Question panneau electrique
- Thread starter Dibbs
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SL!nky.Ako
Well-known member
@cUr@-TL
Legacy Member
Oui.
Surtout si on considere que la tendance future devrait etre à la reduction de consommation.
250Rocket
Well-known member
I am currently designing/spec'ing my future house and here is my plan for it.
Two panels: a 200A and a 100A. The 200A panel for the inside of the house and the 100A for the garage and outside
All major high energy appliances/systems on their own circuit. Heat pump, furnace, induction stove top, oven, Washer/Dryer, Hot water tank... etc.
One 20A circuit for the 3 upstairs bedrooms (including the lights), One 20A for the living room and main floor lighting, one 30 or even 40A for the kitchen including the dishwasher and fridge and one 30A for the 2 and a half bathrooms. There might be some miscellaneous.
The 100A for the garage and outside is going to be placed inside the garage and it'll be ready for a future car charger. Note Tesla chargers can get up to 80A
The best thing you can do for yourself is try to imagine your biggest load, what's the most you will be doing at the same time? For my wife and I, being the eldest son and daughters of our families, it's likely we're going to get host duty for the holidays when our parents no longer want to host. A really cold Christmas (electric furnace), prepping dinner with the oven and stove top going, maybe a load of dishes, and perhaps even the standing mixer kicking on and off, the last thing I want is a breaker to trip. Despite all those things in parallel I don't think I'd get to up to 150A let alone 200A.
Two panels: a 200A and a 100A. The 200A panel for the inside of the house and the 100A for the garage and outside
All major high energy appliances/systems on their own circuit. Heat pump, furnace, induction stove top, oven, Washer/Dryer, Hot water tank... etc.
One 20A circuit for the 3 upstairs bedrooms (including the lights), One 20A for the living room and main floor lighting, one 30 or even 40A for the kitchen including the dishwasher and fridge and one 30A for the 2 and a half bathrooms. There might be some miscellaneous.
The 100A for the garage and outside is going to be placed inside the garage and it'll be ready for a future car charger. Note Tesla chargers can get up to 80A
The best thing you can do for yourself is try to imagine your biggest load, what's the most you will be doing at the same time? For my wife and I, being the eldest son and daughters of our families, it's likely we're going to get host duty for the holidays when our parents no longer want to host. A really cold Christmas (electric furnace), prepping dinner with the oven and stove top going, maybe a load of dishes, and perhaps even the standing mixer kicking on and off, the last thing I want is a breaker to trip. Despite all those things in parallel I don't think I'd get to up to 150A let alone 200A.
@cUr@-TL
Legacy Member
I am guessing you are not familiar with residential electricals, because that’s not really how it’s done. There are laws regarding electrical circuits anyway, as to the max number of outlets/lights per circuit, what requires its own circuit, etc. You don’t start putting random breakers and heavier gauge wiring just for kicks. ;-)
A sub-panel for the garage/outside is a good idea, though.
250Rocket
Well-known member
I am not familiar with the laws yet (that'll be later in the project) and I know I will have to concede some things I want to the stupidities of the building code, but I want to avoid as much as possible paying some schmuck to drill hundreds of holes in the structure so they can run some ridiculous number of separate wires to the same room when one or two heavier gauge wires would get the job done.
Same thing with plumbing. I'm finalizing a floorplan with all the bathrooms and laundry room sharing the same wall (different floors). I don't want pipes crisscrossing the whole place and having to spend a fortune on a plumber. Chances are these morons also have something in the code to insure their job security.
puma
Legacy Member
the problem isn't to put a big enough wire and breaker so that it won't trip, the problem is if you have a lamp or any other device that is made to work on 15 amp, it will burn the house if it gets short and you have a 40 amp breaker on it. Breaker won't trip but the device or the plug itself will burn. Imagine a short that only trips at 40amp, that is a lot of heat generated!
if it was that simple there would be a 100 amp breaker and wire running the whole house! That would be very unsafe tough!
if it was that simple there would be a 100 amp breaker and wire running the whole house! That would be very unsafe tough!
wrxt
Well-known member
Lol
carotman
Legacy Member
Personnellement, j'aime mieux alimenter le panneau principal avec une génératrice.
-Phil-
Active member
Tu mets un panneau generatrice a place.
