Okay, so here is the deal. I needed to replace the baseboard electric heater today in our downstairs bathroom. While at the big box, I also picked up a new thermostat that I wanted to go into the upstairs bath in the renovation process. It’s just a plain Jane thermostat and after I got home….I thought it would have been better to get a programmable thermostat so that we can have the bathroom temperature up to a comfortable level on winter mornings when we get up at around 4:30 to 5:00 AM. Wish I had thought of that when I was buying one. Anyway….no big deal. I replaced the older thermostat in the downstairs half bath along with the new baseboard heater. The upstairs bath had both Line and load wires to connect to the thermostat and that would be a pretty straightforward install when I come to that. However, the downstairs bath has a different electrical situation in the box behind the thermostat and I wanted to run this past some in-house electricians to make sure I did things correctly and safely.
This picture shows the old thermostat still hooked up to the box. You can see the white neutral wires running directly through the box without routing through the thermostat. Only the hot wires are connected to the thermostat.
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This would lead me to believe that I want to use the diagram that I have drawn an arrow pointing to in the installation manual that came with the thermostat. And that is the picture below.
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This picture below shows the new thermostat hook up I did…using the diagram as a guide with the hot wires of the new thermostat now connected to the hot wires that were previously hooked up to the old thermostat. Neutral wires remain in a direct through the box configuration.
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But that leaves me with the red wires of the new thermostat with nowhere to go. These would have….I assume…hooked up to the neutral wires in the other configuration in the installation manual, and that is how I will need to hook them up in the upstairs bath that is being renovated. But on this installation….they remain hanging out in space. I simply capped them off with wire nuts and stuffed them in the box with all of the other wires. I threw the breaker and tested it all out and everything works fine….no flashes to end all flashes…the heater came on and off with the rotating of the thermostat’s knob….so I assume that everything is hooked up the way it should be. My question for any electricians on board is…..is this what I should have done and is it completely safe?
Thanks in advance for any and all help/advice!!!
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