Baseboard heaters are of great convenience! These devices not only provide us and our homes with heat in winter and fall, they are also highly energy-efficient.
In addition, with a baseboard heater, you are able to fully control the temperature of each room in your house or flat! This is why the majority of home owners and those who live in apartments choose to have baseboard heaters.
However, it can often happen that you go and turn your baseboard heater off, but nothing happens! Let’s agree, this is quite an unsettling thing to experience.
In this case, most of you would probably start asking the same question: why won’t my baseboard heater turn off? And how to turn the baseboard heater off at all if I need that?
So today we are going to adhere to your requests and tell you in detail how to turn off the baseboard heater.
In addition, we will describe the process for different types of this heating appliance so that you could choose the most appropriate method for you depending on what kind of baseboard heater you have.
Finally, you will learn what could be the reasons of your baseboard heater malfunctioning. With all that in mind, we are sure that you will easily cope with any issue that may happen with your heater easily!
How to Make My Baseboard Heater Turn Off?
There might be different reasons why you need to turn the baseboard heater off. One of the most frequent ones is that it is heating your home too much so it feels hot like a desert in your rooms! Of course, in this case you would want to reduce the heat of turn it off completely for a while to let the room cool down!
But how to turn off a baseboard heater in your apartment or a house, you may be wondering? Well, if you have never done that before, you might think it is a complicated task. But in fact, this is not rocket science at all!
In simple words, every baseboard heater usually comes with a turn on/switch off to turn the unit on or off respectively.
As an option, your particular appliance may have a special knob on its side of the heater that serves for the same purpose of controlling the work of the device.
However, as you probably know, there are different types of baseboard heaters, and each of them has slightly distinct method of turning it off. Usually, you can find one of the following heaters in the market:
- a heater with a knob
- a heater without a knob
- a baseboard heater with thermostat
- a heater with no thermostat
And each of these heaters must be switched off differently. This is actually the nuance that the owners often miss out when it comes to reducing or switching off the heat on their appliance!
So below you will find a detailed guide on how to make your baseboard heater turn off depending on its particular type. In addition, being aware of the alternative switch-off methods might be helpful in case your baseboard heater’s knob gets faulty.
How to Turn Off Baseboard Heater With Knob?
If you need to figure out how to turn off a baseboard heater in an apartment, check first whether your device has a knob. If it has it, then turning it off will be the simplest thing in the world!
All you need to do in this case is to set the knob to the Off position, and your baseboard heater will be turned off immediately. Then, unplug the unit from the electric outlet.
See, the knob on the side of your baseboard heater does not only help you to turn the device off or back on. With its help, you can also adjust the temperature!
To do this, simply rotate the knob to the lower setting in order to decrease the temperature and thus the heat. And if you need to make it hotter in your room, just set the knob dial to a High position.
Related: At What Temperature Outside to Put Heating On?
How to Turn Off a Baseboard Heater That Doesn’t Have a Knob?
But what if your particular baseboard heater has no such knob< you may be wondering? Relax, this is not a problem at all! In this case, you can still simply turn the heater off.
In such a situation, you can shut your baseboard heater down by adjusting the thermosets. Just set it to its lowest setting or turn the thermostat to the Off setting to switch off the heating appliance.
Another question that the owners of such devices ask is how to turn off electric baseboard heater.
Well, in case you have an electric baseboard heater, you need to take into consideration that there may be a wall-mounted thermostat that controls the whole unit. In this case, make use of this thermostat to easily turn on or off the heater.
As an option, if you need to learn how to turn off a hot water baseboard heater, your heating appliance can also be turned off by using the zone valve. This zone valve can easily be found near the boiler, so you will not miss it out for sure!
Related: How Long Does It Take For Pipes to Freeze And Burst?
I Have a Baseboard Heater With Thermostat. How to Turn It Off?
If you are the owner of a baseboard heater that has thermostat, and you need to turn the appliance off, you will need to make use of the thermostat for this purpose. To shut off your heater, either set the thermostat to the lowest setting or set it to the off position.
Therefore, the thermostat of your unit gives the stop command if the temperature crosses a certain level.
This is why shutting off a baseboard heater that has thermostat is one of the simplest things to do!
How to Turn Off a Baseboard Heater If It Has No Thermostat?
What shall you do if you realize that your baseboard heater has no thermostat? How to turn it off in this case? Well, we need to specify it at once that the majority of baseboard heaters do have thermostats.
However, some of them might not feature such an option indeed or they might have a thermostat but have no off switch instead.
If this is your case and you are in need of switching the unit off somehow, you need to find a boiler or a furnace switch. Once you find one of those, turn it off in order to shut off your baseboard heater completely.
With these alternative switch-off methods and approaches, you will now be able to easily deal with any type of baseboard heater if you need to turn it off to reduce the heat in your home for a while.
How to Turn the Power Off to a Baseboard Heater In One Room?
Do you know why so many people prefer installing baseboard heaters in their homes?
One of the major reasons is that this appliance allows you to fully control the level of heat in your rooms! Of course, sooner or later, you will start wondering how to turn off a baseboard heater if it is too hot in a room.
Well, if you were hoping that it is possible to switch off your baseboard heater in one specific room, you will most likely be not able to do that unfortunately.
That’s because in general, the heating zones work as a big loop. So, you never turn the heater off for a single room without some sort of replumbing.
The only problem with that replumbing is that you need to inspect the entire plumbing system in your home because each situation is different.
In this case, we would recommend you hire a professional and certified technician in order to take care of this issue properly.
On the other hand, the scenario will be completely different in case every room in your home has its own thermostat. In this case, it is possible to reduce the temperature in a specific room by simply adjusting its thermostat.
And if you have a hot water heater, it is possible to bring down the heat transfer by adjusting the damper on the baseboard housing.
On the other hand, you will have to install a switch to control the temperature on the electric baseboard.
Why Won’t My Baseboard Heater Turn Off?
It can often happen that your baseboard heater won’t turn off at all when you try to do this in order to reduce the heat. If this happens, you will definitely want to know what the cause is.
In most cases, it happens due to the thermostat. The best solution is to simply replace it with the new one, of course, but if this is not an option right now, you can try another solution.
For an easy and quick fix, try to tap the thermostat as much as you need to for it to work again. Of course, you need to realize that such a “fix” is short term and sooner or later, you will have to have your thermostat examined properly.
And since most often than not your baseboard heater won’t shut off because of the thermostat flaws, there are several other reasons why it can happen.
- The A/C runs at all times
- Your room is not the same temperature as the thermostat is set to
- Low battery notification
- Higher energy bills
- It has been 8-12 years since you got a new thermostat
In case the A/C is running all the time indeed, the thermostat is to blame.
When the heater won’t turn off, it’s eitheer because the thermostat is stuck or there is a malfunction. Both of these problems can be solved by replacing the thermostat.
Also, pay attention to see if you possibly missed the low battery notification. Some “smart” thermostats can directly message you if there is an error or if the battery is low.
Otherwise, check the battery level of the thermostat to catch it before you can’t switch the heater off. So, this was our guide on what to do if your baseboard heater won’t turn off.
Now you are aware of all the possible reasons and their fixture methods. With that in mind, such an issue will hardly ever be a problem for you again!
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