Appliance ckts (kitchen) are 20A, i.e., 2400VA.
Rather than a kiln, a bit more realistic example would be you have a 100a service and your wife wants to cook dinner in the electric over which uses up to 50 a and do a load of laundry which can use close to 30a while you want to brew... or run the AC unit...And also this:
That's actually pretty typical. Remember that a 200 amp main panel breaker implies feeder wire sized for 200 amps on each phase so that the panel can accommodate 400 amps worth of 120 V breakers.
There's no restriction on the number of breakers installed in a panel as long as the feeder/service is sized to support the loads. Sizing in figured out but taking 3 KVA per square foot, 1500 per appliance circuit... plus the loads for air conditioners, clothes driers, ranges, motors and other loads. As obviously not all the loads are on at the same time there are derating factors. The service or feeder wire for the panel is based on this load. It usually turns out that the total breaker capacity is twice the required panel disconnect capacity e.g. 200 amp main breaker, capacity 2 x 200 = 400; installed breakers 2 x 400 = 800.
I've a stinking suspicion that many electricians ask the customer what kind and how many circuits he wants, add them up and just divide by 4 to get the size of the main breaker but it is only a suspicion.
Now if you go in and install an electric brewery and you wife installs a kiln at the same time and the factor goes over x 4 can you "argue*" to the inspector you never brew on the same day she fires her pottery? No idea.
*I remember asking a site supervisor once about his plans for the weekend. His response was that his outfit was starting its first job in DC on Monday and that he was going to spend the weekend practicing folding $20 bills so they would fit inside matchbook covers.
Appliance ckts (kitchen) are 20A, i.e., 2400VA.
I wish one could argue that as I have two such panels in my house which isn't that large. Things just add up. Heat pumps for mutiple zones, E-heat for the associated air handlers (a biggie), sump pumps, well pump (another fairly big one), clothes dryer, dual electric ovens, supplementary heaters in the loos...,,and if you do have 800 amps of mostly smaller 20 a breakers on a 200a circuit one could argue your likely either running a hotel or have the funds to upgrade if needed without even thinking about it.
I have 170 amps of breakers in my 1500sqft home with my hot tub and brewery...I wish one could argue that as I have two such panels in my house which isn't that large. Things just add up. Heat pumps for mutiple zones, E-heat for the associated air handlers (a biggie), sump pumps, well pump (another fairly big one), clothes dryer, dual electric ovens, supplementary heaters in the loos...
That says you are oversized as 100 Amp service should support roughly 400 amps of breakers. Your examples of doing laundry while dinner is cooking and the A/C is on says otherwise. Are you adding up right? Remember that a 30 amp circuit for a hot tub is 60 amps worth of breakers - 30 amps on each phase.I have 170 amps of breakers in my 1500sqft home with my hot tub and brewery...
Why is each phase breaker a 60 amp breaker tied together and not a 30 amp breaker if thats true? my hot tub requires 60 amps not 30. there are (2) motors (3-5hp ) and a large heater as well as air pumps running off of it) just as my brewery requires 2 30 amp breakers tied together... each phase of my main breaker is also 100 amps. I also have other 240v appliances like my fermenter control glycol chiller running intermittently.That says you are oversized as 100 Amp service should support roughly 400 amps of breakers. Your examples of doing laundry while dinner is cooking and the A/C is on says otherwise. Are you adding up right? Remember that a 30 amp circuit for a hot tub is 60 amps worth of breakers - 30 amps on each phase.
Because your hot tub needs 60 A per phase, not 30. As I had no idea how much power your hot tub requires I just threw out 30 as an example to show you how to do the calculation. If we rephrase that for your actual hot tub load it is 120 Amps (@ 120V).Why is each phase breaker a 60 amp breaker tied together and not a 30 amp breaker if thats true? my hot tub requires 60 amps not 30.
just as my brewery requires 2 30 amp breakers tied together...
Meaning that your panel's capacity is 200 amperes at 120V.each phase of my main breaker is also 100 amps.
No, I did not say that at all.So your saying its ok to have more than 100amps being drawn throught the main 100 amp breakers at once like would happen if I had my hot tub, brewery and a couple other houshold appliances running at once?
