George,
Are these appliances fixed in place? I take it not, which I’m sure is the source of the confusion.
I’m a little frustrated too with trying to figure the BEST way to do these calc.’s verses the minimum by code. And yes, the code will dictate what is minimum and you could easily say “It wouldn’t hurt to just bump up to the next” – which I agree with. Or “It’s not worth splitting hairs” – which I also agree with.
But what if another group of people had spent a lot of time looking at data, graphing and wearing out their slide rule and came to the conclusion that the NEC leaned more toward requiring more capacity than they think vs. not requiring enough. (Again, look at POCO) Wouldn’t that have some effect on how we interpret the gray areas. There is a lot of room for interpretation and I would like to know which side I should favor. For liability reasons you could always argue “just sell them more. The owner gets the ego boost and it will never come back to me as a problem in the future.” Which in most cases would be the best way go.
But what if for competitive reasons, or maybe just sensible reasons I want to confidently jam my calcs right up to that line, why not?
Does anyone have a source besides the NEC that could offer some insight into the best way to figure these residential load calcs.? Maybe some sort of engineering approach? Or UL? Or AIC or another code authority?
Not just crunching the numbers (thanks Sparkly for the links in a different post) but how to treat different spaces and different loads. How to define different spaces. Different ways to figure demand?
What about garages? As far as I can tell, if I have a four car garage with (8) fluorescents, (4) door openers, (6) coach lights, and 600 watts worth of flood lighting, I don’t have to figure anything for it according to NEC.
What about detached garages?
Sorry George, not trying to take over your thread here.
