Obviously the NEC doesn't declare residential lighting loads to be continuous but I think it would indicate neglect on the part of the electrician installing any lighting load over 80% of the circuit's capacity to consider it a non-continuous load, especially since lighting loads are one of the few loads we connect that don't cycle in any way.
My own approach would be to consider the job at hand and not just do something out of habit.
In the OPs case, with everything on one switch and being a basement game room I would likely call it a continuous load.
If you take that tack, where do you stop? Do you install 1800 watts of lighting in various rooms on one 15A circuit and claim that the fact that they're different rooms means that they'll never all be on at the same time?.
Yes, I very well might do that depending on the rooms or the switching.
Consider an office lighting circuit that runs a number of offices, copy rooms, closets etc. With all the energy code required occupancy sensors the circuit would not meet the NEC definition of continuous load.
Continuous Load. A load where the maximum current is
expected to continue for 3 hours or more
It is short but presents a number of requirements.
- Longer than three hours
- Maximum Current
- Expected
I take the maximum current to mean of the circuit, so if parts of the circuits loads are shut off we have less than maximum current.
Expected, well that tells me it's OK if it happens once in a while but is not the normal mode of operation.
Would I rather leave some headroom in the circuit? Of course, but on the other hand if I was in a jam, or trying to add to an existing circuit I would use my knowledge of the code to my advantage.
Ideally my 20 amp lighting circuits are designed at about 10 to 12 amps leaving a bit of room for expansion/changes and possible continuous loading.
BTW, any idea how many 13 watt CFL fixtures you can run on a 277 volt circuit?
A ton, I used two circuits just so one circuit would not put out an entire floors lighting.
