From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
Subject: Re: "balancing" a power panel
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:07:46 GMT
Organization: Elegant Communications Inc., Ottawa, Canada

In article <1993Jan3.223928.12981@porthos.cc.bellcore.com> patter@dasher.cc.bellcore.com (patterson,george r) writes:
>In article <4094@ecicrl.ocunix.on.ca> clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan1.005238.15689@porthos.cc.bellcore.com> patter@dasher.cc.bellcore.com (patterson,george r) writes:
>>
>>|In this area of the country, the total of each side's breakers cannot
>>|exceed the size of the main breaker by law. Previous postings on this
>>|subject indicate that this is not a universal code.
>>
>>In fact, previous postings show that your area is the exception.  Most
>>places don't require this.  Must make wiring really wierd.  If you have
>>more than a dryer, stove and kitchen, you'd have to have 300A or bigger
>>services.  My house would need a 600A main...

>Not really. In this area, anyone with any sense of economics uses gas
>for everything they can. That brings you in at 100 or 150 amp service.
>If I had an electric dryer, stove, and water heater, I'd need a 250 amp
>service for my house.

Precisely.  Enormous mains for no particular reason.  I have a largish
house - 3000ish square feet.  Electric stove, oven, dryer, washer, water
heater plus (gasp!) electric baseboard heat (calm down, it's the backup
for the wood stove ;-) capable of handling our -40F (-40C) days.  Gas would
be nice, but there ain't no gas within 15 miles.  (Oil or propane would
have been fine too, but we didn't build this place).  Plus lots of outlets
and lighting (CEC has same outlet requirements per foot as NEC) well in excess
of code.

Our code actively encourages more circuits with fewer fixtures per line
than the NEC.  And uses demand factors if you have to use the "long form"
main calculation.

Main size?  One 200A service.  That's all.  40 breaker panel, plus 16 breaker
pony panel.  Without electric heat it would have been 150A.  When I add up all
the breakers it comes to about 900A.  (450A per side).  This is completely
and fully to code - sized according to code calculations.  Only monster houses
need more (ie: the ones with two furnaces).  Not even the Reader's Digest Do-it-
Yourself book or Knight show larger residential services than 200A in their
tables.  And I've never seen a main breaker or fuse blow.

[Surprisingly, this place is cheaper to operate than our previous house -
2200 SF plus forced air natural gas plus air-source heatpump plus gas
water heater.  Both houses were well insulated.  Particularly this one.
Mind you, we run this place fairly cold.  Cooler than even Canucks
prefer.  Positively freezing for those hot-house plants called Americans ;-)
Our thermostats are set at or below 15C (60F) except in the bathrooms ;-)]

>As it is, I have a relatively new 125 amp main breaker and have one empty
>15 amp circuit left for a four bedroom house. In accordance with practices
>taught me by a military electrician, I have split the existing circuits
>so that none of them have more than nine duplex outlets or twelve light
>fixtures (or any equivalent combination of the two) per 20 amp supply.
>Four of the circuits are dedicated to appliances.

Interesting contrast.  CEC requires 100A minimum.  And that minimum already
contains a mandatory allowance for electric stove and dryer.  By your rules,
that'd only leave two 20A circuits for the rest of the house.  (In some
special cases we can get away with 60A.  Not often.  Most houses are 125A)

Your "practices" are very close to code here.  Tho, the military electrician
would wire to a much more strict set of code than local "civil" code (ie: NEC).

>Now, my parents house in Tennessee was all-electric at one time. It had
>one 250 amp fuse panel for the heat, a separate 300 amp breaker panel
>for nearly everything else, and a panel for the shop with four fuses in
>it. With the exception of the shop fuse box, this was typical of houses
>constructed in the 60s in that area. The conduit for the main service
>is about four inches in diameter.

TVA?  It figgers.  My main entrance conduit is 2.5" I think.
-- 
Chris Lewis; clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca; Phone: Canada 613 832-0541
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