Thermoacoustic oscillation of an air column induced by heated wires is investigated analytically and experimentally. Acoustic power generation from a single heater wire is estimated based on the result of heat transfer analysis and expressed in terms of the efficiency factor indicating the conversion efficiency from heat to acoustic energy. It is shown that the efficiency factor becomes maximum when the wire radius is the order of the coustic boundary layer thickness and the flow velocity is close to the thermal diffusion velocity. Onset condition of the column oscillation is obtained by equating the acoustic power generation at the heater to the power loss due to thermoviscous dissipation at the tube wall and the convection and radiationloss at the open ends of the tube. In estimating the acoustic power generation, the heater is treated as a stretched single wire by correcting the flow velocity to take into account the interactions between adjacent heater wires. Experiment is performed by using a spiral heater of 1mm diameter in an air column of 37mm diameter. The heat input to drive the oscillation is measured and compared with the theoretical prediction. A good agreement is found between the theory and experiment, which is regarded as a substantial verification of the present analysis.