How to "find" a single wire (from heater) in the circuit-breaker panel?

[hstraf]

I am trying to figure out the heating system in my house, and so I am trying to "trace the wires" from each heater back to the circuit-breaker panel.

I have all the wires for each heater figured out except for the "pilot" wires.

(Each heater has a hot wire, neutral wire, ground wire, and a "pilot" wire. The pilot wire connects from the heater to the remote thermostat and is supposed to receive a signal from the thermostat to turn the heater from "comfort" mode to "night" mode.)

Tracing the hot/neutral and ground wires was easy with a multi-meter. (Just look for voltage.)

The problem is that I am not sure how to trace back the "pilot" wire because it is only a single wire and there is no voltage on it.

Does anyone know how I can do this? How do I figure out which pilot wire in the circuit-breaker panel belongs to which heater when there is only a single wire for each heater?

Thanks!

 

[cook1e]

cant you use the earth wire for reference and short the 2 out then use your multimeter to establish which cable is down to earth ? isolated from the supply of course !

 

[hstraf]

I'm really sorry... but I have no idea what you mean by that.

So in the conduit going to each heater there is an earth, neutral, host, and pilot wire.

Do you mean I should connect the ground the pilot wire together?

Then what should I do on the circuit-breaker panel side? What setting would I use for the multi-meter?

Thanks!

(Sorry for my lack of understanding...

 

[hstraf]

What do you think if I were to connect a small battery (9v or something) to the earth and the pilot wire at the heater side? Then I could go to the circuit-breaker box and put the negative probe of the multi-meter to the earth and check which unknown incoming wire is the right one by touching the positive probe of the mult-meter to each one?

 

[cook1e]

I think you need to familiarise yourself with your tester before doing any more, just to see what it can do, why use a battery when you can short the unknown to a known and find it using the sounder function or resistance function on your tester

 

[Specialist]

From your original post, it sounds as if your pilot wire goes to the remote thermostat not the panel. To trace the wire as Cook1e says all you do is isolate the system at the panel, at 1 heater at a time ground the pilot wire. Then useing a Multimeter on the low resistance range test at the Remote stat or panel to identif the pilot wire from that heater. To be honest though if you don't understand Cook1e's reply then you really should'nt be messing with Electrics.

 

[hstraf]

Ah.. I see what you mean. (I think.)

So I could connect the hot wire to the pilot wire, and then check for it at the circuit-panel side?

(I've read the manual for the tester a few times.. but honestly I'm not really an electrician and a lot of it is over my head... hence the reason I'm here asking this dumb question in the forums here.)

 

[Specialist]

Do i take it from your original post that your in America ? By the way why do you want to trace the wiring for your heaters ? do you have an Electrical problem ?

You really should'nt be doing live testing, especially as you don't really understand what your doing.

 

[hstraf]

From your original post, it sounds as if your pilot wire goes to the remote thermostat not the panel. To trace the wire as Cook1e says all you do is isolate the system at the panel, at 1 heater at a time ground the pilot wire. Then useing a Multimeter on the low resistance range test at the Remote stat or panel to identif the pilot wire from that heater. To be honest though if you don't understand Cook1e's reply then you really should'nt be messing with Electrics.

Yes, this is correct (sort of). Each heater's pilot wire goes to the panel and connects into some kind of contoller... which then connects to the remote thermostat control.

So at this point, I have disconnected all the pilot wires in the circuit-breaker panel and they are hanging out waiting to be identified.

What what I understand about your suggestion... I could connect (at the heater side) the pilot wire and the ground wire... and then test using low-resistance mode in the mult-meter. So (at the panel) I would connect the negative probe of the meter to the earth... and then the positive would touch each of the pilot wires until the one that shows a connection.

Is that correct?

 

[hstraf]

Do i take it from your original post that your in America ? By the way why do you want to trace the wiring for your heaters ? do you have an Electrical problem ?

I am actually in Corsica, France.

I would like to trace the wires, because the therostat has two "zones" for setting up heating... but I have no idea which heater belongs to which "zone".

I am unable to figure it out any other way, because the zone control system is not "on/off", but rather "normal temperature/reduced temperature.)

(ie: The thermostat allows you to set two zones.. where for example you could have a bedroom zone at reduced temperature and a living zone at normal temperature.)

 

[Specialist]

Yes your completely correct, just make sure that you isolate all power from the system first & test useing the Ohms range of your multimeter. Know this sounds obvious but make sure you mark each wire as you find it.
Sorry thought you were in the US with the wireing terms you used.

Please no more live testing.

 

[hstraf]

Sorry thought you were in the US with the wireing terms you used.

I am originally from Canada. (So ya... basically the same as the US.

 

[Specialist]

Good luck with it & please let us know how you get on.