Great 15 Amp Breaker With 12 Gauge Wire
The breaker protecting any situation where there are mixed sizes must protect the smallest capacity wire.
15 amp breaker with 12 gauge wire. A 15 amp breaker on the other hand will trip before 14 gauge wire overheats. Because it has even less chance of overheating 12 gauge wire is also acceptable on a 15 amp circuit. It is actually not uncommon to use a larger size wire than specified especially on long runs.
Then yes using 12 awg will increase your costs and make your installation difficult because the wire will not fit the outlets properly. The home is most likely wired with 15a receptical outlets off of that 12 conductor. 12 gauge wire is nominally sized for 20 amps and 14 gauge is sized for 15 amps.
For 12 gauge wire 20 amps can safely be handled. Should the circuit breaker fail to operate correctly that heater will draw more current than the wires can safely handle and could heat the wires to the point of melting the insulation around the wires and igniting surrounding materials. Anyone having an issue with nuisance trips that knows anything about wire sizing 12 20a would assume that the 15a disconnect could simply be swapped out with a 20a to reduce the tripping but could allow for a fire hazard at individual outlets.
For example plugging a heater rated for 20 amps into a 15 amp circuit wired with 14 gauge wire poses a distinct danger. If you are using 15 amp breaker and 15 amp outlets and your wire run is less than 100 ft. So any size circuit breaker of 20 amps or less will be ok.
This is due to the fact that the larger wire will reduce voltage less at the load.