rack temperature

[Ginevive]

I keep our home heat at 71 degrees. The rack is in the dining room, the warmest room of the house.. my temps stay fine with the Helix at 94 degrees.
Keeping the heat at 82-84 degrees really sounds unhealthy though! I feel bad for whoever pays your heating bill if you keep it that hot. As it is, we do not pay for our heat, having a gas well on the land here. But still, I could not stand it to be in the 80s in our house; I think I would pass out.

[dsirkle]

I put a space heater in the room and I am experimenting with that now.

[Ginevive]

Sounds cool. Of all rooms, our bedroom has no heating vent. So we use a fan-type space heater. It helps out tremendously and we have not gotten frostbite overnite yet If you get a nice consistent temperature in the room in the high 70s, your t-stat setting should be closer to your heating-element temp.

[jotay]

Don't hook your heater up to the Ranco that controls your flex in your racks.
I purchased a seperate Ranco just for the heater. I understand heaters have their own t=stats built in but it was suggested to me as a safety precaution to keep the room from getting to hot in case the heater t-stat stuck or the room/outside temps change.
The t-stat on the heater is just to cool the heater down it is not affected by room temps. So say you got a heatwave and the room/outside temps went up into the 80's your heater would still run where as on the Ranco when the room temp hit 80 or whatever it was set at it would cut it off.



This picture you can see the Ranco in the back on the wall and look to the right on the front of the rack and you can see how I have the probe from the Ranco that the heater is plugged in.

[GirDance]

Our thing: Heat rises, and we're on the top floor.... So everyone else's heat seeps into our unit first, our living room taking the biggest hit: Windows open - 80... But I love it warm, except our bedroom, but that stays cooler.

Just a herp room though, walk in and its toasty. I didn't mean to come off as implying your whole house should be 80, but a space heater could probably close most of that gap for you. I'm the sort of person who can be comfy in a sweater in the summer, and gets cold any time it drops below 70...

PLUS I'm a Canadian, so everyone can drop any eskimo sorts of beliefs if they have them.... You being in michigan I've most likely spent most of my life further south... lol

[dsirkle]

You may well be South of me. But I just have watch it on the Hydro eh? The Loonies arent that easy to come by.

[GirDance]

LOL Definately! Especially now My old place was oil heat, electric was cheaper. If you're going the space heater route, you can get some really good energy saving ones... Toss the rack in a closet or small room for less heating area and you'll be good to go. OR... Just stick with your current crazy variance for the thermostat, but I'd suggest watching the ambient temp in the bins closely for how warm that is.

[dsirkle]

Don't hook your heater up to the Ranco that controls your flex in your racks.
I purchased a seperate Ranco just for the heater. I understand heaters have their own t=stats built in but it was suggested to me as a safety precaution to keep the room from getting to hot in case the heater t-stat stuck or the room/outside temps change.
The t-stat on the heater is just to cool the heater down it is not affected by room temps. So say you got a heatwave and the room/outside temps went up into the 80's your heater would still run where as on the Ranco when the room temp hit 80 or whatever it was set at it would cut it off.



This picture you can see the Ranco in the back on the wall and look to the right on the front of the rack and you can see how I have the probe from the Ranco that the heater is plugged in.

Yes that makes good sense too!

[dsirkle]

An update to this is that after adding a space heater to the room I have found that the flexwatt will do its job without a super high thermostat setting if the room is kept at 71 degrees. At 66 degrees it just isnt warm enough. Thanks to all who gave advice.