During the coldest times of the year people often add extra heat to their homes and offices with portable electric space heaters. These heaters can overload your existing electrical circuits and even cause fires in your electrical system. Dedicated circuits are required to power these devices safely. Let me explain why:
The top five selling electrical space heaters on Amazon all use 1,500 Watts of power, each of which easily overpower existing circuits. When an electric space heater is plugged into a circuit that also powers several bedrooms, each containing computers, TVs, stereos, and lamps, the wiring and electrical connections behind the cover plates and walls heats up more than it it designed to. This results in the old electrical connection points loosening up and shorting, causing smoke and fire.
It isPortable Electric Space Heatern’t just the room that contains the space heater that is in trouble, either! We have troubleshooted issues where an outlet will catch on fire in the opposite side of the house from the space heater due to the way the house was wired decades before.
The only way to safely power an electric space heater is to install a dedicated circuit for the heater. If you are not sure about how safe your electrical space heaters are, please contact Willow Glen Electric to inspect your heater and determine whether it is being powered safely. Your San Jose electricians are always here to help!
