ECN Forum Forums Code Related Discussion NEC & other Code issues load calc's

i'm doing a bid on a custom home with a heated square foot of 3400. gas heat with electric cooking appliances. question is, there are a total of 67 can lights throughout the house, would this be considered extra load and how would it be calculated? thanks for any comments. ken m

Your question is not very clear. Which load are you concerned about? Heat,cool, or electric?

Ken,

These lights are part of the general lighting load.

However, I wired a custom home once & the owner told me that everything would be turned on all night for his house warming party. I made sure that there would be no breaker trips.

If you are not bidding against Joe Lowball, include some extra circuits and extra capacity on the service. If you are bidding against Lowball Electric, you'd best stick to a code minimum job if you want to get this work.

Not knowing all the particulars, looks like this house should fit on a 200 amp service.

Tom

thanks tom, i calculated two different ways. first the general lighting load and figured about 140 amps then calculated by adding the extra load of about 50 of the can lights and figured the load to be about 170 amps. i will have plenty of room in a 40 circuit panel for some extra bkrs. thx again. ken m