If that happens and it draws the full capacity of its branch circuit then it will be drawing 60A or 60% of the service capacity. If your brewery's electrics come on at that time and draw 30 A from each phase then the total load is 90A and you only have 10% reserve. If you now plug a 1200 KVA load into a single phase outlet and turn it on you will have a 100 A load on that circuit and the breaker will be at limit. If your wife fires off the range at that point in time you will have an overload and the breaker will trip protecting the service wires.again my hot tub turns on randomly with all pumps and heaters on full blast to run cleaning cycles multiple times a day it seems. ..
Because your hot tub needs 60 A per phase, not 30. As I had no idea how much power your hot tub requires I just threw out 30 as an example to show you how to do the calculation. If we rephrase that for your actual hot tub load it is 120 Amps (@ 120V).
So your brewery load is 60 amps. Adding just those two together we get 180 amps which is more than the 170 you said you had so clearly you were not adding them up right.
Meaning that your panel's capacity is 200 amperes at 120V.
No, I did not say that at all.
If that happens and it draws the full capacity of its branch circuit then it will be drawing 60A or 60% of the service capacity. If your brewery's electrics come on at that time and draw 30 A from each phase then the total load is 90A and you only have 10% reserve. If you now plug a 1200 KVA load into a single phase outlet and turn it on you will have a 100 A load on that circuit and the breaker will be at limit. If your wife fires off the range at that point in time you will have an overload and the breaker will trip protecting the service wires.
Hot tub 60A 240 V = 120A
Brewery 30A 240 V = 60 A
Range 50A 240 V = 100 A
Dryer 40A 240V = 80 A
Lights 1500*3/120 = 37.6 A
3 Appliance ckts 60 A
Adding those up gives 457.6A which is more than 4 x 100 so you are, as we knew, undersized. If you weren't undersized you wouldn't have to be worrying about what is on when.
my dryer, range and furnace are all gas (I was speaking hypothetically when creating examples with them) and I have no large furnace blowers as I have 3 gas fireplaces and a gravity floor furnace... this and the fact that its just my girlfriend and I living here likely is why I have never had an issue.Because your hot tub needs 60 A per phase, not 30. As I had no idea how much power your hot tub requires I just threw out 30 as an example to show you how to do the calculation. If we rephrase that for your actual hot tub load it is 120 Amps (@ 120V).
So your brewery load is 60 amps. Adding just those two together we get 180 amps which is more than the 170 you said you had so clearly you were not adding them up right.
Meaning that your panel's capacity is 200 amperes at 120V.
No, I did not say that at all.
If that happens and it draws the full capacity of its branch circuit then it will be drawing 60A or 60% of the service capacity. If your brewery's electrics come on at that time and draw 30 A from each phase then the total load is 90A and you only have 10% reserve. If you now plug a 1200 KVA load into a single phase outlet and turn it on you will have a 100 A load on that circuit and the breaker will be at limit. If your wife fires off the range at that point in time you will have an overload and the breaker will trip protecting the service wires.
Hot tub 60A 240 V = 120A
Brewery 30A 240 V = 60 A
Range 50A 240 V = 100 A
Dryer 40A 240V = 80 A
Lights 1500*3/120 = 37.6 A
3 Appliance ckts 60 A
Adding those up gives 457.6A which is more than 4 x 100 so you are, as we knew, undersized. If you weren't undersized you wouldn't have to be worrying about what is on when.
You know I just took a closer look and my mains breakers are only 50 amp each! The cover to tie them together makes it hard to see this..... its hard to believe but Ive never had any issues with breakers popping other than running a toaster over off the same circuit as a coffee maker once... whats really crazy is my electrical was all inspected and passed fine after I added my hot tub but before I added the 30a line for my brewery... I wonder how many amps my hot tub is really drawing... and I'm glad I went from metal halode lighting in my reef tank to leds shortly after putting in the brewing line.
Its weird because the mains coming in look to be 4 gauge... perhaps its because they are aluminum.
whats really crazy is my electrical was all inspected and passed fine after I added my hot tub but before I added the 30a line for my brewery... I wonder how many amps my hot tub is really drawing...
