Cheap Heater Setup

[Zhewitt04]

I know I know... don't buy the cheap heaters, and I agree, for the money why not just buy a little better quality heater. In my opinion though most of the "good quality" heaters are still junk and its only a matter of time before they go bad as well. Heck all heaters (say that in a general matter) are made in china now! My question is if you were to use GFCI plug ins and a AFCI breaker in place of your normal breaker would this fix any issues of socking the fish and or me and take out any danger of burning my house down? The fish tank is inside...the coldest it would get is 70 degrees as that is what my house is set at. Jsut curious more than anything. I am gonig to buy the GFCI and AFCI anyways so if I am bullet proof I was going to save some money on a cheap heater but if you guys think there is something else that can go bad please share....
Thanks

 

[boldtogether]

I know I know... don't buy the cheap heaters, and I agree, for the money why not just buy a little better quality heater. In my opinion though most of the "good quality" heaters are still junk and its only a matter of time before they go bad as well. Heck all heaters (say that in a general matter) are made in china now! My question is if you were to use GFCI plug ins and a AFCI breaker in place of your normal breaker would this fix any issues of socking the fish and or me and take out any danger of burning my house down? The fish tank is inside...the coldest it would get is 70 degrees as that is what my house is set at. Jsut curious more than anything. I am gonig to buy the GFCI and AFCI anyways so if I am bullet proof I was going to save some money on a cheap heater but if you guys think there is something else that can go bad please share....
Thanks

I agere with you on the cheap heater opinion....and "made in China" isn't always a bad thing...Jåger used to be made by Germans and could be relied on as one of the best around....now it is, in my opinion, only slightly better than the rest....but I have moved on.
Commercially available heaters, usually titanium, are the way to go and they are expensive. Installing GFCI and AFCI are good ideas whether or not a heater is plugged in or not. Every plug in my home that is near or even remotely near water is GFCI...
One word about GFCI circuits...
make sure the GFCI is properly grounded. I know of several people who relied on GFCI's that weren't grounded properly. A proper ground is earth ground and a "floating" ground just doesn't hack it for safety or even code.

 

[monkeybike]

Buy a Ranco controller, at least you won't have to worry about a cheap heater thermostat sticking,

 

[Zhewitt04]

I forgot to mention that I have a controller as well.

 

[Zhewitt04]

I agere with you on the cheap heater opinion....and "made in China" isn't always a bad thing...Jåger used to be made by Germans and could be relied on as one of the best around....now it is, in my opinion, only slightly better than the rest....but I have moved on.
Commercially available heaters, usually titanium, are the way to go and they are expensive. Installing GFCI and AFCI are good ideas whether or not a heater is plugged in or not. Every plug in my home that is near or even remotely near water is GFCI...
One word about GFCI circuits...
make sure the GFCI is properly grounded. I know of several people who relied on GFCI's that weren't grounded properly. A proper ground is earth ground and a "floating" ground just doesn't hack it for safety or even code.

Thanks for the info.

 

[smitty03281964]

I think all manufactures of heaters have their problems big or small. I have all them all including titanium and they have even had problems. The heater I use the most is Visi-Therm, but the one that has been the most reliable is the Aqueon.