If you have electric baseboard heaters, it’s important to choose thermostats with the right wattage and to ensure that you never reach their maximum to avoid the risk of fire. This means, for example, that if in a room you have two skirting boards of 1000 watts each, you must take a thermostat of more than 2000 watts. We recommend choosing a thermostat about 80% more efficient, which would give a thermostat of about 3600 watts.
How do I install an LED strip to illuminate the skirting boards of my furniture?
Generally there is a gap of several centimeters between the baseboards and the front of the kitchen units. This is where the LED ribbon should be installed so that the points of light on the ribbon are not visible and the light will be directed towards the ground, this is called indirect lighting or halo of light . The rendering will be stunning, you will have the impression that your furniture will be in “levitation”.
In terms of fixing, it’s very simple because the LED strip has a self-adhesive back, so you can stick it directly on the underside of the furniture in order to direct the lighting towards the floor. Small precaution to take because the self-adhesive back of the LED tape is effective only on smooth, clean and non-greasy surfaces. You can therefore reinforce the adhesive with a silicone glue to guarantee the good hold of the LED strip.
We also have a range of aluminum profiles for LED tape, simply stick the tape to the bottom of the profile. They offer a better finish to the installation but they are also very useful because they help to diffuse the heat that can be emitted by the LED strip.
How do I power and manage the lighting on my furniture plinths?
Apart from a model of LED ribbon which operates at direct 220V, all our ribbons operate at low voltage, i.e. at 12V or 24V. It will therefore be necessary to install a 220V/12V or 220V/24V power supply to be able to power the LED strips, depending on the electrical installation you have the possibility of choosing between several power supply models. “Desktop” power supplies plug directly into a mains socket and are therefore easy to install. The best is to have a socket that would be hidden in one of the kitchen cabinets, in this way you can hide the power supply and the control system.
If, on the contrary, you do not have mains sockets available but rather a standby outlet with wires directly, no problem since we have other power supply models that adapt to this type of installation. The “industrial” type power supplies are connected using a screw terminal block, or the “watertight” ones which are equipped with stripped wires directly.
Depending on the LED lighting ribbon that will be put in place, you can vary the power of the lighting, play with the different colors or even launch animations that will change the color automatically. To be able to control the strip, a dimmer or controller for LED strips must be installed between the power supply and the LED strip. If you plan to install LED lighting elsewhere in the kitchen, in the living room or more generally in the house, you have a zone control system at your disposal, this is our LumiConnect range.. With this range you can control at the same time or separately all the lights that are compatible such as LED strips, connected bulbs or even recessed ceiling spotlights. Everything can be controlled with a remote control, a wall touch panel or even your smartphone.
THE MECHANICAL THERMOSTAT
The mechanical thermostat, also called bimetallic or “roller”, has long been the one found in our homes.
It consists of a wheel adjustment button and a box in which there are two blades (one fixed and the other mobile), which are activated when the temperature drops. When their ends come into contact, it activates the heating system. Once the requested temperature is reached, the blades separate and the system stops.
Mechanical thermostats are the least expensive on the market, but also the least precise because they are much less sensitive to temperature variations than electric thermostats. Also, they take longer to start or stop, which generates differences of 2 to 5˚C between the ambient temperature obtained and the desired one, forcing us to readjust the temperature upwards or downwards. drop to reach our comfort zone.
This type of thermostat can however be useful if our heating system is powered from an unstable electrical source. In such a case, it will prevent the system from overheating.
THE ELECTRIC THERMOSTAT
If your home is heated by electricity, heating accounts for almost 54% of your electricity bill. An electronic thermostat being more precise than a mechanical model, it can help you save up to 10% of your annual heating costs, while improving your comfort because it ensures a much more stable and precise temperature, i.e. at least maximum 0.5oC different from that requested. There are two kinds: non-programmable and programmable.
The non-programmable electric thermostat works from a pulse controller and analyzes the temperature every 15 seconds, thus providing a stable and pleasant room temperature. If you have a heat pump, the thermostat can be installed both indoors and outdoors.
As for the programmable electric thermostat, it allows you to adjust the temperature of each room or the entire house with a timer set on a predetermined schedule. This thermostat makes it possible to reduce heating costs even further (up to 5%), if the room temperature is lowered by 3°C for eight hours, for example during the night.
SMART THERMOSTATS
Although most smart thermostats are designed in Internet of things for forced-air central heating systems and heat pumps, some recent models have been created specifically for electric baseboards and convectors.
The smart thermostat controls both the heating system, the air conditioner and the humidifier and itself modifies the level of heating and cooling according to changes in weather conditions. We can change the ambient temperature of our home remotely from devices connected to the Internet, such as a computer, smartphone or tablet. It is even possible to automatically adjust the temperature thanks to the geolocation of our phone, so that the temperature will be perfectly adjusted when we set foot in the house.
However, expect to pay almost four times the price of an electric model and the complexity of its installation process requires a heating technician who will be able to take care of it.