You are telling us that you have a panel with 50 Amp service that has two loads one of which is bigger than 50 (the hot tub) and the other is equal to 50 (the range). I don't know about how inspectors think but if I saw that I'd have questions. I have to assume that you are not correctly interpreting what you are looking at. Pehaps if you posted a picture.
I run both MHx2 and LEDs (blue) in my tank. I like the ripples on the bottom from the MH. But like you I'll probably go all LED some day.
After looking more closely, My box has a double breaker at the top labeled "light mains" ... The electrician who inspected my hot tub told me it was a 100amp service... So I supposed thats likely the case afterall..
This discussion reminds me of the Douglas Appliance # System.
At this point all I can do is suggest that you try to find a website or book that explains how a panel is laid out. Most of them in the US have a main breaker at the top (though it can be at the bottom) and parallel vertical bus bars. The bus bars off to the sides are for neutral and earth and the ones in the center are for the two phases. The breakers plug into the central buss bars. A single pole breaker contacts only one of the two center bars (and has a single screw for the wire to the 120 V branch circuit). A double pole breaker contacts both the center bus bars and has two screws for the 240 V branch circuit connected to it. There are other ways to do it and you may have an old installation that differs from what I have described but Square D and GE, ofr example are this way.
Until you gain a fundamental understanding of how a house is wired and, in particular, your house, you can only expect to continue to chase your tail in trying to figure out what is going on.
Try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMbDPyYAfXw.
I think I understand your your point (and appreciate your concern ) but to play the devils advocate and be honest, (and pardon my ignorance) but isnt the whole point of being able to put 800 amps worth breakers on a 200 amp surface mean that if I was doing something dangerous the breakers would pop on me as well?
For the reasons given above. If you can't understand those then I think you will just have to understand that there are some things one cannot understand.Why is this important to know, if It doesnt matter anyway since its decided by the breakers ultimately ?
No. The fault energy would be 67% greater in the latter case.(400 amps through a 100 amp service with a defective breaker would start a fire just as 500 amps would right?
They are, as is so often the case with stuff you pick up off the internet, quite incorrect. There are rules for sizing panels and service equipment based on load and, if one hopes to pass inspection, he must adhere to them.others have stated theres no limit to the amount of draw off a service and that the breakers dumb it down for us...
I don't know what you mean by this. Do you mean two 50 amp breakers in series? If you pull 90 amps through a 50 amp breaker long enough for the breaker's trip I^2t to be exceeded it will pop.I think we both know that if I was pulling 90 amps through a pair of 50 amp breaker it would take the moon and stars aligning just right for both to fail and either if not both to pop right?
I just looked at the DTG on your post and perhaps that explains statements like this. It is not OK to overload the panel at all. If you overload it the breakers will trip. The installed branch breaker phase-amps to service phase-amps ratio is typically 2. If you come up with that ratio your service is probably properly sized. If it is greater than that you are probably undersized and if it is less, over (but the prudent designer would probably accept that up to a point thinking about possible future expansion). But that factor is not a requirement or a design factor. It is a rule of thumb. The rules you must adhere to are in the code.While I do apprecviate the info and want to know this myself I also cant help but laugh since its ok to overload the panel with twice whats safe for it but 2.25 times the amount is somehow not ok? dont you find this silly one size fits all approach that doesnt fit whats safe anyway kind of silly?
This illustrates complete misunderstanding of what I have been trying to convey in the last several posts and given the structure of the sentence I again attribute to a late Sat night with several bottles of your best. But to answer this same question again in perhaps another way that may drive it home: It isn't a rule. It's a rule of thumb. An engineering guideline. A rough FOM. The rules are in the code.How would 400 amps of draw on a 100 amp service be realistically any less likely to start a fire than 425 amps on the same 100 amp service? the breakers are either going to work or not work in this scenario.. and if its not about the draw but not intelligently broken down to be about whats running when then how credible of a blind blanket rule is it?
I don't think anyone has suggested that you should take any action other than to try to get to a fundamental understanding of what's involved here. As you cannot adequately describe what is in you panel there is no way we can compute the ROT number and determine whether your service is undersized or not. And if you haven't had the mains breaker pop then you are, demonstrably OK even if the factor is greater than 2.Im not really too concerned about it since If I had a real concern it would have shown its head in the 4+ years ive been drawing this same load off my panel right?
