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How many amps can you run with a 200 amp panel and a bunch of subpanels?
We have a 200 amp panel, a 100 amp subpanel, for the generator, another 100 amp subpanel in the carriage house, and the pool filter control unit also serves as a subpanel and has four additioanl breaker slots (I think it is 50 amps).
Except the carriage house panel, they are all pretty much full, so I think we must be way over 200 amps total.
Is there a limit? Can you just keep adding subpanels and go to 400 amps? Higher?
Ampacity needs to be 125 % of continuous load. This reduces the load a 200 A panel can carry. (NEC Sec. 210)
i think you're confusing insulation with a jacket. i'm not aware any period in which current-carrying conductors were not insulated when used for interior wiring.
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I know the difference between the jacked and the insualtion. With K & T wiring you do not have mulpiple wires in a single jacket. You have individual wires run sperately on inslators attached to studs that are 18" to 24" apart. to the termination. Depnding on the time, somtimes there is a jacket over insualtion, sometimtes not. The jacket is usually cloth. However on really old wiring, the insualtion itself is something woven that looks like cloth, or it may be paper, or nothing.
Yes. I have seen several houses that had just bare uninsulated wire in the attic. It is not a problem as long as you do not touch it. Conceptually, you could get enough dust to short the wire to the wood, but neither dust nor wood are very good conductors (in fact i have seen old wire with paper insulation). However I have never seen a problem caused by the bare wire. the newest house that I have seen with bare wire was built in 1906. The other two were older (1870s I think). No idea when they were wired. As far as I know, they sitll have the bare wire and it is still in use. One house i am certain of it, the others could have been re-wired and I did not notice.
That super old wire does tend to get brittle, especially at the terminations. Thus, if you do anything with it, even move it, you may end up replacing it entirely or cutting back to wire that is still flexible and installing a J box. Of course, a J box is almost silly if you are connecting to a run of bare wire.
With a few excpetions, I have only lived in very old houses. I also frequently help friends or neighbors with historic houses. While I will help them with wiring once they decide what they will do. I will never advise them as to what to do. I am perffectly comfrtable with K & T wiring in a house once I check out the junctions and terminations. Some people are not. To me there are greater hazards in a house. (For example my metal shelves in the garage with several cans of gasoline, kerosene, paint thinner, and other solvents that a flaming chicken ran past one evening (long story)).
That is why I hired a union craftsmen. Then there are those wanna be craftsmen that can't get in the union due to not being qualified enough. They whine the loudest when the topic of a union comes up.
If that is directed toward me, you need to quite trying so hard to be condescending. Maybe re-read my post... slowly so you can understand what I was saying if you have to. Pay close attention the second sentence in my post you quoted. I have worked BOTH as a Union and Non-union Electrician... even as BOTH a Union and Non-union Electrical Contractor. I told the Union to go pound sand when I ran a person off a job site for shoddy workmanship, and they tried to tell me I had to take him back. During the time I worked Union I witnessed Union workers on the job, who were trained from day 1 with the Union, sneak away to smoke pot on the job site, sleep in their vehicles, sleep in the workplace, Play cards all day, refuse to do a portion of the job because another trade was in the area, refuse to work beside a Non-union crew that was there working white-paper. None of them were off the job site for more than 2 days before being allowed to come back. The worst repeat offenders were just shipped to a different union job site with a different union contractor inheriting a ****-poor worker.
I've held an electrical license for close to 30 years, taught Electrical construction and maintenance, as well as Electrical Theory courses at the University level. Sat on panels that reviewed the changes for the NEC, as well as Proofed Electrical Training manuals for accuracy that are used by both Unions and non-union companies for training their workers. I doubt there is a Union anywhere in the Country that wouldn't accept me, my training, and my qualifications as a member... the problem though is that there isn't a Union in the Country I would give the satisfaction. The short time I worked with them I saw too much corruption, too much entitlement, and too much protecting dangerous workers so they keep their jobs.
I will stand firm in my statement that there are SUBURB craftsmen that work both union and non-union as well as crappy workers, with a higher percentage of crappy ones being protected by Unions.
(For example my metal shelves in the garage with several cans of gasoline, kerosene, paint thinner, and other solvents that a flaming chicken ran past one evening (long story)).
Oh come on! You cannot toss that out there and not tell the rest of the story. Flaming chicken... even a DM, I have to hear the rest.
Depnding on the time, somtimes there is a jacket over insualtion, sometimtes not. The jacket is usually cloth. However on really old wiring, the insualtion itself is something woven that looks like cloth, or it may be paper, or nothing.
Yes. I have seen several houses that had just bare uninsulated wire in the attic.
Wow. Ive never seen such. Ive only been in maybe 30-40 houses that had k&t and it was all insulated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens
It is not a problem as long as you do not touch it. Conceptually, you could get enough dust to short the wire to the wood, but neither dust nor wood are very good conductors
Dust is highly combustible. Its probably the thing that worries me the most in old equipment and industrial environments. It'll blow your face off.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens
The other two were older (1870s I think). No idea when they were wired. As far as I know, they sitll have the bare wire and it is still in use. One house i am certain of it, the others could have been re-wired and I did not notice.
Yeh we just don't have any structures down here that were electrified that early. Maybe that's why I've never seen it. The oldest home I did an electrical remodel on was 1897, but I don't believe it had electricity until at least the
40's. The guy I apprenticed under didn't have electricity in his home growing up until 1940-something, which was when the co-op built lines on his road.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens
To me there are greater hazards in a house. (For example my metal shelves in the garage with several cans of gasoline, kerosene, paint thinner, and other solvents that a flaming chicken ran past one evening (long story)).
It is not very exciting and a bit embarrassing, and long.
My daughter keeps chickens for pets.
We knew nothing about keeping cheicks at first and lost lots of them to eagles, hawks, raccoons, foxes, freezing, one even blew away during high winds. Then we got a book and built a chicken coop and a run. As a heat source, the coop had a clamp on light with a 100 watt bulb. The bottom of the coop is covered in straw.
One evening when it was about 10 below zero, my daughter came in and told me that the light woudl not work and the chickens were going to freeze. I took the light apart and discovered that the switch had broken and it was ruined. I could not find another clamp on light. We could not find a hot pad, electric blanket or other source for heat.
Then I spied my 500 watt halogen work light (it might be 1000 watts don't remember). Surely that will keep them warm.
I strapped the work light at the very top of the coop, turned it on and went to bed.
From what we can tell, one of the roosters got up on the handle of the work light and squished himself right agaisnt the glass. Eventually he caught on fire. He jumped down into the straw and set that on fire. In the caos, several other chickens also caught on fire. Somehow, they all got out of the coop (the fire eventually went out without damaging the coop. The flaming rooster and two of the chickens ran out into the woods and were killed by something. The remaining chickens, two of which were on fire, somehow got into the back door of the garage and ran right past the shelf of flammable chemicals.
We were able to peice together what happend by the brun marks, burned feathers and parts of chickens that we found the next day. We know that two of them were on fire when they ran past the shelf of flammable liquids, becasue they left behind burning feathers that left a burn mark on the floor as they continued to burn. They also burned up some sawdust that was on the floor.
We were very very lucky that we did not blow up the carriage house.
In the morning I had to tell my daughter "Honey I am sorry I set your chickens on fire"
That went into my book of things that I thought I woudl never say until I had kids. (Right after "Stop kissing the goat's butt").
Sorry to sidetract form the topic.
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