How'd you connect your hanging heater?

[thammel]

I have a 60K BTU reznor I'm going to connect up this year. How did you connect the electrical to it? The place will be insulated and drywalled and I have the power supply wire run to the location. Could I just put in a receptacle and make a pigtail with plug and plug into the receptacle? The manual says to connect with conduit but this just seems to be overkill.

If I need to go the conduit way, what kind of flexible conduit? The grey liquitite or the corrugated blue stuff? Can you connect these to a plastic box? I've used both in the past but never connected to a platic box, just subpanels, etc., which were all metal.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[A_Pmech]

I put twist lock receptacles in the ceiling and plugged them in. That way, it's easy to disconnect one for service.

 

[alfredeneuman]

Mount 1 of these to the plastic box, and use regular uncoated metal flexible conduit.

Put a switch in the box extension and Voila, you'll have a ready made way to disconnect the heater.

 

[BJ42LX]

I used flex conduit from the ceiling/wall to the unit. It's inexpensive and easy to use:

 

[rodm1]

I used flex conduit from the ceiling/wall to the unit. It's inexpensive and easy to use:

That seems like the way most commercial buildings are wired. The wire comes very close to the fan and vent systems sow its probably a good idea to use flex conduit.

 

[thammel]

Ok - so what size flex did you use? Did you run thhn or nm inside it? how did you connect it at the wall or ceiling? Plastic or metal box? If plastic, how connect to the front? I think metal would be preferable with a knockout and a more solid connection. I do like the approach of a pigtail (line cord) from the reznor to a high mounted receptacle, in that it's a simpler approach and would look nicer, I believe. In any case, there will thermostat wire running to the reznor (not in conduit) and any power wire up there will be away from other items and will be protected via a circuit breaker.

More comments appreciated!
Tom

 

[ForceFed70]

There are 2 common choices used here:
- BX (metal clad whatever you want to call it)cable to the heater (put a junction box on the wall/ceiling).
- NM in 1/2" flexible conduit.

I used the flexible conduit as well - as mentioned, it's cheap and easy to work with and that way I could avoid installing a junction box.

On another note: I wanted to do as A_Pmech mentioned (putting an outlet on the ceiling and having the heater plug in to the outlet). My electrical inspector said "No". Apparently it's against code in Canada (we use NEC so probably against code in the US).
I didn't ask about twist-lock tho - maybe he would have allowed it if twist-lock?

 

[Kevin54]

I have a 45,000btu Hamilton, and I just have a cord and a plug out of the heater, and have it plugged into a 110 right behind it into the ceiling outlet.