Residential sauna use

[nizak]

How do you determine when something will be continuous use?

A sauna for instance.
It wouldn’t seem practical to be in it for 3 hours but I would imagine it could be used by people one after another over a period of that time.

 

[ptonsparky]

The heating elements in the sauna will not be on continuously. They will cycle. Unless, of course, someone leaves the door open.

 

[infinity]

It wouldn’t seem practical to be in it for 3 hours but I would imagine it could be used by people one after another over a period of that time.

The definition of a continuous load is that it operates at maximum output for three continuous hours. Since it has a thermostat it will not operate at the maximum output for 3 hours.

 

[retirede]

There is no way a sauna should be considered a continuous load. Mine runs continuously for about 20 minutes to get up to temperature, then cycles a few minutes on, a few minutes off.

 

[kwired]

I agree with others, something like this will cycle load level even though it is "on".

NEC does specify some items to be treated as continuous load even though they rarely may truly be continuous. Electric space heating and storage type water heaters are a couple items I can think of that NEC states to treat as continuous loads.