The combination of a heating element and a control unit therefor and methods of making and of operating the same are provided, the heating element normally being adapted to be operated by the continuous full wave pulses of a certain high voltage alternating current source and the control unit being operatively interconnected to the heating element for operatively interconnecting the heating element to a high voltage alternating current source, the control unit having an arrangement for operating the heating element with a certain repeating pattern of skipped full half-wave pulses of the source when the source has a higher voltage than the certain source.