Household current requirements

[paulg]

What is the typical current supply to the washer-dryer collectors household?
Me: 200A service. But typically I collect TVs with appliances thrown in. My major drains: electric double oven. Wolf smoothtop and electric dryer.
Now I know you don't run all your dryers and ranges simultaneously. And I can do the math and add up my currents of units that MAY run simultaneously. But what current service are y'all getting away with considering your expansive collections?

 

[sudsmaster]

It depends

It may depend on whether or not you have all-electric or electric/gas appliances/furnace.

200 amp would probably be recommended minimum for an all-electric household. My own home is 100 amp 220 volts. (200 amps @120 volts each hot line). I get by just fine with that amount of service, but my furnace is gas, and I don't run the electric ovens much. Upgrading the home to 200 amps is on the wish list, but I don't know if it will ever be necessary or get done.

How many 220 volt 30 amp electric clothes dryers do you want to run at the same time, anyway?

 

[dalangdon]

I handle a lot of rewires in my district at work, and 200 amp seems to be the thing these days for upgraded service, but here at home we have 125 amp, with electric ovens, hot tub and dryer, and we get along fine. Even when we had an electric cooktop and water heater, there was never an issue.

Ironically enough, the biggest power draw (aside from the hot tub) seems to be the sub-zero, which is the newest of our refrigerators (being from the late 80's, as opposed to the 50's era Coldspot freezer and GE wall-hung refrigerator)

But you can get much larger residential service: 320amps, or 400amps with CT meters. Some of the mega mansions have even bigger services.

I'm running the Ironrite today, and think I'll put the kill-a-watt thingy on it to see how much it draws.

 

[selectomatic]

I don't collect appliances, but I do have an All-Electri

Yes -- including electric baseboard heat. In Wisconsin.

200A service is more than enough for me -- the heat, the water and septic, two complete electric kitchens, two waterbeds, three jukeboxes, much miscellaneous home theater equippment, a couple of Jet-Spray beverage dispensers (refrigerated), a post-mix machine (also refrigerated), electric dryer, lots of lighting, commercial coffeemaker, etc. etc. etc.

I find it hard to believe that almost anyone with non-electric heat and hot water would need much more power than I can use.

-kevin

 

[dj-gabriele]

You may laugh at me but my house runs on 15 amperes at 220V...
the maximum power draw allowed is 3,3KW and 4KW for a maximum of 10 minutes.
That's the situation of 75% of households in Italy!
This means that if the dishwasher or oven is running I can't run the washing machine. Hopefully heating and water aren't electric and so is the stove.
My parents upgraded to a costly 6KW contract to be able to run the air-conditioner along the other appliances.

 

[brisnat81]

Average Australian House

Runs on 63 or 80 amps 230v.

Total of 15KW or 19KW.

Usually if you need more power above that, then you would go three phase and end up with either 3 x 63 or 80amp 230v lines.

On a single 20amp circuit it comfortably pulls 30-40 amps for periods of up to 10 minutes with no damage. Kitchen and Laundry are on 1 circuit, and I can run the Dishwasher (2000w) Kettle (2400w), Toaster (2400w) Fridge (500w) Washing Machine (2400w) Dryer (2400w) all at once on 20 amps. The trick seems to be, that they are all resistive loads and the current cycles on and off. Therefore the Average max load is prob no more than 20 amps.

Our whole house has 3 20amp Power circuts, 2 20amp Lighting circuits, 1 20amp Circuit for Hot water, 1 32amp for cooktop and wall oven.

 

[mielabor]

I have two groups of 16A 230V, so the maximum capacity for an appliance is 16A (3680 Watt). However, the total capacity of both groups is 20A and so I can never use more than 4600 Watt simultaneously. If you want more you can have a 3x25A 400V supply (standard in many new homes).

 

[mielabor]

Oh, I now see that groups are called circuits in English. Sorry.

 

[sudsmaster]

If and when I add solar panels to the roofing, that will likely be the time I upgrade the service to whatever the power company says I need. Most likely the solar panels will help top reduce the need for more amperage of service, but one never knows.

