mkgrady
Senior Member
- Location
- Massachusetts
I need to wire a service at a large home being renovated. Plan calls for a 400 amp service. I get confused by 400 amp services because it seems to be the only one where we call a service by the rating but then we typically refer to it as 320 continuous. When I have installed 400/320s in the past it was because a 200 was too small and a 400/320 was way more than needed but it worked well utilizing two 200 amp main panels coming off of one meter socket.
I'm trying to nail down all the loads in order to do a service size load calculation. Many things are up in the air. They will have a couple of tesla car chargers and maybe a large amount of electric radiant heat, maybe even some snow melt. Nailing all these things down may take a while but in the mean time I want to be ready with the theory. So in order to get a better understanding of things I have some questions as follows:
Is a 100 amp service really an 80 amp continuous?
Is a 200 amp service really a 160 continuous?
Is a 400 amp service really a 320 continuous? Why is it only the 400/320 that seems to point this out on the meter socket spec.?
I'm trying to nail down all the loads in order to do a service size load calculation. Many things are up in the air. They will have a couple of tesla car chargers and maybe a large amount of electric radiant heat, maybe even some snow melt. Nailing all these things down may take a while but in the mean time I want to be ready with the theory. So in order to get a better understanding of things I have some questions as follows:
Is a 100 amp service really an 80 amp continuous?
Is a 200 amp service really a 160 continuous?
Is a 400 amp service really a 320 continuous? Why is it only the 400/320 that seems to point this out on the meter socket spec.?