Besides being ugly, it's... ...painting around them every time you paint ...vacuuming around them every time you vacuum ...cleaning them when they get dusty ...they still look dated even when clean ...bumping the furniture up to them every time you try to put it flush to the wall ...working around them in every room for every renovation you do ...wasting space in your breaker box (in my area I can't tandem so breaker space is precious) If your furnace were to go out, would you leave your furnace inop and just live off the wall heaters then? If not then dealing w these for the rest of your life for the 1 or 2 days you use them, when you could also just use a spaceheater instead, is pointless. Every time you renovate a room, working around the heater there will bug you. So why keep anything you don't like if you are renovating it to be like you want it just cuz your electrician says to? Once he's done w the job he'll never see these again - but they will haunt you for the rest of your life. Don't build this awesome vision you're thinking of but leave the outdated eyesores that annoy you. To some a classic old stove is a treasure... to others it's junk. If these are junk to you then out w them and in w what you like. :-) (of course follow the advice above, make sure the furnace is fully operational, sized to the house, etc) -mike

Hi, I know it's been 8 months since you folks were discussing this, but hopefully one of you who seems to know these systems and their components will happen to see this follow-up --- your discussion was the best I've seen, and I'm hoping one of you can offer some ideas about my gurgling system. I've bled all three loops in my system, both by doing what one plumber who worked on the system a few years ago called a "power purge" (hook up a garden hose to the drain valve for each loop and let water flow at full volume through the loop until the water flows smoothly, i.e. no more sputters) as well as using the bleeder valves in each loop. When I use the bleeders, no air sputters out, making me think I have all the air out of the loops. But when the pump first kicks on in the morning, you'd think we were in a sub filling our dive chambers. The sound of water flowing in the pipes sounds like the system is empty and being charged. The system did not have this problem last winter, but I drained it recently because I moved one of the baseboard radiators. Having read all the earlier comments in this thread, I have an idea I'd like to run past people, but of course, I'm open to anything else anyone has to offer. As it is, my Extrol is installed at the end of a dead end extension, contrary to the installation guidelines printed on the label. The reason I initially doubted that that's the problem is that the Extrol was that way last winter and the system was fine. However, the one possibility I'm wondering about is whether, when I drained the system a few weeks ago, too much air got up in the pipe that leads up to the Extrol, causing something like this to happen: after the system has been on a while, the air compresses up in the pipe that leads to the Extrol, and the system quiets down, but when the system is off for a while and the pressure in the system drops (because the boiler's not firing, i.e. overnight when we turn down the heat), the air de-compresses and pushes back down into the feed to the loops, thus causing a significant amount of gurgling when the pump first starts to push water through the loops; once the air has circulated back around to the tee that leads to the Extrol, the air is eventually all captured back up in the Extrol (and the pipe leading to it) and stays compressed there until the system pressure drops low enough to allow it back out of the pipe into the circulation feed. Sounds completely whacked, I know, but I'm at a loss for how the bleeders can stream completely air-free water, i.e. no sputters whatsoever, but every morning, it sounds like there are huge air pockets in the pipes getting pushed room by room through the loop --- and then it stops. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks, Mark

I believed you when you said, " I replaced (the original tank), wired it as directed." Now, this new tidbit has me concerned about the whole electrical scheme. As I started to read your message, I expected that you were trying to say that there was a circuit taken off of one leg of the line. But you describe it as a line coming into the heater and powering one of the elements. That suggests that the other element is also powered by a simplex, 110-V circuit. If so, this needs rewiring as you have a seriously miswired condition. I suspect this because you said: "I tested the connections numerous times and always came up with 120, never 240" To get 240 V, you need to have two legs of the service wired into the heater. And this would put each (say, the Âblack and the ÂredÂ) on each heater, the upper and the lower. Since each of them has a second terminal, those are wired to the neutral (white) wire. If that is the case, that you have a 3- or 4-wire cable properly connected to the heater, then it means that the one element was not able to be shut down by the thermostat. Moreover, it also appears that the chance wiring has allowed the one element to be powered by 240V via the cord connection. Certainly, removing this cord is the right and the first thing to do. It appears that, for the first six hours, the new heater was being warmed by only one element. When the thermostat attempted to shut down both elements, the miswiring stopped one and started the other at doubled voltage. (Boom!) While a water heater is power with 240V, the elements operate independently at 120V, each. They should never see 240V, unlike the heating element in a clothes dryer. Now, if the unit is properly wired, you can test voltage again and get the following results. If the colors are Black, Red and White (and Green, if available,) the voltages will read as follows: B to R > 240V; B to W > 120V; R to W > 120V; W to G > zero V. For purposes of testing only, you should get the same voltages comparing a HOT wire to either neutral or ground (Green.) The White and Green will only share a terminal in the service entrance panel. (Different, though if the feed is a subpanel.) Please reply. Pinoke

I'd go ahead and spring for the Honeywell system. If it makes you feel any better, the ipad business is actually an extra cost, so you are not paying for it with the basic unit. You will need a second interface module for the second baseboard but it will control both baseboards. We had a similar situation in our kid's room and this was prior to anything like the Honeywell. Our 240 volt baseboard had to be wired directly into the line, so the thermostat was mounted into the baseboard. The temperature there had nothing to do with the temperature in the rest of the room, particularly at the bed. Some mornings it was too hot, and with a minor adjustment, too cold in the room. I know it doesn't seem logical that the thermostat costs more than the baseboard heater itself, but it is definitely worth it.