Hi again .. Spruce, or anyone else that might know, is it easy to connect up a frost stat?
Cheers Dave
Hi Dave
Very easy to fit. They come with a simple wiring diagram.
The cable that is fitted to the tube heater isn't very long. I went down to our local electrical retail shop and bought a couple of meters of 10amp 3 core cable. At 120 watt, the tube heater only uses 1/2 an amp so well up to the job. I also bought a length of 10 amp electrical strip connectors.
I removed the short cable, and replaced it with the longer cable. In my heaters case the wires were connected up to the heater element with strip connect type fittings, so was easy.
All the frost thermostat is, is an on/off switch you insert into the cable from your plug to the heater. When removing front cover to get to the innards, you have to remove the temperature dial. Mark it first so you can put it back the way it came off. Don't be tempted to turn the splinned shaft the dial has come off of. It would be a good idea to mark that as well.
The thermostat I got was a frost stat as opposed to a room thermostat. (Frost stats go to lower temperatures than room stats do.)
I cut the new cable to the right length and stripped to wires back. Using the brown (+) I secured those to the two terminals inside frost stat - the one from the plug and the other to the tube heater. The blue I did likewise but joined them together using a 10amp strip connector. The frost stat had a separate earth cable screw which I used to join the 2 earth cable together. It was on the metal plate that holds the thermostat mechanism, so that's earthed as well.
The garage is protected with earth leakage, but if yours isn't them you need to buy an RCD plug that will trip out if there is any damp about.
On my unit, I fitted a 13amp double socket above the box, so the cable that comes from the top, plugs into that socket. A separate plug and cable supplies the solenoid valve and float switch in the IBC tank on the other side of the garage.
