Re: Service Calculations
You are looking for a word that does not appear anywhere in the NEC. I did a word search for ?diversified,? and found no occurrences. I then looked for ?diversity.? I found 6 occurrences, but none were in the context of your question. You are caught in the middle of a miscommunication that happens whenever conversational terms are mixed with precise code language.
I think that the engineer should have said that all applicable ?demand factors? were taken into account, and should have described the 691 amps as the ?calculated service load.? If the calculation was performed correctly (i.e., per section 220), then the answer might well be acceptable. I might have recommended a larger main (and upsizing the boxes and wires accordingly), just to allow some room for load growth. But that would be a design choice, not a code issue.
Having said that, now let me add that the following statement is utter nonsense, and leads me to question the engineer?s understanding of the calculation process:
. . . he insists that the size is correct because the load is not considered a continuous load.
At any residential facility, some of the loads are going to be considered ?continuous.? The 125% factor will show up in one or more places in the calculation process. It is true that you don?t take the final answer, and then decide to multiply the 691 amps by 125%, depending on whether the overall load is continuous. But that is so obvious that I can?t believe that that was the engineer?s intended meaning.