breaker is the correct size (not too small, but just as important not bigger then the max allowed by the heater, it should be stamped on the name plate on the unit).

Answer 7

That would need to be a substantial transformer to handle the 1000 watts or so of the heater. In addition you would need a high amperage branch circuit to provide enough current (since the appliance draws twice the current on the primary of the transformer. It would probably be cheaper to buy a new heater, unless the old one was incredibly expensive. You would also be safer with a modern enclosed 110v heater.

Answer 8

No you should never change the voltage. It is cheaper to put in a 220 than to chance burning down the garage. This is my husbands opinion and his dad worked with electricity!