There is a 'responsible correlation' so if you were to consider adding a load (breakers),then you should consult an electrician or someone else who understands the concept to advise you.All this has shown me is the amp service I have has no responsible correlation to the amount of breakers I put in my box...
is, for the moment, dormant as he wouldn't make a statement like ...The intelligent side of me ...
This would imply that these breakers are connected directly to the service prior to the main disconnect. That is, of course, a flagrant code violation and would never have passed inspection so WRT ......the240v breakers I have have no main breakers to shut them off as I see it now
.. you got this important thing wrong.but the whole time I had the important things right.
As I suggested in an earlier post perhaps if you post a picture of it someone here can help you understand what you have. No guarantee of course...I thought and assumed I had a simple panel like the one in your illustration but I dont....
the ever changing standards put in place by the folks who often have something to gain financially by it.
Well I can say for sure there are no other breakers or boxes... The wires run out the wall through the house and right to the meter mounted on the side of the house. perhaps there is a shutoff inside the meter somewhere. Yes I have had the cover off, when I first moved in I added two new 20a circuits for addtional plugs on the second floor as well as to add the hot tub and brewery breaker.From that picture it is clear that the main breaker is in another location such as in the box with or in a box near where the meter is. If you take the cover off this box you will find the two vertical bus bars I've described before and as shown in the video. You will find two lugs at the top of those bars where the feeder connects and wires from those will go off to the main disconnect wherever it is. You will also find two additional lugs, one for the neutral and one for earth. They also go to the enclosure with the main disconnect.
The "Light Main" breaker is a little puzzling but if, as you say, all the lights go off in the house when you flip it I guess it is just what it says it is, the main breaker for the lights. Strange (to me anyway) that they would put all the lights on this single circuit (or pair of circuits actually) but it looks as if that's what they did.
No perhaps about it. There is a disconnecting (and current limiting) means in the meter box (if that is the only other box) and you need to know where it is. It has to be readily accessible to the occupant and should be clearly marked. As the home owner you need to know where it is in case the unthinkable happens. If you can't find it you should have an electrician come in and show you (and your SO) where it is and how to operate it.Well I can say for sure there are no other breakers or boxes... The wires run out the wall through the house and right to the meter mounted on the side of the house. perhaps there is a shutoff inside the meter somewhere.
Then you can confirm what I put in the last post.Yes I have had the cover off, when I first moved in I added two new 20a circuits for addtional plugs on the second floor as well as to add the hot tub and brewery breaker.
Now you've got square d breakers in a Bryant panel. I hope you didn't pay a professional to do that.
you must have added this while I was adding I found the same thing... this kind of sillyness makes UL listing less practical IMO. standards driven by a profit organization which charges a lot for their blessing and competitors who dont want you to shop competitively so not surprisingly wont pay to have others components "blessed" to be used with theirs. These breakers fit the same and latch onto the bars the same way as the older ones in there do.No. They are not listed to be in that panel. Cutier Hammer BR is the proper breaker. BR is an abbreviation for Bryant I've heard. Just thought I'd play the not pick game too
I dont have one but I do have an IR temp gun?Take an IR photo of the panel with the loads on and put your mind to rest.
yeah I already tried one of these apps for my android phone but it ended up being a bogus app that was just a medium for spyware.When I posted the suggestion I was thinking you might want to rent one for a couple of hours but then on a whim and chuckling as I did so I typed in "iphone thermal" and sure enough:
http://www.flir.com/flirone/ios-android/
I don't think an IR thermometer is going to do it because the acceptance cone is too wide for you to be able to tell exactly where the heat is coming from.
yeah I already tried one of these apps for my android phone but it ended up being a bogus app that was just a medium for spyware.
I tried it.. it required the actual flir camera that attaches to the phone.I don't think that's the case here as, to quote from the Wikipedia article on them "FLIR Systems is the world's largest commercial company specializing in the design and production of thermal imaging cameras, components and imaging sensors."
Enter your email address to join: