I recently inspected a home in which the forced air heating system had been removed and replaced with individual forced-air wall electric heaters.  For convenience the location of the old heating system registers was used as a place to install the new electric heaters.  While this was convenient, in some respects it created problems with the required clearances between the heaters and the finish flooring.  These particular heaters have a 4" minimum clearance requirement.  All of the heaters were too close to the floor which could result in overheating of the wood floors and possible fire.  While the temperature of the floor under this heater is not high enough to result in combustion, the heater was only operated for a few minutes and prolonged use of the heater would result in higher temperatures.  Carpeting installed in conjunction with this installation would compound the issue.  As previously discussed in More Pyrolysis the combustion temperature of wood is lowered by repeated heating.

      Hopefully this was not the work of a licensed electrical contractor.

Charles Buell