Stormin Mormon wrote:
With 220 volt feed to the house, it's very possible that if each
"leg" was running the same amperage, you'd have zero amps in the
neutral. So, the neutral is only for the imbalance.

But most of the circuits he is talking about are
unbalanced 120 V feeds to lighting, and small
appliances. Depending on the actual layout they might
wind up bing highly unbalanced. On the average they
will be balanced. But the average is only an average,
you have to design on the assumption that everything
will go the other way. It's called Murphy's Law.

Bill Gill