From: GA.MCL@forsythe.stanford.edu (Mark C. Lawrence)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
Subject: main service requirements (was: balancing a panel)
Date: 7 Jan 1993 17:04:20 -0800
Organization: Stanford University
Distribution: na
NNTP-Posting-Host: morrow.stanford.edu

In misc.consumers.house 82324,  Sun, 3 Ja,
patter@dasher.cc.bellcore.com (patterson,george r) said,
Subject: Re: "balancing" a power panel
In article <4094@ecicrl.ocunix.on.ca> clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) writes:
patter>|In this area of the country, the total of each side's breakers cannot
patter>|exceed the size of the main breaker by law. Previous postings on this
patter>|subject indicate that this is not a universal code.
>
clewis>In fact, previous postings show that your area is the exception.  Most
clewis>places don't require this.  Must make wiring really wierd.  If you have
clewis>more than a dryer, stove and kitchen, you'd have to have 300A or bigger
clewis>services.  My house would need a 600A main...

patter>Not really. In this area, anyone with any sense of economics uses gas
       ^^^^^^^^^^                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        see below.               of course, because your code has made
                                 electric too expensive to install.

patter>for everything they can. That brings you in at 100 or 150 amp service.
patter>If I had an electric dryer, stove, and water heater, I'd need a 250 amp
patter>service for my house.
patter>..
patter>Now, my parents house in Tennessee was all-electric at one time. It had
patter>one 250 amp fuse panel for the heat, a separate 300 amp breaker panel
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sounds like about 600A to me.  That is completely absurd.  An exellent example
of why local authorities shouldn't be allowed to write building codes.

patter>for nearly everything else, and a panel for the shop with four fuses in
patter>it. With the exception of the shop fuse box, this was typical of houses
patter>constructed in the 60s in that area. The conduit for the main service
patter>is about four inches in diameter.
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So you have spent several unnecessary kilobucks on an electric service that is
far larger than you can ever use.

Besides the obvious unneeded costs this requirement imposes, there is another
disadvantage:  It actually discourages safe, conservative wiring practices.
Conservative practice would be to put fewer outlets on a circuit than the code
allows, that is, use more circuits than the minimum.  Put in extra circuits;
put in extra outlets.  None of these things actually increase the load on your
service; all provide greater convenience and/or safety.  The cost is usually
minimal, just a few extra breakers and a bit more wire; the labor is about the
same.

BUT, with your Code-from-Hell setup, adding those extra circuits will require
a bigger main, at a cost of hundreds to thousands of dollars.  So most
builders aren't going to do it.  The result will be houses with overbuilt main
services, and underdesigned circuits.

This is not an engineering problem, it is a political problem...followups to
alt.conspiricies, or maybe rec.guns :-)

Mark C. Lawrence
Systems Programmer     Internet: M.Lawrence@Forsythe.Stanford.edu
Stanford Data Center     Bitnet: M.Lawrence@STANFORD
Stanford, CA 94305-4136     Tel: (415) 723-4976
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house