One wrinkle is that this place has a large workshop... which is where I am putting the growing washer/dryer colleciton, paint curing oven, along with machine tools (lathes, mills, drill presses), welders, etc. The full lighting load for the workshop area plus the attached garages/carport is about 4 kilowatts. That's about 33 amps @120 volts. Breaker for workshop is 40 amps @220 volts, so there is about 40 amps 120 volts to spare. Normally, I only turn one 500 watt lighting bank on at a time, though.

 

[toggleswitch]

If I can't run my toothbrush and personal massager simul

Recently had 200a 110/220v service installed (single phase), in my 1946-built cape-cop style house. Heat and hot water are oil-fired. Dryer is gas-heated. Cooking was gas but is now gas and electric. Even if I had to go all-electric because fossil fuels have run out, that should suffice for many decades forward.

My mother's house that was built in 1955 with gas cookng and oil-fired heat and hot water has 50a 110/220v service in each of two apartments. It is a two-family house!

IIRC NYC now requires 40a 110/220v service minimum in new construction in apartments. 2 x 15a general-lighting circuits and a quad [2 x 20a adjacnet duplex outlets] in the kitchen, assuming heat and hot water are provided by the landlord (oil or gas-fired) with gas cooking.

I have lived in many an apartment with 30a 110v service [2 circuits of 15a each]. And just as a reminder to our friends in lands with 220v; at half the voltage (110v) the amperage doubles when pulling the same number of watts.

1200w @ 120v = 10a
1200w @ 240v = 5a

since V * A = W

 

[dalangdon]

"Even if I had to go all-electric because fossil fuels have run out, that should suffice for many decades forward. "

Toggle dear, if fossils run out, how will you get your electricity? I know you have Indian Point nuclear and a little Hydro, but isn't everything else in your neck of the woods coal and natural gas?

The utility I work for owns the dams - except for Grand Coulee, which is Uncle Sam - but even we have some fossil in our portfolio.

Also, can you get anything other than single phase in your neighborhood? We only offer single phase, with the exception of some mega-mansions down by the water.

Rich, what is your utility, and how do they regard solar? We are a municipal utility, so we are pretty progressive about it, but some of the private utilities are very much against residential solar.

 

[toggleswitch]

cape-cod, not cape-cop!

 

[toggleswitch]

~Toggle dear, if fossils run out, how will you get your electricity?

Treat me right and I can make sparks fly!
LOL oh Dan, it was hypothetical!
We can always stick a pipe up every cow's @$$ in Texas (or upstate NY) and use the methane! Or I could always hire an illegal from the groups that hang-out at the "Amigo Depots" throughout the area (looking for day-jobs) to pedal a generator for a few hours.

Maybe one day this country will wise-up and burn garbage to make electricity [with the stack scrubbed of pollutants, of course!] and use the waste steam to desalinate ocean water! (Gets rid of the garbage, generates electricity, purifies water and cuts down on oil imports).

*WHO ME* Yes in my area my lot abutts a commerical/retail strip where 110/208v 3-phase power is available.

Of course at a mere $0.18 per KWH (BEFORE TAXES!) I can get all the power I want......

 

[toggleswitch]

~We are a municipal utility, so we are pretty progressive about it, but some of the private utilities are very much against residential solar.

Well in NY state (as in many other states as well), net metering for electricity is the law.

One sells back to the utliity (AT RETAIL not wholesale rates) "excess" electricity produced via solar cells Of course if you produce more than you use you won't get an inflow of cash from the utlity.

Still I'd be willing to sell electricity wholesale and buy retail if it would help jump-start everone in the country into having a photovoltiac array of cells on their roof.

 

[sudsmaster]

California is fairly progressive in promoting solar electric. There is a substantial state rebate on the costs (about 33% if I'm not mistaken, maybe as high as 50%), plus, the state has a new initiative just approved. I believe there are also tax write-offs, perhaps both federal and state, but haven't looked into that for a while.

