DIYbanter - View Single Post - Load capacity of 200-amp panel

Bud--

wrote:

Yes. You have a 3 wire service cable coming into the house. Use
Kirchoff's law and add up the current coming into the house at any
point in time under any conditions through that cable any you have a
max of 200 amps. Add up all the current leaving the house at the
same point in time and you have a max of 200 amps. In my world,
that's a 200 amp service. You don't measure 300, or 400 by counting
electrons twice.

And also, to support a max of 400 amps of 120volt load in the house
which is the hot topic, you have to have the special case where the
loads are perfectly balanced so that 200 amps is on each side.

To get the max of 200A of 240V load you have to have the special case
where the loads add up to 200A. The discussion is about the special
cases of a fully loaded service.

And
then you in fact have a SINGLE circuit with 200 amps flowing in on one
hot leg, throught the loads in series, and back out the other hot
leg. Nothing flows in the neutral. Again, in my world, that's 200
amps flowing in the service, not 400.

What did the OP want to know?
IMHO, the OP was asking how many amps of 120V load you can hang on a
200A 240V service. The correct answer is 400.

--
bud--