LRRP_C_CO_67-69
Member
- Location
- Florida
- Occupation
- Retired
I don't want to waste anyone's time here but did want to have a pro glance at my intentions prior to installation of a new panel in the next day or so purely for ease of mind. We have a 1000 sf ranch home in the country that we bought on auction and have been renovating it. It's electrical service was 100 amp with the old silver 2-wire 12/2 Ettco-flex throughout that had a thin ground strand running through it, heavier gauge for main appliances. I updated all of the wiring, outlets and switches and I am preparing to install a new 200 amp panel that becomes a sub panel to an established main disconnect at the 200a meter box at the garage. I used 4-wire MHF in buried 2" schedule 80 from disconnect to main house panel. I replaced all breakers, added GFCIs where required but opted to forego the AFCI breakers. The county has no building department or inspections and after reading a good deal about it just can't make the leap. The expense alone borders on insanity, but the required location list seems to include the entire residence.
As for "balancing the panel" I reasoned whether correctly or not that all of the 2-poles were balanced automatically because they used both legs so I ignored them. When I looked at my 20 and 15 singles, it seemed almost pointless other than simply splitting them evenly on the legs because the use of these loads is all so dynamic rather than static that trying to reach some magic number wasn't very realistic at all. I did collect and examine all of my actual load information from all appliances, WH and HVAC but again, the heavy loads and their 2-poles are balanced on the legs anyway. I tried two or three times to bring the calculations to an even point but it just didn't seem to make any sense for a simple residential panel. I would think that at any given point in time that at least some current is flowing back to the service through the neutral that almost couldn't be avoided in my very novice opinion. I'm resolved at this point to just put all of my 2-poles in place at the top and alternate my 20s and 15s below them and be done with it. There are likely a lot of factors that I may be ignoring or don't understand but I also don't want to get stalled by overthinking the matter either.
Anyone in the biz here see any reason to approach this differently? Is balancing a residential panel like mine really something commonly performed? I want my work to be correct as possible but this balanced panel issue and the AFCI debacle aren't working for me so I wanted a few pros to chime in about my decision to forego them and get my project completed.
thanks for any help, recommendations and sage advice.
As for "balancing the panel" I reasoned whether correctly or not that all of the 2-poles were balanced automatically because they used both legs so I ignored them. When I looked at my 20 and 15 singles, it seemed almost pointless other than simply splitting them evenly on the legs because the use of these loads is all so dynamic rather than static that trying to reach some magic number wasn't very realistic at all. I did collect and examine all of my actual load information from all appliances, WH and HVAC but again, the heavy loads and their 2-poles are balanced on the legs anyway. I tried two or three times to bring the calculations to an even point but it just didn't seem to make any sense for a simple residential panel. I would think that at any given point in time that at least some current is flowing back to the service through the neutral that almost couldn't be avoided in my very novice opinion. I'm resolved at this point to just put all of my 2-poles in place at the top and alternate my 20s and 15s below them and be done with it. There are likely a lot of factors that I may be ignoring or don't understand but I also don't want to get stalled by overthinking the matter either.
Anyone in the biz here see any reason to approach this differently? Is balancing a residential panel like mine really something commonly performed? I want my work to be correct as possible but this balanced panel issue and the AFCI debacle aren't working for me so I wanted a few pros to chime in about my decision to forego them and get my project completed.
thanks for any help, recommendations and sage advice.