The state mandates that any excess electricity must be bought back by the utility at what Toggles calls retail prices. As in NYS, the utility won't pay for more than one uses in a year, but will offset your evening and cloudy day consumption by the amount produced during the sunny days.

My main issue - besides the cost of solar panels - is that the roof on the main house is heavy cedar shingle with a lot of life left in it. I do not want to put solar panels on top of that, so I'm putting off the solar until I re-roof with composite shingles (I want to do that anyway for the fire resistance). I could put in solar on top of the workshop, which has heavy galvanized corrugated steel roofing, but that would introduce additional wiring considerations. Not insurmountable, but just more cost. Speaking of cost, for some reason my city has one of the highest permit fees for solar electic panels in the area - over $1000, while other towns are down to $300 or less. This, I don't quite understand, and it's probably something the citizenry should raise a fuss about. The architecture and property values here are certainly nothing to justify such markedly higher permit fees.

 

[gewa1054wguy]

3 Electric dryers at one time

Hi,

My detached garage has a 200 amp panel with a feed to another 200 amp panel on the house.

My game/wash room is wired with five 220 volt dedicated lines (and at least a dozen 120V outlets). I would never use all five 220 circuits at the same time but have run my 3 GE dryers at the same time on many occasions. Each 220 outlet is on a dedicated 30 amp circuit breaker. The meter spins fast but that is the only indication that so much electricity is being consumed.

BTW, the other 220 outlets service my Flair Range and my air compressor.

Mike

 

[dalangdon]

Something being "the law" doesn't mean the utility will make it easy for you. To wildly paraphrase Birdie from "All About Eve": There's only two things a meter electrician has to do - plug in your meter and misread it. ;-)

There's a program out here where the Bonneville Power Administration (that's the folks who run Grand Coulee, as well as a bunch of other dams on the Columbia) will pay you .50 per kwh generated by your solar equipment for a certain amount of time. The idea is shorten the payback time on installing solar.

Of course, being the government, they only pay you once a year, but that's still pretty tasty, considering we pay about .08 per kwh.

 

[sudsmaster]

$.50 is a sweet price for selling solar electricity back to the utility. From what I've seen on PBS, Germany also pays a premium for home solar generate electricity. This has resulted in a big incentive for solar business there, so that the Germans are at the forefront of solar panel technology. Amazing when you consider the northern latitude of Germany and the limit that places on solar energy in the first place.

Here in California, however, the "price" one gets for generating solar electriciy at home is identical to that charged by the utility. Funny how it works out that way. The state website does mention Solar Energy Credits (SEC), that one "gets" in recognition of one's generation. At present these are worthless, but might at some point have value such as for carbon offsets etc.

 

[vivalalavatrice]

220V

Here often houses has got 3,3Kw of power provided and two circuits (with different section of wirining line) of 10 an 16 A...

I personally have got a 4,5 (5max) Kw of power (dad said 6 was too), and have two circuits: the standard 10A and the second is 25A because we explicitly asked for the electricity to run at same time the oven and the DW, but this provide me to run i.e. 2 washing machine contemporanealy when in the weekend there's alot of laundry to do

 

[tolivac]

My current ranch home has 150A 120-220V,other homes I have lived in had 200A120-220V.The place I am in now used to have oil heat.The oil heat is gone and now it has a heat pump.

 

[rolls_rapide]

We have, according to the circuit breaker ratings:
2 lighting circuits, rated at 6A each;
2 ring circuits for the sockets, rated at 32A each circuit;
cooker circuit 32A;
hall, kitchen, lounge storage heaters, each on separate 16A circuit;
2 bedroom convector panel heaters on one 32A circuit;
lounge storage heater 'on demand convector' and electric fire, 32A;
'off peak' water heater, 16A;
'on demand' water heater booster, 16A;
bathroom shower 32A.

