Sounds as if you are living in rented premises. It is illegal for you to do electrical work in/on such premises unless you are properly licensed. And then only with permission from the property owner.

I don't see a need to remove the existing thermostat. Just turn it to the upper limit.

I will see if the landlord will come in and do it. I don't live in an apartment, so I do see him often. He came in a while ago to replace a broken built in thermostat. Although, he also isn't a licensed electrician, just the property owner. I'm guessing he hasn't done this before, so would my idea in the first post be safe to get him to do?

Screwing with a listed heater is not smart nor legal and as ionized points out unnecessary.

Landlords generally are not allowed to do electrical work either. They need to bring in electricians. You need to install proper boxes for these line voltage thermostat. You just can't poke the wires out of the wall like you can with the low voltage systems that other thermostats use.

My original plan wasn't to access wires from inside the wall. I was going to run an extension from the baseboard (outside the wall, and cover the wires with a low profile wire cover) to a decent height on the wall, where I would then attach the digital thermostat that I currently have installed in place of the standard wall-dial thermostat that was originally in my current place.

Ronnatalie, when you say generally, do you mean legally? Because my landlord has himself, and with a friend who is obviously not certified, changed the thermostats in a couple of my baseboard heaters where I currently live. The friend has also attempted to fix an issue with a wall outlet that only had one of the two sockets working. I have never trusted the wiring in my place, but also have never had any significant issues. I have already gone through every socket in my new place with a grounding/wiring tester, and all sockets have come up with good connections.

Replacing thermostats in situ one *might* argue is legitimate, but it's probably still technically illegal without one of the property maintenance certificates.

Duffers who have neither the knowledge nor the certification to know how to do things legally and safely have no business endangering the safety of other people. While I'll help a single-family homeowner with information on how to do things, this is a risk he can assume for him and his family alone (and typically the only exception the law allows). Unless it comes to pools.

Bob,

Setting aside for the moment the issue of who is permitted to do this work, I'm not getting a sense from you that you are technically adept at wiring. I haven't heard anything in the way of specifics (wire gauge, if this is a line voltage thermostat or low voltage with relay, etc.)

I don't have an issue when the landlord replaces an outlet, switch or fixture. I do have an issue with tenants doing work that's more involved. It's not fair to the other people who may rent after them. Let this idea drop and stick with the existing thermostats.

I'm an engineer - not an electrician - but I did work in my family's HVAC business, many years ago.

You would need a line voltage T-stat for each baseboard. This type of thermostat, with set back - is going to cost you approx. $100 - $150 each.

I don't know if this will work - but if all the baseboards are on one circuit - you could have an electrician install a smart low voltage thermostat (centrally in your home) and run the low voltage to a relay by the electrical panel to control the line voltage to the baseboards.

Then you would just dial the baseboards to the max and let the T-stat / relay control the current to them.