When a space heater keeps shutting off, you might be asking yourself what to do. However, it is not difficult to troubleshoot it. You can learn about the cause of the repeated shutoffs even if you are not familiar with electronics.
In this article, I will guide you to learn about 5 different causes of your issue and I am also going to give you a solution for every reason. So, without wasting much time, let’s get started and discuss it.
Oftentimes, space heaters turn off and it happens when they overheat or when they do not get the required power. Your task is to find out the cause of overheating or power supply problems.
There is nothing to worry about as solving this issue is an easy task.
Quick answer: Most of the time space heaters keep shutting off due to an electronic fault in the circuitry. You can test that by taking your space heater to your friend’s house and checking if it works there. If it keeps turning off, the problem is with the space heater. If it is working on your friend’s house, the culprit is the power supply of your house. If the problem is in your space heater, the best course of action is to get a new one. If a problem is with your home’s power supply, you should get help from an electrician to check it.
Repair or Replace a space heater that keeps shutting off
Before we start troubleshooting stuff, I want to share my personal philosophy regarding heater issues. In general, space heaters are dangerous items. They should work smoothly without causing any trouble for you. Ideally, when you purchase a space heater, your expectation is to get safe heat when you turn it on. When you switch it off, it stops generating heat.
If you do not have any idea about electronics or you are a home craftsman, you should change the heater. Space heaters that keep shutting off show that there is something wrong with it. and you do not want to use heat-producing items when you are familiar with the fact that they do not work properly all the time.
Consider it as: after finding out the reason for the space heater shut-offs, what is the best thing you can do about it, repair it all by yourself? The best you can do is save more or less $50 to $200 that you would use to purchase a new unit of heater.
What is the worst case? In the worst case, there are some unrepairable defects or you were not able to repair the heater. The heater has become a safety hazard and burns your house down.
Here I would recommend to get a new heater. The cost of changing your defective unit with a quality one is lower than building a new home from scratch or even causing harm to a family member. For reliable home heating, my recommendation is this infrared heater (click to see it). You should give it a shot as well.
If you still want to do the fixes and find out the causes, keep reading. I will try my best to assist you with this.
Dusty air filters can cause overheating
If your heater contains an air filter, you should examine it. Is the air filter covered by a lot of dust? A dusty air filter is one of the most common causes that can result in space heater shutdowns. It blocks the airflow and that is why heat gathers inside your heater resulting in shutting down.
This only applies to heaters with built-in fans that blow warm air. Not all space heaters have built-in fans. If you are unsure if your space comes with a built-in fan, simply turn it on and listen. Does it have a “blowing” wind sound? If yes, then check out if it has an opening to pull out the air filter. Otherwise, check the manual to see where is the filter.
Assuming you are able to locate the air filter, check it. Is it dusty?
What to do
If there is dust, pull all the dirt with your fingers to clean the air filter. If you are not comfortable with it, use gloves. To scrub the dust, you can also use an old toothbrush. Or use compressed air to blow the dust off.
Refrain from using water to clean your space heater’s air filter! Dust particles, skin particles and bacteria cover the air filter. This is the ideal place for small microscopic animals. If you use water on the air filter, it will flourish all the life on it. Whenever you turn on your space heater, it will stink very badly too. Are you familiar with the smell of old vacuum cleaners? You will experience it. I felt it once and I got rid of the heater. The smell remains there I tried everything.
In addition, apart from the smell, the wet cleaned filter will flourish the bacteria to be spread into your room. When you turn your space heater on, bacteria will be blown into your home. It is very unhealthy.
So, only Dry-clean air filters!
After removing the dust, put it back into your heater to find out if it is working now.
A lot of electric devices are plugged into your home’s circuit
The issue can be outside of your heater as well. The fault can be in the electric circuit of your home. If you have too many devices that are plugged in there, the system can be overloaded. The reason behind this is that home power circuits are designed in a way to give a fixed maximum amount of power. When you cross the maximum allowed limit of power consumption, it will result in a fuse blow. If there is a problem with your home circuit or the fuse is blown, overconsumption of power will cause underprovision of voltage, resulting in the failure of electric devices on the individual level.
A home circuit can handle a fixed maximum amperage, plugged-in devices should never cross that limit.