AsunaMAXXX
Legacy Member
250Rocket
Well-known member
I have to disagree. Firstly the reason we don't have a single massive breaker even if it was theoretically possible is the inconvenience. You don't want your whole house turning off if something jumps or if you need to do some electrical work. You need to balance it somewhere between a single breaker and every outlet/light/appliance having its own breaker.
I'm pretty sure you understand that a device will only pull the current it's designed to. A good example of this is phone chargers, even the high power ones pull less than 5A. Up until the outlet the circuit can handle 15A but the brick (transformer) and the cable will be rated at 5A or less. If you then find a device that uses the same connection but it pulls 6A, if you plug it in it won't immediately fry. What will happen is that from the outlet to the phone, the charger and cable will start heating up and they will eventually catch fire (weakest link).
This happens frequently with outdoor tools on extension cords. I won't get into the details but essentially a similar thing happens and it's the extension cable that catches fire, not the wires in the wall. Take the same conditions and put it to the dead of winter (-30C) and there probably won't even be a problem because the wire can't get hot enough.
Now for the 15A device on 40A circuit. In a short circuit case the resistance would drop to zero(or near) and the amperage would rise much past 40A. The breaker would kill it fast enough that the 15A rated equipment wouldn't have time to heat up and catch fire. You would have to get a scenario so perfect that something messes up just enough to pull <40A and then not notice long enough it had time to catch fire.
1) A person probably has more chance at winning the lottery than that happening and 2) That person should freak out every time they plug in a phone to charge because it's essentially the same thing.
@cUr@-TL
Legacy Member
If the wiring is sized according to the breakers you are right.
Now how are you gonna connect your outlets, switches and lights on heavy gauge wires when they are made to accept 14 or 12awg wiring ?
By law, the kitchen requires various separate circuits: microwave, fridge, dishwasher, island, etc.
Outlets numbers, spacing, heights, etc. are also defined by law. As are many other things.
I guess you ‘ll figure it out all once it’s time and most likely end up following the schmuks’ advice and experience...
My advice is learn about the different laws and requirements if you are serious about properly planning your project. It will keep you from wasting time planning stuff that can’t legally be done or that makes no sense.
Now how are you gonna connect your outlets, switches and lights on heavy gauge wires when they are made to accept 14 or 12awg wiring ?
By law, the kitchen requires various separate circuits: microwave, fridge, dishwasher, island, etc.
Outlets numbers, spacing, heights, etc. are also defined by law. As are many other things.
I guess you ‘ll figure it out all once it’s time and most likely end up following the schmuks’ advice and experience...
My advice is learn about the different laws and requirements if you are serious about properly planning your project. It will keep you from wasting time planning stuff that can’t legally be done or that makes no sense.
Last edited:
250Rocket
Well-known member
If the wiring is sized according to the breakers you are right.
Now how are you gonna connect your outlets, switches and lights on heavy gauge wires when they are made to accept 14 or 12awg wiring ?
By law, the kitchen requires various separate circuits: microwave, fridge, dishwasher, island, etc.
Outlets numbers, spacing, heights, etc. are also defined by law. As are many other things.
I guess you ‘ll figure it out all once it’s time and most likely end up following the schmuks’ advice and experience...
My advice is learn about the different laws and requirements if you are serious about properly planning your project. It will keep you from wasting time planning stuff that can’t legally be done or that makes no sense.
I'm only at the general layouts, the detailed work is a long ways away and I do intend to consult with somebody who knows the codes to come up with the final plan so that it's done and passes inspection. I only quickly thought a little more about what I'd want electrically because of this thread.
I repeat i am by no means am I proficient in the practical installation (see my first post) and I'm sure the code has many sections/clauses that make a lot of sense but there are other things that are nonsensical. Like for example from what I understand you can have max 12 terminals on any given circuit. So in a big bedroom if I want to have some flexibility to rearrange the bed/furniture and I put 4 outlets per wall (8 - two socket terminals total) and I want to have 4 built in lights (corners of the room) with a ceiling fan in the middle I'm going to have to run two circuits just to that bedroom? Even though there's more than 12, it's unlikely you'd exceed 15A as a bedroom. And for the kitchen, based on what you said, with appliances sipping power these days there no reason the fridge and the dishwasher can share a circuit theoretically but code is the code hence my disdain.