 

[MrX]

Here's ours:

Socket outlets:
10 X 20A radials (RCD Protected)

Lights:
5 X 10A Radials

Water Heater:
20A Radial (RCD protected)

Cooking:
32A (Oven)
32A (Hob/Cooktop)

Miscellaneous:
Bathroom fans and lights : 10A (RCD protected)

Central Heating (Pumps, controls, boiler etc)
16A Radial (RCD protected)

Shower Pressure booster Pump:
10A (RCD protected)

Main breaker (Max total allowed to flow) 100A

(Irish panels always have a main fuse or main breaker on the panel)

There is also a sealed power company owned main fuse just before the meter and a sealed isolator switch just after the meter which the power company can use to isolate the entire installation e.g. before installation / when you move out etc..

RCD = Residual Current Device (same as a GFCI in the US)
RCDs have been obligatory here on all socket outlet, water heater and similar circuits since the late 1970s. They're installed on the panel rather than on each individual outlet, and protect groups of circuits.

Also, bare in mind that air conditioning is totally unnecessary in a residential environment in Ireland or the UK, so it would be highly unusual to have the kinds of loadings that you would get in the US in summer.

Also, electric heating's relatively rare. The vast majority of homes in Ireland are heated by gas-fired hydronic (water circulated through radiators) systems. Others use pressure jet oil-fired systems burning heating oil, which is quite similar to "red diesel". Heavier fuel oils are illegal to burn here for such purposes.

 

[toggleswitch]

*WOW* sounds like Italy is extremely serious about limiting simultaneous /contemporaneous demand.

NYC does that with BUSINESSES (never residences, so far) by penalizing financially (through insanely high rates)commercial users for their highest 15 or 20 minute continuous wattage draw.

Along the same lines....
A neighbor moved to Cyprus and said that with her newly built house the electrician was trying to save her money and under-installed amperge. Due to air-condtioning (the first in her area in a residnece) she need greater incoming serivce ameperage to handle it. The new service was ripped out and re-done. What I got out of the conversation was that it appeared that her monthly usage charge would be greater just for the "priviledge" of higher incoming amperage. Perhaps someone can clarify!

 

[dj-gabriele]

Oh, that's about the same here in Italy. If you want to get a higher amperage you have yo change the tariff from D2 (residential uses) to D3 (other uses and high power) and the fixed fee just flies to around 30 euro per billing cycle... it's convenient only if you use more than 4000/4500KWh in a year.
With the base tariff you pay in various steps according to the power use, with D3 tariff you pay a fixed price (a little more than the averange of the other pricing steps). With both of these tariffs the price is always around 0,23 € per KWh and there's a planned rise in price for this november...

 

[DADoES]

Main panel outside.

 

[DADoES]

The garage dryer circuit was a spare for adding a pool, which I'll never do that. It ran to a box on back of the garage. We added a subpanel back there with a 30A 220v circuit to run a dryer, with room to add another 15A or 20A 110v.

 

[DADoES]

Subpanel inside house.

 

[DADoES]

"Big" circuits inside.

 

[DADoES]

Tankless subpanel. I'm not understanding why there are eight 40A breakers (320A) when the tankless is rated at 120A. I've not looked inside the panel, maybe they're not all used.

 

[toggleswitch]

Clear as mud, is it?

It appears that the two 60a 220v circuits are broken into 4 x 40a 220v feeds into the heater itself.

There may be 40a breakers and 40a wire to protect what is actually 4 x 30a heating elements. (120a). Therefore there would be 2 x 30a heating elements per primary line (60a).

Normally the load permissible is 80% max of the circuit's rating. In terms of the overall 60a breakers I'm guessing it very rarely (if ever) draws 60a per circuit.

I'm also guessing your tankless/instantaneous electric hot water heater runs @ stage-1 (30a) and stage-2 (2x 30a) a lot more than stage-3 (3 x 30a) and stage-4 (4 x 30a).

If you'd e'mail to me a link (or post it here) to the owner's manual and the intallation manual, I will research and reply.

Great to see you posting again, Glenn!

Based on your panels:
a) You have a large house.
b) Texas is indeed hot. Biggest circuit I had ever seen (till yours) for A/C is 40a in a residence.