Different houses come with different limitations in terms of power. The ampere ratings can be between 100A (for small homes) to 250A (for bigger houses).
“100-amp service provides enough power for a small home without electric heating. […] In large homes, 250-amp or larger service capacity may be needed, particularly if the home has electric heating”
now have a look at the given quote above that pays attention to the usage of electric heating. An electric heater can have a significant impact on the electric current drawn from the power supply of your house.
Now let’s conduct a test to find out the cause of failure at your house. Unplug some appliances that consume large electricity. You can unplug a fridge (plug it back in after you perform the test), a TV and a computer. Now turn on your electric space heater and check if it still turns off.
If it does, you can confidently say that the problem is not in your home circuit. If your heater works fine now, hire an electrician to examine your circuitry. He will definitely help you to fix this issue.
If you do not think that your home electric circuit can support your electric space heater, it is my recommendation to move to a propane heater that does not require electricity (here is my recommendation).
You have a weak power supply in your home
The same rule applies to weak power supplies as well. In the previous section, the problem was with the home circuit, it was working fine but there were too many devices plugged in.
A weak home power supply means that your home circuit is not providing enough power even though you are not using too many devices simultaneously.
Technically, both of these cases are similar. In both cases, your space heater does not get enough current and as a result, shuts off.
In this situation, the ideal way is to get help from an electrician to examine it for you and he will measure the wall outlet power available. If you cannot afford one, you can perform the test on your friend’s or family member’s home, all you need to do is take your space heater to them. Test it there to check if it still keeps shutting off.
Loose contact with the wall outlet shutting off the space heater
If there is a loose contact in your wall outlet, it will shut off your space heater occasionally. Fortunately, you can test it easily.
Just plug your space heater in another wall outlet and examine if it works there properly. If your space heater runs fine and continuously and does not shut off there, you are facing this situation. The culprit is your outlet. Plug it back into the faulty outlet and check if it turns off again to ensure.
To fix the loose contact in your power supply, get help from an electrician. This would not be very costly. If you want to fix it on your own, have a look at the installation instructions (how to install wall outlets) and find or check the loose contact in your wall outlet.
I found this video very helpful, my personal recommendation:
How to replace an electrical outlet – This video will help you to check if your wall outlet is properly installed.
Your space heater stands on an uneven or too-soft surface
Most space heaters come with
Built-in tip-over protection. Tip-over protection is a security feature that can turn off your heater when it tips over. For instance, if a pet or a child runs against it and tips over the heater, it can cause a fire threat to your home.
Most of the time tip-over protection is a simple button that is available at the bottom of the heater. The button is in a longish shape. If the button is pressed down from the floor as it touches it, the heater is assumed to be in a standing position. If the button is not pressed, the assumption changes into tipping over and causes it to shut off.
This infrared space heater has a black button that you can see at the bottom which is a tip-over protection. When it stands on the floor, it presses down the button. When it tips over, the button is released and the space heater turns off.
If the heater stands on soft or uneven ground, the tip-over protection button may not be pressed fully, the heater might be mistaken to believe it is tipped over.
There are some sensitive heaters on uneven grounds, when a person walks past the heater could result in tip-over protection to wake up. It also occurs when the tip-over protection uses an accelerometer which measures the acceleration. When there is a movement, it shuts off. It can also happen when someone stomps past the space heater or pet bumps into it and the sensor can sense it.
The sensor of the space heater should not be too much sensitive and it should not be triggered by small impacts. Faulty sensors can also result in repeated heater shut-offs.
How to test it
You can tap the space heater when it is on to test the tip-over protection easily. If it turns off when you tap on it, the problem is with the tip-over protection.
If your heater stands on uneven or too soft ground, you can simply fix it by placing it on an even or solid surface.
If the problem is still there, the best course of action is to get a new heater. It is hard to detect the faulty electronics and it needs professional knowledge.
Final Words
Most of the time you can find the cause of your space heater shutting off by cleaning the air filter, checking it on different wall outlets, or placing it on an even surface. Once you found the problem, the best course of action is to replace your space heater. When the problem is with your space heater, my recommendation is not to fix the electronics. It can increase the risk of something going bad as compared to saving the $50-$200 for a new space heater.